Desert Hawking with A Little Help?

[Mars]

I know that this is a hard to find book but why is it such a good book? What is it about?

[frootdog]

I believe a lot of it is about training and flying the coopers hawk at quail. In the most recent edition McElroy had several other people write about different topic. Perhaps the weasel could enlighten us further, since he has it and my copy has not yet arrived.

[Weasel]

Well, Frootdog has it right. If you plan on flying the coopers hawk, then that is a great book to have. I have talked with harry on several occations about the coops too. It is a technical book that goes into detail about different methods and ages of coopers hawks. I have still not yet finished reading it myself as it is quite a large book.

[Weasel]

Wow!!! A copy of this just went for over $500 on e-bay!

[Joby]

Yeeehaw!!! I just picked up a signed copy of the most recent edition of this book from a guy who posted on another equipment posting site. Weasel you're right it is an awefully big book.
-Joe

[Weasel]

Sweet, Congrats! Your one of the lucky ones! That book has become awful hard to find!

[vird]

The book covers many species of falcons also, red tail, jkesrel, harris, aplomado, prairie, etc etc...each species/chapter is written by a different author who specializes in that subject (also hoods, etc). The coopers section is written by Harry, but I would very much recommend the book before, titled simlpy "Desert Hawking II" (he has written 3 books) now that IS a difficult book to get, and in my opinion, even better than the latter, as it only deals IN DEPHTH with the coopers and harris psychology (Harry is himself a retired psychologyst).
MUCH of McDermott´s observations are based on what H. McElroy wrote decades before, and many of us would be better off following Harry´s recipe, a bit simpler and just a bit less demanding and although mDermott´s method is better polished, I´ve had better results with the former.
Harry is now working on a book about aplomados.
Regards from Mexico

[colohen]

vird said:

MUCH of McDermott´s observations are based on what H. McElroy wrote decades before, and many of us would be better off following Harry´s recipe, a bit simpler and just a bit less demanding

You left out the fact that Micheal's OBSERVATIONS are based on hands on experience , hard work and around the clock studies, primarily accipiters . To include a detailed study of the COOPERS .

Cooper's , like most accipiters' , are a demanding bird and there is nothing simple about a coopers .
You don't get the recipe right on a passage , you end up with a dead bird ! You make the wrong mistakes with a imprint , well , I don't even want to go there ! !
It would not hurt to read both books but if you plain to fly a coopers you really should read Michael's second book , even Michael said the first one was over rated

Problem is finding the books !
Desert Hawking , Good luck .
McDermott , send me a PM or e-mail and we can probably have you one next week ! ;D

K]n