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Post by ritchiera on Apr 10, 2005 23:19:52 GMT -5
Well, Whil I'm waiting for my test to be graded by the State of Utah, I'm trying my hand at braiding up some equipment for myself. I'm probably going to start out with a Kestrel this year as I have been pondering both the Kestrel and the RT. I have met a couple other apprentices that are going with Kestrels this year and we think we may do some Hunting (sparrow/starling hunting that is) together.
I'm wondering how small to go with a leash and such. My Sponsor has shown me the size to go on Ankle gear, but his leash and jesses are larger as he is flying a Gyr-Saker and a Prarie Falcon. Anyone have any pictures of thier leash/swivel/jesses for a kestrel? I'd be interested in seeing what you all have set up.
How long should I braid my leash? What's a good length for jesses?
I have been experimenting with 80# test Dacron Trolling line, braided with 4 or 8 strands and have found these to be nice and small/light. I'll try to get a pic or 2 posted and let you all judge and possibly give some ideas.
Let's see what you all use.
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Post by frootdog on Apr 11, 2005 4:47:26 GMT -5
Get Matt Mullinex's book American Kestrels in Modern Falconry. It has all the kestrel info you need including patterns for jesses and anklets.
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Yarak
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Whosoever would be a man must be a nonconformist
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Post by Yarak on Apr 11, 2005 7:46:31 GMT -5
Minca kept one for a while. She might have some equipment info for you. I like your plan of catching sparrows. I would be suprised if you caught any wild game your first season with a Kestrel. Get a Red-Tail!
Yarak
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Minca
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Post by Minca on Apr 11, 2005 11:00:57 GMT -5
Sparrows ARE wild!!!
One of the first things I did was buy some braided 1/16 chord to play with (this was before I got the bird). It's about the right thickness for a kestrel. Took one end in my left hand like i was holding a bird and practiced the falconers knot on a drawer handle. Not only is it good practice but it gives you a good idea of how long you will need the leash to be to be able to tie the knot and still allow the kestrel at least ten inches of leash slack. If I had a digi camera I'd take of picture of this chord leash I made, it's a bit crude but worked just fine. But i mostly used the dacron one my sponsor made for me which was quite a bit thinner and much easier to work with. I tried using leases that were a set length with a clip at the end but liked using the falconers knot better.
Since you do have a while anyway, I might be able to get some pics up of mine within like the next month give or take.
As for jesses, I've heard alot of people complain about kestrels stradling block perches when they bate. The jesses I made of leather were about 5-6 inches and a bit less than the width of a pencil, and I wanna say the dacron ones were about 4 inches long.(it's all packed right now...) Kestrels are really good at twisting up their jesses when they bate, and alot of people don't use grommets or eyelets on the anklets and these two things are the reason many kestrel hawkers use the Y swivel set up. My sponsor and I agreed that the least hardware on a kestrel the better. I used 3/16 eyelets from the scrapbooking section of the craft store and a single ballbearing swivel and clip from the fishing section of the local hardware store. I didn't use the Sampo coastlocks since their a b#tch to work with one hand. The dacron jesses were really good about turning in the eyelets to prevent twisting but would slip right out when I took the leash off to free fly her, so you'd have to figure out a way to make up for that. There's a yahoo group Kestrelfans that has lots of pictures of equipment in their photo's file. Matt Mullenix checks in there quite often. Now would be a great time to stake out places to hawk your kestrel, and build yourself a sparrow/starling trap.
Ok, I've rambled on enough about this.
Let us know if you have anymore questions.
Minca
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Post by Weasel on Apr 11, 2005 12:15:20 GMT -5
.................Yea!....What she said.....  |
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Post by ritchiera on Apr 11, 2005 12:19:50 GMT -5
Minca kept one for a while. She might have some equipment info for you. I like your plan of catching sparrows. I would be suprised if you caught any wild game your first season with a Kestrel. Get a Red-Tail! Yarak I realize that to a RT hawker, a Kestrel would only be a lowly bug eater in comparison. However, I get a choice and as an apprentice the bird I choose is going to align my learning. In a sense, I'm the student here and the bird will be teaching me falconry. My sponsor gets to referee. In the long run I'll learn more about a falcon from a kestrel that a RT (due to the species difference)and that has been the focus of my chice to go with a Kestrel. However, I'm not saying one is better than the other. But to open up a can of worms here. Why shouldn't I go with a kestrel my first year? (By the way, Minca is right. Sparrows are wild. and a RT eat's mice just like a Kestrel. A buddy of mine stated that (his) the RT is basically the bovine of the hawking world (slow in comparrison to other birds) Bob |
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Ooby
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Post by Ooby on Apr 11, 2005 12:41:33 GMT -5
Well ill be the first here i guess hehe.
You are wrong in your statement. Yes Kestels are falcons, but thier training and flight style is more in line with accipiters than the larger falcons.
Unless you plan on teaching your kestrel to wait on at like 100 feet and stoop starlings, you won't be training it in the manner the larger falcons are trained. Larger falcons are trained to wait on at very high pitches. Some kestrel flyers will have thier bird wait on at 20-30 feet or so, but they do not need a very high pitch to be successfull on starlings. Hell, they don't need any pitch at all. Many people hunt them right off the glove and do great.
Now, the reason you shouldn't get one is they are delicate. Also since they are smaller and the prey is smaller, laws of physics allow them to carry easier than larger red tails. There are many other smaller things that make kestrels a better 2nd year apprentice bird than 1st year appentice bird. Especially if your sponsor has never flown one. And large raptors don't count when it comes to flying kestrels. They are a unique type of bird.
Its ultimately up to you and your sponsor, and you should do what he says, but i would say learning the ropes with a red tail will make flying a kestrel much easier, and more enjoyable.
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Post by Weasel on Apr 11, 2005 12:50:14 GMT -5
Ding, ding, ding!!! Let the games begin!!!!!(crowd):YEAAAAAA!!!!!!
While your friend is correct in the sence that they are relativly slow, they more than make up for it by being so tenatious after quarry and being so versitile in quarry selestion. With an RT I can take dozens of types of quarry, but with a K-bird, your limited to 2-3 species of quarry at best.
Anyone ever explained how hard it is to keep a Kestrel at the proper weight without killing it? An RT can have a easy three ounce window between hunting weight and being too low, where as a K-bird can be alive or dead within a 4 gram window. I am not saying that you should not do the Kes, but be prepared for a bird that is alot more time consuming than an RT....and what's all this with the longwinging stuff?......DIRT HAWKERS RULE!!!!!! YEEEEEHAWWWWW!
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Post by ritchiera on Apr 11, 2005 13:15:26 GMT -5
Ding, ding, ding!!! Let the games begin!!!!!(crowd):YEAAAAAA!!!!!! While your friend is correct in the sence that they are relativly slow, they more than make up for it by being so tenatious after quarry and being so versitile in quarry selestion. With an RT I can take dozens of types of quarry, but with a K-bird, your limited to 2-3 species of quarry at best. Anyone ever explained how hard it is to keep a Kestrel at the proper weight without killing it? An RT can have a easy three ounce window between hunting weight and being too low, where as a K-bird can be alive or dead within a 4 gram window. I am not saying that you should not do the Kes, but be prepared for a bird that is alot more time consuming than an RT....and what's all this with the longwinging stuff?......DIRT HAWKERS RULE!!!!!! YEEEEEHAWWWWW! Thanks, Let's let each other know how we really feel here! Remember I'm a newb here. But I figured I'd get IMMEDIATE RESPONSE by hanging out the bovine comment. I hope not to offend anyone, but get a good conversation going. Thanks for your input! Bob |
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Minca
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Post by Minca on Apr 11, 2005 13:26:59 GMT -5
See, I go back and forth on this subject alot. Redtails do seem alot more forgiving about weight management and training and what concerns me about moving from a redtail to a kestrel is that the same approach might be taken with the kestrel that was taken with the redtail. Since I started with a kestrel i know I'm gonna be thinking in grams probably for the rest of my falconry career and end up being a little too uptight about my future redtails weight management! lol!
Kestrels tame quite a bit easier, mine would land on my shoulder or head all the time, i could feed her from my fingertips. These are alot of things I will have to get out of the habit of for a redtail.
Kestrels CAN be similar to other falcons in certain ways. Flight style is probably closer to a Prairie than any other I would venture to say. Some training and personality is similar. They seem to have a little bit of everything in them. High strung like an accipiter, will perch hunt and follow on from tree to tree like a buteo, and bolts after little birds like a mini gyr.
Part of the reason I went with a kestrel is because, to be honest, bunny hawking kinda bored me, and we don't have any good squirrel hawking around here, so little bird hawking looked most exciting.
If you know what you're doing and have a very good sponsor, you can get a kestrel hawking wild game (as opposed to baggies) in about the same amount of time it takes to get a RT hawking. Mine wasn't a case like that. I had a very lax sponsor that had only trained kestrels, never hunted them, and tried giving me advise based on larger falcon training, which didn't work.(he is currently tryint to get his merlin to wait on with baloon training!) So, I had a kestrel that carried really bad, and i spent the whole time with her using baggies in different ways to break the carrying which never worked. She never got a real slip the whole time I had her because I knew she would carry it off.
Another apprentice in my state is on her third kestrel. Her first one was a male that trained up fine but she lost him at check on some starlings that she didn't know were in the feild. The second one died, her weight got too low and she never recovered. This current one had been bagged on captive bred flighted cotounix(sp?) quail and last I knew refused to fly on wild game, would only slam the quail!
My impression is that even if you have the delicacies of the kestrel figured out you're gonna have a hard time getting a regular head count like you would with a redtail. You're in for a frustrating year if you start with a kestrel. Matt's book is full of examples of birdy slamming kestrels, but to be honest, I have yet to talk to a kestrel hawker that has had nearly as smooth a season with a kestrel as I have with redtail hawkers. And I've talked with quite a few who have hawked kestrels.
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Post by LeeSlikkers on Apr 11, 2005 13:45:48 GMT -5
Minca,
I think that was one of the most honest and helpful posts I’ve run across concerning whether or not a person should start with a Kestrel. To be honest the thought intrigued me a bit last year and I almost tried one but in the end common sense (and a smart and heavy handed Sponsor) won out. You brought up so many good points and you added your own experiences…I think you nailed this one and I personally would like to see more of these type of posts from folks who have started out with the Kestrels…at least the honesty part.
Killer stuff....
Lee
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Minca
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Post by Minca on Apr 11, 2005 14:25:43 GMT -5
Thankyou Lee, that means alot from you.
Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not giving up on kestrels. I do plan on trying them again in the future. I see them as a challenge to be taken on. They're more than just a training toy, they can be a serious gamehawk. But, I think for the applications of apprenticeship, then it depends on why you're interested in falconry. If you just like to hunt and want to kill things with a bird of prey, get a redtail. But if you like the idea of getting to work with birds of prey and you see the privelege of hunting with them as an exciting experience, you might consider a kestrel.
jmho
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Yarak
Junior Member
Whosoever would be a man must be a nonconformist
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Post by Yarak on Apr 11, 2005 20:28:42 GMT -5
A BOVINE??? ....a bovine...I got your bovine right HERE  . Slow, ok compared to most other raptors they are slow. They can however move themselves fast enough to catch a Jack rabbit running full out. Now do not misunderstand, I do not think a Kestrel is a lowly bug eater. They have their place in our sport that is for certain. They are harder to train and easier to kill. You enjoy the time spent training, that will be educational. While you are doing that I will flying my slow RT and killing weeks before you will slip your Kestrel on sparrows. Noel got his RT killing wild quarry just 4 weeks off the trap, try that with a Kestrel. Yarak |
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Post by ritchiera on Apr 12, 2005 11:04:53 GMT -5
Sorry for the Bovine comment... My buddy had one last year, and it was really his comment. I think he had some troubles. (For one, he got his face footed.) It did get immediate response though.
Good news! I passed the Utah Falconry Exam that I took last week. They just called. Now you all have till September to convince me which type of bird to go with!
Bob Ritchie
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Yarak
Junior Member
Whosoever would be a man must be a nonconformist
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Post by Yarak on Apr 12, 2005 11:53:09 GMT -5
Twice in 10 years I have been footed in the face. She did not bind, thank God! The negative stigma that RTs have gotten has been from people just like that one. IMO if you cannot be successful with a RT you have got no business flying anything else. Along with being slow they are the forgiving and easy to train. They are one of the most robust and disease resistant species we have access to. Take this as gospel " You will catch more game your first season with a RT then you will a Kestrel..
all things being equal." Keep in mind two things I am still flying my apprentice bird from '94. I have killed more than four hundred head of game with her. I have brought her home after EVERY hunt. Very few people who have been in the sport for 10 yrs can make that claim regardless of species. Not a boast. Just and indicator of just how lucky I have been. Fortune favors the foolish.
Yarak
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