Falconry - information for the beginner
Some basic requirements.
The quarry available to falconers in Britain - hares, rabbits, game birds and birds excluded either wholly or seasonally from the protection by the Wildlife and Countryside Act. (The schedules to the act and the Game Laws should be consulted).
Hawks moult their feather during the summer, and are flown during the autumn and winter months, when many people working full time are not free to go out during the hours of daylight. The beginner should take this into account and ensure that he has sufficient time available in which to exercise and hunt with his hawk.
The falconer must have full legal access to a large stretch of country: he cannot select a suitable place and fly his hawk without the landowner's or farmer's permission.
An experienced falconer chooses his hawk in accordance with the sort of country ( either open or wooded) over which he has permission to fly it and the quarry available. Far too many would be falconers imagine themselves starting with a peregrine - if not several peregrines! In fact there are extremely few falconers who have the leisure and the open countryside necessary to do justice to a peregrine, quite apart from the considerable experience needed to fly such a hawk. The sparrowhawk is the most difficult of all hawks to manage. Nobody should attempt to handle one until he has successfully flown and taken quarry with at least one other hawk.
All British Birds of Prey are protected by the Countryside and Wildlife Act, 1981. The act empowers the Secretary of state for the Environment to grant licences to take hawks from the wild for the purpose of falconry or to import them, but at the present time very few licences are issued. Taking or importing a hawk without a licence is an offence punishable in the courts, and The British Falconers' Club will not hesitate to report any such action to the proper authorities. A member of the Club found guilty of such an offence would be expelled.
Incalculable damage has been done and is being done to the reputation of falconry and falconers all over the world through illegal thieving of wild hawks and their eggs by operators, who smuggle them from one country to another and sell them on the black market. The difficult provisions of ringing, registration and inspection have been imposed upon falconers in an attempt to stop this iniquitous trade.
Hawks are now bred in captivity and the beginner should expect to start with a captive bred bird. Some of these hawks which fall into the category of needing particular protection have to be ringed and registered with the Department of the Environment.
Captive bred hawks are regularly advertised for sale in the Avicultural Press, but the price and condition of these vary. The would be falconer is most strongly advised not to start by wondering how to get a hawk, but to attend an approved course or as a minmum study the books listed in the approved list
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