Hawk Food (picture heavy)
These are photos of Stars and the two hawks that will receive them. Simone owns both Chase (Red Tail) and Cricket (Goshawk). She’s had Chase for over six yrs. now, and he is lightning on rabbits! Upwards of six kills during a session aren’t uncommon. Cricket is being trained for aerial kills (mainly water fowl and pheasant). Simone got Cricket as an eyass (nestling) almost one year ago.
I started trapping these speckled little bastards because shooting them wasn’t making a big enough dent in their local population. We get huge swarms around here. I average about 20 Stars a day in my pull door trap. I then lay off for three days before I start up again.
Here are a few waiting for the inevitable.
The gruesome twosome.
Other photos she’s sent me along the way.
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hey i found this video of chase on youtube. I’m almost positive it’s him since I can tell from the farm equipment in the backround.
beautiful bird btw. i’ve always wanted a hawk and i’ll hopefully be able to get one when I graduate college
it was gone this morning but its back now
Popper never did anything to it, was it gone?
SAW
i thinks the saw chopped it off hahaha
I enjoyed the pic’s!
Hey saw, where did your Avatar go?
Mike
thats awsome i saw one at my house a few years ago i swore it was anyway the DEC said no they arfe not around but i know i wasnt seeing things i had a cheapo disposable camer and took a pic but it was blured and could see it in the pic oh well
i thought it was preety darn cool myself
No, I apologize SAW. I meant her digital camera is an older model. None of the pictures were taken with a 35mm SLR.
AKULA, I used to shoot A LOT of Stars with my old 124D growing up in Fullerton, CA. I too wondered why our cats refused to eat ’em. My dad always told me, “because Starlings have greasy wings” (lol).
In the beginning I delivered LIVE birds to Simone and a few other falconers. It was a total pain in the ass keeping messy birds for months at a time before we could hook up for delivery (I’m one of those neurotic “neat freaks” that drives my poor wife nuts). I keep the birds alive for 36 hrs. minimum. This lets any poisons the birds may have ingested the time to become symptomatic. If the Stars pass muster they are humanely euthanized via cervical dislocation. Falconers don’t seem to care if the fodder is alive or frozen. Raptors aren’t picky eaters like some mammals. I do get requests specifically for LIVE birds during the trapping season (trapping of raptors).
Yes that is a beautiful Snowy Owl! You know your birds Popper. Most falconers shy away from owning owls. Apparently, they are extremely hard to train and are not nearly as smart as their hawk and falcon brethren.
I didn’t ask Simone for permission to show her face on this forum. Hence, the blur I applied.
FW; Nice pics! Sport of Kings!.
Question, why do you freeze starlings? In my experience, carnivores shunned eating a fresh killed starling. I guess they thought the bird as dirty as I do.
Nice killing spree though! Just asking. AKULA
is that a snowy owl?
it is sweet as are all of em nice pics
I like the one with the quail kill, you could frame em and hang pics like that, really great!
Said it once and I’ll say it again, great pics.
Especially if you are converting from real film to digital,
I am amazed, Simone you are the shutter bug master!!!!
SAW
Simone gets all the credit for the great photography. She claims she doesn’t have any background in her abilities. I kid her about it to the contrary. She uses a regular old Nikon to shoot.
I convert all of my photos via VSO Image Resizer. It’s a simple old compression program; albeit, it does do a nice clean job. The pictures are kept at around 100k. The originals are anywhere between 1 & 3 MB.
I’m not the falconer, Simone is. She got into it when her mom brought home some Zebra Finches, and it took off from there.
Chase has failed to return after flights. Simone just waits until the next morning when he’s hungry. He always returns to her glove.
I really appreciate you enjoying the photos as I have. They are truly inspiring. It reminds me I live in THE BEST COUNTRY on the planet.
Regards, Brad
Great pics.
You have so many . How do you find the time to keep them all trained and
not flying away ?
How did she get into Hawking / Falconry. I’ve always admired birds of prey and every time I see one…. I’ll point them out to my passenger(s) while driving in my car.
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beautiful bird btw. i’ve always wanted a hawk and i’ll hopefully be able to get one when I graduate college
Yep, that’s him alright.
It never dawned on me to post Simone’s YouTube channel (duh). Nice find!