Trapping Sparrowhawks in Turkey

Trapping season is just over a week away! We do it a little differently here but this is an interesting video nontheless! I flew a little sparrowhawk in Japan as my "re-introduction" to the sport after a 6 year hiatus. She was a blast but I didn't do her justice.

I'm gonna train my kestrel for that dart method right from the beginning this time. Looks like a blast! Can't wait.

Unexpected Visitor

I made a few fancy sparrow traps this past week in anticipation of the season beginning (in just a few short weeks!!) and set them out to see how they work.

Well, I caught something...just not what I expected!! I found this little guy chillin with a full belly when I checked last night:

That's only half inch hardware cloth he's on so he wasn't a big one (we've seen some 5~6 footers on, or next to, the trail by our house), in fact I think he just slithered his way right through one of the squares to gain entry, but he must've eaten something in there as his middle is quite a bit thicker than the rest of him. I suspect a mouse more than a sparrow, but it must've made his day.

I wanted to take him back to the house to show my son but I would've been sleeping on the couch as per my wife's explicit instructions on ever bringing snakes home. He wasn't real keen on me sticking my hand in there to let him go, and I didn't fancy being bitten, so I just opened the top of the trap and dumped him out. He slithered his way merrily into the undergrowth.

I need a better place to put my trap!

Apologia

I'm reading "A Merlin for Me" by John Loft right now, a book chronicling Mr. Loft's training of a young merlin in the UK and interspersed with some wonderful poetry. This particular poem stood out as I read it this morning:

APOLOGIA

Hawking is useless,

Brings no advancement,

Is economically negligible, ecologically neutral,

Ethically irrelevant, and thoroughly anti-social.

That's what makes it so attractive.

Accomplishing the death of a lark is

Too insignificant to register on the Richter Scale

Of human endeavour

Yet is the Enterprise that transports me to the platform

Where I become myself.

Falconry News Site

A new website focusing on falconry and raptor related news in the U.S. and U.K.:

http://www.falconrytoday.net/

I'll have to add it to my links list!

(Oh, and the "less than a month til trapping season" countdown has begun. I'm getting my sparrow traps ready and my BC's covered in new nooses. Sept. 4th ~ 7th is going to be a trapping bonanza! My falconry buddies and I will probably trap what we want on day one and then spend the rest of the weekend trapping for fun and pictures. Can't wait!!!)