Harris hawk
Let me introduce: Xena, our female Harris Hawk (parabuteo unicinctus), hatched in may 2000.
Xena is parent reared, and was taken straight out of the aviary at an age of 15 weeks.
Her flying weight at the moment is 1035 gram. She's ringed and chipped.
As you can see there was an exceptional amount of 'white' in her juvenile plumage, of which most disappeared after her first moult.
The english translation for the dutch word for 'moult' is 'mutiny', which covers all...
A closer look at the weathering and perch system we use.
This is where Xena spends most of her time, day and night, summer and winter. Only when nighttemperatures drop below zero she'll sleep in a home-made giant hood (which is also her travelling box) in the garage.
As you can see Xena is hood-trained, allthough we rarely need to.
The weathering is completely surrounded by a fence, and even the roof is covered with netting. Mainly because we have a lot of cats in the neighborhood, and a lot of children coming over...
From this point Xena has a good view on the garden, and we have good view on the weathering from inside the house without being noticed.
Xena wears removable anklets, which we have pre-made ourself, allowing to exchange them without help, single handed. This takes a bit of training though, both the falconer and the bird.
When flying on the creance, we used a portable screw-type dog-attaching device. By placing this in the middle we were able to cover 50 meters with only 25 meters of creance. This setup has another advantage: both hands free if needed, without the risk of losing the bird.
This is our home-made bowperch. It's made of 2 layers of 18mm marine-plywood covered with multiple layers exterior paint and wrapped in sisal-rope. Extra feature is the removable base and rods, which allows placing in the garden, as well as indoors. The bowperch uses the same attachment as our screenperch, which we also build ourselfs.
We did spend a lot of time manning (and womanning), especially the first few weeks. Months actually. Hours and hours with Xena on the fist. Feeding her on the fist.
As a matter of fact we still do, allthough not that long every single day anymore.
We think it's well worth the effort, because she feels quite comfortable on the fist (...and up goes the leg...), and behaves very well (most of the time).
And now for some action!
Xena is waiting on the fence to be called, and leaves immediately on the sound of Monique's whistle. After a steep turn she's right on course and is heading straight for runway 36.
Flaps out, gear out, and we have a beautiful landing!
So much exercise, and the sun shining, really makes you wanna take a nap...
See some more birds
Home-Made Furniture
