North Yorkshire #3--Falconry

Hello Everyone!

So, I decided to skip talking aboutYorkshire for now, and start an e-mail on falconry. If anyone would like a specific e-mail on North Yorkshire, et cetera, I would love to send one out, just e-mail me please.

So Falconry...

On my first day, which was Monday the 11th, my mum dropped me off at about 9:00 in the morning. We basically said goodbye right then (and cried) because she and my grandma had to drive back to London that morning.

So, the first thing that i got to do in the falconry center that morning was pull the legs of chicks. I did not have to yolk the chicks that morning, thankfully, because that is what we call it when we basically squeeze the chicks guts out to be able to pull out the yolk. By the way, all the chicks that they use there are the male chicks from hatcheries. All the chickens that you can buy in stores are actually female. So all the males are killed when they are just a day old, and frozen to be sent to places like the falconry center that use them. Anyway, we pull the legs off to use as the bait to get the birds to come back to the glove while we're flying them. The yolked chicks are given to the birds that are flown regularly, so that they don't become overweight from the extra nutrients in the yolks.

After that i got to try my hands at such things as raking in the aviaries, cleaning the bird's baths, and weeding. As must be obvious, the job of falconry is a lot more than just working with birds. I did get to start learning how to hold the birds, weigh the birds, amd remove the jesses from the birds a little later in the day.

so first, holding the bird. You basically just use a chicken leg to get the bird onto your glove, then tuck its jesses in between your middle fingers to keep a good hold on the bird. You then untie the knot in the leash that keeps the bird on its perch, and take it inside to weigh it. Birds are weighed every day if they are flown much, and all the non-breeding falcons and hawks are flown nearly every day.

After you weigh the bird you remove their jesses if you are ready to fly them. The birds all have two sets of jesses, actually. There is the mews jesses, and the flying jesses. the flying jesses stay on all the time, while you remove the mews ones often. The mews jesses have a metal swivel on the end that hold the two pieces of leather, one for each foot, together. this swivel is tucked through your middle fingers to keep a firm hold on the bird if it would try to fly off your hand when you don't want it to. The flying jesses are a little harder to hold, so you tuck them around multiple fingers when you're only holding the birds with them.

So, thats the basics of getting a bird ready for flight. I will cut off this e-mail here, because it past 10:00 England time, and i'm up by 7:30 tomorrow.

Thank you everybody who e-mailed me back, i really liked reading the e-mails, even if didn't send a reply. If you have any specific questions, or anything, then e-mail me... I love hearing from you, even if its only a short note. So e-mail me lots!!!

Anyway, i'm having a good time here, and i'll talk more about falconry next time.

Love,

~Nettie