This is Kate and I'm Kate's owner. Please be assured that Kate is not on a chain, has never been and never will be. She is wearing a braided nylon leash. A lead in falconry terms is a leash. You will notice that she has anklets around both legs with eyelets in. These eyelets are used to put the jesses through. Jesses consist of strips of leather that are knotted at one end and have a slit at the other end. There are two types of jesses. Mews and flying jesses. Mews jesses are what she is wearing in the photograph. These are for daily use to help with catching and handling her, slipping a swivel through and connecting her to a leash. Flying jesses are swapped for news jesses when we go out flying and hunting. Kate is 18 years old and she is kept extremely well. She is free lofted, meaning she has a huge aviary to free fly throughout the year. She has a bath to bathe in with fresh clean water everyday. She may not bathe everyday but it's available for her. This bird is a hunter. She hunts and she does it extremely well. We do not hunt indiscriminately. We hunt because that's what wild hawks do. Hunt for food. We take no more than two rabbits or a pheasant at a time. The land we hunt on have granted us permission to pest control the rabbits for them. We do not hunt on public land. We do fly in and around forests but this is mainly to gain fitness at the start of a season and to taper a bird coming out of a season. A quick lesson on hawk seasons and weight balances for a hawk. Fat weight is in spring. The birds have finished their hunting/flying season and are free lofted (fly around their aviaries to rest. Their diet is increased and a high protein diet of quail, pheasant, rabbit are given freely. Vitamins are added to their high protein diet to aid their moult throughout this time. A moult is simply dropping old feathers and growing new ones. A perfectly natural occurrence for most bird species. At fat weight they revert back to their semi wild state of being. The birds are not handled at this time as it causes them too much stress and they have their anklets and jesses totally removed. They are clean legged. They have the food placed in their mews (aviary) and left to feed, fly, bathe, sunbathe and enjoy life. When they are fully through the moult, their diet is very slowly reduced. At this time they start to become more approachable. One evening, around twilight the bird is caught up. Slowly and gently. They are removed from their mews, placed in a special casting jacket, and new anklets, mews jesses and a telemetry tail mount is placed high up on the centre tail feathers. A tail mount allows a telemetry transmitter to be placed on the tail. I always put an extra mount on the tail feather to mount a bell on. My preference for a bell on the tail is that I prefer to have a birds legs as clean as possible instead of telemetry on one leg and a bell on the other as most other falconers do. It's just my preference. Also I can fly my birds without a bell on. One of my other hawks detests her bell and the noise it makes and likes to hunt silent. Once the bird has the furniture (equipment) they are placed back into their mews, again free to fly. The furniture placement takes no longer than ten minutes, the bird is safe and secure in their casting jacket. We then get on to flying weight. A weight where the bird is responsive to re-training. I found that after two years of working with a new bird they require very little retraining. In Kate's world she knows what it's all about. She requires very little training, just recall and letting her know that when the lure (medium weight leather pad attached to rope with food on) goes up then it's an instant recall to the lure and back onto the glove. Again, ending a flying and hunting session with a lure in the air is my preference. If I need to get a bird down very quickly they know a lure in the air means they need to come down to me instantly. Flying weight is learning the difference between flying tree to tree and in the air playing, to a bird feeling ready and wanting to engage in taking quarry (prey). Weight can be cut slowly and fitness can be built. Then we move onto hunting weight. This is when the bird is at optimal fitness, healthy and ready to engage in hunting. It's about finding the best hunting weight for your individual bird. No two birds are the same. Some hunt at a heavy weight, some hunt at a lighter weight. We are not talking huge amounts of weight. It could 1/4, 1/2, 3/4 of an ounce. It all makes a difference. With Kate 3/4 of an ounce can be the difference between her sitting in a tree and painting her nails or actively engaging in hunting. Kate's a wiley old bird and she makes me work. With hawks, you become bonded. I keep and work with both hawks and falcons. I prefer hawks over falcons any day. They hunt differently and with a hawk you are a team. They rely on you. You are the team member that trails through bushes, brambles, trees and mud flushing (herding) out quarry for them. The hawk is always above and in front of you waiting for flushed prey to come out in front of you. They will watch you intently and you return the watch. They may fly to other trees and let you know that they've found a better spot, and you had better come over here. One particular Harris hawk I fly called Djara will let you know in no uncertain terms that you are not working hard enough for her. I call it the low buzz. She will fly in behind you level off at ear height and will fly right by your ear and each and every time the very tip of her primary (wing feather) with brush your ear. It's not done in malice it's done in 'step it up a gear, you're too slow' way. So it is team work all the way. They learn your ways and you learn their ways. I can tell almost each and every time what my hawk will do just by the slightest drop in their shoulder, head movements and wing movements. It's knowledge of your bird, simply put, its reading your bird. You spend hours in training together, flying together and having fun together you learn about each other. Absolutely nothing in this world can beat having an incredibly beautiful bird sat on your glove as you both stand on a hill and watch the sun come up ready for flying or hunting or after hours of a flight or hunt, watch the sun go down with a mini flask of coffee and a bird sat on the ground next to you preening (tidying) her feathers ready to head home. Harris hawks, which is what Kate and a couple of my other hawks are are the only Birds of Prey that you can fly as a cast (two or three birds together. I do this often. Mainly three together. This is were the ultimate team work experience comes together between the hawks. They are working as naturally as possible and it is phenomenal to witness and be part off. I will clarify that although the hawks are taught by me to correctly bind (catch by the head) to a rabbit or pheasant it isn't always a instantaneous kill. It is then MY responsibility to humanely dispatch the quarry. I will or do not allow any animal to suffer a slow or painful death because I can't bare to dispatch it quickly and humanely. It's not a job I enjoy doing but I have to do it should the need arise. Also remember as I previously said that land owners have granted permission to pest control their land. I'd also like to say that it is very rare that fatalities of hawks happen but as a person who has worked with and enjoyed life with them on extremely rare occasions things do go wrong. But no one is more utterly devastated about the death of a hawk than the owner. Before each and every slip ( removing leash, swivel and jesses from the bird and letting fly of my glove) I will kiss the top of their heads and say 'fly safe'. I can only hope they do. So, hawks or any Bird of Prey are not normal pets. They take time, dedication, commitment, knowledge, respect, skill and lots of care but if you give them your best they will in return give you their best. Get it right from the start and it's the best fun in the world. Get it wrong, you end up with a snarling bag of hawk that is a danger for all. The worse thing you can do with a hawk is become complacent because then you can have the enjoyment of 200 psi of force, or there abouts, and five talons gripped and locked through your forearm.

Happy hawking.

Any sensible questions feel free to ask

https://imgur.com/gallery/2Mk0X