Falconry is the hunting of wild animals in their natural state and habitat by means of a trained bird of prey. Small animals are hunted; squirrels and rabbits often fall prey to these birds. Two traditional terms are used to describe a person involved in falconry: a "falconer" flies a falcon; an "austringer" (Old French origin) keeps Goshawks and uses accipiters for hunting. (Accipiter, some buteos and similar) or an eagle (Aquila or similar). In modern falconry, the red-tailed hawk (Buteo jamaicensis), Harris's hawk (Parabuteo unicinctus), and the peregrine falcon (Falco perigrinus) are some of the more commonly used birds of prey. The practice of hunting with a conditioned falconry bird is also called "hawking" or "gamehawking", although the words hawking and hawker have become used so much to refer to petty traveling traders, that the terms "falconer" and "falconry" now apply to most use of trained birds of prey to catch game. However, any contemporary practitioners still use these words in their original meaning.
In early English falconry literature, the word "falcon" referred to a female peregrine falcon only, while the word "hawk" or "hawke" referred to a female hawk. A male hawk or falcon was referred to as a "tiercel" (sometimes spelled "tercel"), as it was roughly one-third less than the female in size.[1][2] This traditional Arabian sport grew throughout Europe. Falconry is also an icon of Arabian culture. The saker falcon used by Arabs for falconry is called by Arabs "Hur" i.e. Free-bird where it is used in falconry since very ancient times in the Arabic peninsula. Saker Falcons are the national bird of the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Oman and Yemen and have been integral to Arab heritage and culture for over 9,000 years. They are the national emblem of many Arabic countries.[3][4]
"Broadwings": and Parabuteo spp., and eagles (red-tailed hawks, Harris hawks, golden eagles)
The species within the genus Falco are closely related, and some pairings produce viable offspring. The heavy northern gyrfalcon and Asiatic saker are especially closely related, and whether the Altai falcon is a subspecies of the saker or descendants of naturally occurring hybrids is not known. Peregrine and prairie falcons have been observed breeding in the wild and have produced offspring.[29] These pairings are thought to be rare, but extra-pair copulations between closely related species may occur more frequently and/or account for most natural occurring hybridization. Some male first-generation hybrids may have viable sperm, whereas very few first-generation female hybrids lay fertile eggs. Thus, naturally occurring hybridization is thought to be somewhat insignificant to gene flow in raptor species.
The first hybrid falcons produced in captivity occurred in western Ireland when veteran falconer Ronald Stevens and John Morris put a male saker and a female peregrine into the same moulting mews for the spring and early summer, and the two mated and produced offspring.
Captive-bred hybrid falcons have been available since the late 1970s, and enjoyed a meteoric rise in popularity in North America and the UK in the 1990s. Hybrids were initially "created" to combine the horizontal speed and size of the gyrfalcon with the good disposition and aerial ability of the peregrine. Hybrid falcons first gained large popularity throughout the Arabian Peninsula, feeding a demand for particularly large and aggressive female falcons capable and willing to take on the very large houbara bustard, the classic falconry quarry in the deserts of the West Asia. These falcons were also very popular with Arab falconers, as they tended to withstand a respiratory disease (aspergillosis from the mold genus Aspergillus) in stressful desert conditions better than other pure species from the Northern Hemisphere.
Ability to survive in captivity
Ability to breed in captivity
Suitability (in most cases) for interactions with humans for falconry: Birds that demonstrated an unwillingness to hunt with men were most often discarded, rather than being placed in breeding projects
Some believe that no species of raptor have been in captivity long enough to have undergone successful selective breeding for desired traits. Captive breeding of raptors over several generations tends to result, either deliberately, or inevitably as a result of captivity, in selection for certain traits, including:
Escaped reportedly bred in the wild in Britain.
Harris hawks
The return of the goshawk as a breeding bird to Britain since 1945 is due in large part to falconers' escapes; the earlier British population was wiped out by gamekeepers and egg collectors in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
A pair of bred in the wild in Yorkshire for several years, feeding largely or entirely on rabbits. The pair are most likely captive escapees. If this will lead to a population becoming established is not yet known.
European eagle owls
Falconers' birds are inevitably lost on occasion, though most are found again. The main reason birds can be found again is because, during free flights, birds usually wear radio transmitters or bells. The transmitters are in the middle of the tail, on the back, or attached to the bird's legs.
Records of species becoming established in Britain after escaping or being released include:
In 1986, a lost captive-bred female prairie falcon (which had been cross-fostered by an adult peregrine in captivity) mated with a wild male peregrine in Utah. The prairie falcon was trapped and the eggs removed, incubated, and hatched, and the hybrid offspring were given to falconers. The wild peregrine paired with another peregrine the next year.
Falconry in Hawaii is prohibited largely due to the fears of escaped non-native birds of prey becoming established on the island chain and aggravating an already rampant problem of invasive species impacts on native wildlife and plant communities.
In sharp contrast to the US, falconry in Great Britain is permitted without a special license, but a restriction exists of using only captive-bred birds. In the lengthy, record-breaking debates in Westminster during the passage of the 1981 Wildlife and Countryside Bill, efforts were made by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds and other lobby groups to have falconry outlawed, but these were successfully resisted. After a centuries-old but informal existence in Britain, the sport of falconry was finally given formal legal status in Great Britain by the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981, which allowed it to continue, provided all captive raptors native to the UK were officially ringed and government-registered. DNA testing was also available to verify birds' origins. Since 1982, the British government's licensing requirements have been overseen by the Chief Wildlife Act Inspector for Great Britain, who is assisted by a panel of unpaid assistant inspectors.
722–705 BC – An bas-relief found in the ruins at Khorsabad during the excavation of the palace of Sargon II (Sargon II) has been claimed to depict falconry. In fact, it depicts an archer shooting at raptors and an attendant capturing a raptor. A. H. Layard's statement in his 1853 book Discoveries in the Ruins of Nineveh and Babylon is "A falconer bearing a hawk on his wrist appeared to be represented in a bas-relief which I saw on my last visit to those ruins."
Assyrian
680 BC – Chinese records describe falconry.
Fourth century BC – wrote that in Thrace, the boys who want to hunt small birds, take hawks with them. When they call the hawks addressing them by name, the hawks swoop down on the birds. The small birds fly in terror into the bushes, where the boys catch them by knocking them down with sticks; in case the hawks themselves catch any of the birds, they throw them down to the hunters. When the hunting finishes, the hunters give a portion of all that is caught to the hawks.[44] He also wrote that in the city of Cedripolis (Κεδρίπολις), men and hawks jointly hunt small birds. The men drive them away with sticks, while the hawks pursue closely, and the small birds in their flight fall into the clutches of the men. Because of this, they share their prey with the hawks.[45]
Aristotle
Third century BC – wrote the same story about the city of Cedripolis.[46]
Antigonus of Carystus
355 AD – , a largely mythical narrative, records hawking first arriving in Japan from Baekje as of the 16th emperor Nintoku.
Nihon-shoki
Second–fourth century – the tribe of the Goths learned falconry from the Sarmatians.
Germanic
Fifth century – the son of , Roman Emperor 455–56, from the Celtic tribe of the Arverni, who fought at the Battle of Châlons with the Goths against the Huns, introduced falconry in Rome.
Avitus
500 – a Roman floor mosaic depicts a falconer and his hawk hunting .
ducks
Early seventh century – Prey caught by trained dogs or falcons is considered in Quran.[47] By this time, falconry was already popular in the Arabian Peninsula.
halal
818 – Japanese ordered someone to edit a falconry text named Shinshuu Youkyou.
Emperor Saga
875 – Western Europe and England practiced falconry widely.
Saxon
991 – In the poem describing the Battle of Maldon in Essex, before the battle, the Anglo-Saxons' leader Byrhtnoth says, "let his tame hawk fly from his hand to the wood".
The Battle of Maldon
1070s – The shows King Harold of England with a hawk in one scene. The king is said to have owned the largest collection of books on the sport in all of Europe.
Bayeux Tapestry
Around 1182 – wrote about hawks that are trained to hunt at the Byzantine Empire.[48]
Niketas Choniates
Around the 1240s – The treatise of an falconer, Moamyn, was translated into Latin by Master Theodore of Antioch, at the court of Frederick II, it was called De Scientia Venandi per Aves and much copied.
Arab
1250 – Frederick II wrote in the last years of his life a treatise on the art of hunting with birds: De arte venandi cum avibus.
1285 – The Baz-Nama-yi Nasiri, a Persian treatise on falconry, was compiled by Taymur Mirza, an English translation of which was produced in 1908 by D. C. Phillott.
[49]
1325 – The Libro de la caza, by the prince of , Don Juan Manuel, includes a detailed description of the best hunting places for falconry in the kingdom of Castile.
Villena
1390s – In his Libro de la caza de las aves, poet and chronicler Pero López de Ayala attempts to compile all the available correct knowledge concerning falconry.
Castilian
1486 – See the
Boke of Saint Albans
Early 16th century – Japanese warlord (1476–1555) succeeded in captive breeding of goshawks.
Asakura Norikage
1580s – Spanish drawings of Sambal people recorded in the Boxer Codex showed a culture of falconry in the .
Philippines
1600s – In Dutch records of falconry, the town of was almost entirely dependent on falconry for its economy.
Valkenswaard
1660s – of Russia writes a treatise that celebrates aesthetic pleasures derived from falconry.
Tsar Alexis
1801 – of England writes, "the ladies not only accompanied the gentlemen in pursuit of the diversion [falconry], but often practiced it by themselves; and even excelled the men in knowledge and exercise of the art."
Joseph Strutt
1864 – The Old Hawking Club is formed in Great Britain.
1921 – Deutscher Falkenorden is founded in Germany. Today, it is the largest and oldest falconry club in Europe.
1927 – The British Falconers' Club is founded by the surviving members of the Old Hawking Club.
1934 – The first US falconry club, the Peregrine Club of Philadelphia, is formed; it became inactive during World War II and was reconstituted in 2013 by Dwight A. Lasure of Pennsylvania.
1941 – Falconer's Club of America formed
1961 – Falconer's Club of America was defunct
1961 – formed
North American Falconers Association
1968 – International Association for Falconry and Conservation of Birds of Prey formed
[50]
1970 – Peregrine falcons were listed as an in the U.S., due primarily to the use of DDT as a pesticide (35 Federal Register 8495; June 2, 1970).
endangered species
1970 – The is founded, mostly by falconers, to conserve raptors, and focusing on peregrine falcons.
Peregrine Fund
1972 – DDT banned in the U.S. (EPA press release – December 31, 1972) but continues to be used in Mexico and other nations.
1999 – Peregrine falcon removed from the Endangered Species List in the United States, due to reports that at least 1,650 peregrine breeding pairs existed in the U.S. and Canada at that time. (64 Federal Register 46541-558, August 25, 1999)
2003 – A population study by the USFWS shows peregrine falcon numbers climbing ever more rapidly, with well over 3000 pairs in North America
Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity
Falconry, a living human heritage
Austria, Belgium, Croatia, Czechia, France, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia, Morocco, Netherlands, Pakistan, Poland, Portugal, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Slovakia, South Korea, Spain, Syria, and the United Arab Emirates
In historic literature of Mongols, The Secret History of Mongol is one of earliest books that described Bodonchar Munkhag, first leader of the Borjigan tribe as having first caught a falcon and fed it until spring. Through falconry, he not only survived, but also made it his tribal custom. His eighth-generation descendant Esukhei Baatar (hereo) was also in falconry, and he was the father of Genghis Khan. Through Genghis Khan's Great Mongol empire, this custom was introduced to China, Korea, Japan, and Europe, as well as the Western Asia.
In the Tale XXXIII of the by the prince of Villena, Lo que sucedió a un halcón sacre del infante don Manuel con una garza y un águila, the tale tries to teach a moral based on a story about falconry lived by the father of the author.
Tales of Count Lucanor
In the ninth novel of the fifth day of Giovanni Boccaccio's , a medieval collection of novellas, a falcon is central to the plot: Nobleman Federigo degli Alberighi has wasted his fortune courting his unrequited love until nothing is left but his brave falcon. When his lady comes to see him, he gives her the falcon to eat. Knowing his case, she changes her mind, marries him, and makes him rich.
The Decameron
Famous explorer wrote an account of falconry in India, Falconry in the Valley of the Indus, first published in 1852 and now available in modern reprints.
Sir Richard Francis Burton
A 17th-century English physician-philosopher, Sir , wrote a short essay on falconry.[55]
Thomas Browne
was a falconer and wrote The Goshawk about his attempt to train a hawk in the traditional art of falconry. Falconry is also featured and discussed in The Once and Future King.
T.H. White
In 's historical romance books, The Falcon and the Flower, The Dragon and the Jewel, The Marriage Prize, The Border Hostage, and Infamous, numerous mentions to the art of falconry are made, as these books are set at dates ranging from the 1150s to the 16th century.
Virginia Henley
The main character, Sam Gribley, in the children's novel , is a falconer. His trained falcon is named Frightful.
My Side of the Mountain
's novel Peregrine set in the world of falconry, about a rogue peregrine falcon in New York City, won the 1982 Edgar Allan Poe Award for Best Mystery.
William Bayer
the Canadian actress who played DetectiveKate Beckett on Castle, enjoys falconry in her spare time.[56] She has said that "It gives me self-respect."
Stana Katic
In the book and movie about two Americans who sold secrets to the Soviets, one of the two main characters, Christopher Boyce, is a falconer.
The Falcon and the Snowman
In , Richie keeps a falcon named Mordecai on the roof of his home in Brooklyn.
The Royal Tenenbaums
In James Clavell's , Toranaga, one of the main characters, practices falconry throughout the book, often during or immediately before or after important plot events. His thoughts also reveal an analogy between his falconry and his use of other characters towards his ends.
Shōgun
The 1985 film involved a medieval warrior who carried a red-tailed hawk as a pet, but in truth, the hawk was actually his lover, who had been cursed by an evil bishop to keep the two apart.
Ladyhawke
In series, the main character, Roland, uses a hawk named David, to win a trial by combat to become a Gunslinger.
The Dark Tower
"" is a recurring sketch on Saturday Night Live, featuring Will Forte as a falconer who constantly finds himself in mortal peril and must rely on his loyal falcon, Donald, to rescue him.
The Falconer
Gabriel García Márquez's novel 's main character, Santiago Nasar, and his father are falconers.
Chronicle of a Death Foretold
is a falconer based in Lancre Castle in Terry Pratchett's Discworld books. He is an expert and dedicated falconer who unluckily seems to only keep birds that enjoy attacking him.
Hodgesaargh
Fantasy author is a falconer and often adds birds of prey to her novels. Among the Tayledras or Hawkbrother race in her Chronicles of Valdemar, everyone bonds with a specially bred raptor called a bondbird, which has limited powers of speech mind-to-mind and can scout and hunt for its human bondmate.
Mercedes Lackey
Crime novelist is a falconer and his Frank Pavlicek private eye series features a former NYPD homicide detective and falconer as protagonist. The books include A Witness Above, A Killing Sky, Cold Quarry (2001, 2002, 2003), and Kitty Hitter (2009).
The character The Falcon is both named after the animal, but is a falconer himself, fighting crime with his falcon Redwing.
Marvel Comics
's Joe Pickett series of novels has a recurring character, Nate Romanowski, who is a falconer.
C. J. Box
is a novel by British author Barry Hines, published in 1968. It is set in Barnsley, South Yorkshire, and tells of Billy Casper, a young working-class boy troubled at home and at school, who only finds solace when he finds and trains a kestrel, which he names "Kes". The film made from the book in 1969 by Ken Loach is also called Kes.
A Kestrel for a Knave
Barry Hines was inspired by his younger brother Richard, who like Billy Casper, took kestrels from the wild and trained them. (He trained the three hawks used in the film Kes.) He has written of this in his memoir No Way But Gentleness: A Memoir of How Kes, My Kestrel, Changed My Life (Bloomsbury, 2016).
(Vintage, 2015) by Helen Macdonald, which won the Samuel Johnson Prize and Costa Book of the Year prizes in 2014, tells of how she trained a goshawk and mourned her father in the same year. It has echoes of T.H. White's The Goshawk.
H is for Hawk
features Brok, the brutal knight for the iron fisted King Einon, who proved a capable falconer and owns a falcon.
Dragonheart
On , Ardeth Bay proved a capable falconer and owned a saker falcon named after the Egyptian god Horus. Sadly, while delivering a message, Horus was shot to death by Lock-Nah with a rifle.
The Mummy Returns
featured falconry, involving many using messenger hawks to deliver messages. Also the assassin, Combustion Man showed talents with falconry. owned a raven eagle, which he used to intercept a messenger hawk carrying information about Aang's whereabouts. The raven eagle tied the hawk up, stole the message it was carrying, and delivered it to Combustion Man, thus keeping the Avatar's survival after the Coup of Ba Sing Se a secret.
Avatar: The Last Airbender
Abu Dhabi Falcon Hospital
Animal training
Anti-hunting
Car hawking
Falconer's knot
Falconry training and technique
Hack (falconry)
Hunting
Hunting dog
Hunting with eagles
Jess (falconry)
Parahawking
Puppet-rearing
Takagari
Ash, Lydia, : site for North Americans interested in falconry. Much information for this entry was due to her research.
Modern Apprentice
Beebe, FL; Webster, HM (2000), North American Falconry and Hunting Hawks (8th ed.), North American Falconry and Hunting Hawks, 0-685-66290-X.
ISBN
Chenu, Jean Charles; Des Murs, Marc Athanase Parfait Œillet (1862). . Paris: Librairie L. Hachette et Cie.
Freeman, Gage Earle; Salvin, Francis Henry (1859). . London: Longman, Green, Longman and Roberts.
Falconry : Its Claims, History and Practice
Freeman, Gage Earle (1869). . London: Horace Cox.
Practical falconry – to which is added, How I became a falconer
Fuertes, Louis Agassiz; Wetmore, Alexander (1920). . National Geographic Magazine. 38 (6).
"Falconry, the sport of kings"
García, Beatriz E. Candil; Hartman, Arjen E (2007), Ars Accipitraria: An Essential Dictionary for the Practice of Falconry and hawking, London: Yarak, 978-0-9555607-0-5 (the excerpt on the language of falconry comes from this book).
ISBN
——— (2008), The Red-tailed Hawk: The Great Unknown, London: Yarak, 978-0-9555607-4-3.
ISBN
Harting, James Edmund (1891). . London: Bernard Quaritch.
Bibliotheca Accipitraria: A Catalogue of Books Ancient and Modern Relating to Falconry, with notes, glossary and vocabulary
López de Ayala (1332–1407), Pedro; de la Cueva, duque de Albuquerque (d. 1492), Beltrán; de Gayangos (1809–1897), Pascual; Lafuente y Alcántara, Emilio (1869). . Madrid: M. Galiano.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
El libro de las aves de caça
Latini (1220–1295), Brunetto; Bono (c. 1240 – c. 1292), Giamboni (1851). de Mortara, Alessandro (ed.). . Prato: Tipografia F. Alberghetti e C.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
Scritture antiche toscane di falconeria ed alcuni capitoli nell' originale francese del Tesoro di Brunetto Latini sopra la stessa materia
Phillott, Douglas Craven; al-Dawlah Timur Mirza, Husam (1908). . London: Bernard Quaritch.
The Baz-nama-yi Nasiri, a Persian treatise on falconry
Riesenthal, Oskar von (1876). . Cassel, Germany: Verlag von Theodor Fischer.
Die Raubvögel Deutschlands und des angrenzenden Mitteleuropas; Darstellung und Beschreibung der in Deutschland und den benachbarten Ländern von Mitteleuropa vorkommenden Raubvögel
Deva, Raja of Kumaon, Rudra; Shastri (tr.), Hara Prasad (1910). . Calcutta: Asiatic Society.
Syanika satra: or a book on hawking
Soma, Takuya. 2012. ‘Contemporary Falconry in Altai-Kazakh in Western Mongolia’The International Journal of Intangible Heritage (vol.7), pp. 103–111. Archived 2017-06-21 at the Wayback Machine
[1]
Soma, Takuya. 2013. 'Ethnographic Study of Altaic Kazakh Falconers', Falco: The Newsletter of the Middle East Falcon Research Group 41, pp. 10–14.
[2]
.
IAF – International Association for Falconry and Conservation of Birds of Prey
