[Scott Roush]

I was wondering if there were any hawkers on this forum. I'm starting my apprenticeship this year and am in the process of studying the literature and the regulations to pass my exam.. and then on with the building of the mews. If things work out.. next Fall I will have a passage red tail 'watching me like a hawk' as I work. The mews will be associated with my shop so that the bird can spend lots of quality time with me.

Anyway... being who I am.. I can't resist learning more about the gear, tackle, tools, and knives used by European falconers in the Middle Ages. I have an interest in the making of bells and I've ordered my first block to learn to make hoods. The hoods are stand alone works of art to me.

So.. just curious if there are other folks interested and please feel free to share any interesting tidbits you've come across on period falconry!

I'm attaching a photo of my first attempt at a bell. It will be bronze and nickel....

[Mark Griffin]

Know nothing about the US scene but over here we have Raphael Historic Falconry who are highly regarded and do most of the accurate historic displays. Its a full time job for them, not a hobby so devote extraordinary amounts of time to the art and have unparalleled knowledge and skill as far as I'm concerned

Their website gallery is here

http://raphaelhistoricfalconry.com/gallery.php

That's me as Henry VIII btw :-)

[Mart Shearer]

The medieval gold standard:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_arte_venandi_cum_avibus

http://digi.vatlib.it/view/bav_pal_lat_1071

http://www.e-codices.unifr.ch/fr/list/one/bge/fr0170

[J. Nicolaysen]

And here I thought good horses might be the ultimate LH accessory! Way cool, I hope falconers keep posting here. A childhood friend of mine was a falconer, and every day I see red-tailed and ferruginous hawks, golden and bald eagles, and other smaller sorts of falcons. Be nice to get into it but it seems like quite a learning curve.

At the least, Scott I hope you continue to post pictures of various things you make for falconry equipment. And Mark, that's a great picture as Henry VIII!

[Mark Griffin]

Thanks, that was during the Henry 500 anniversary commemorations we had a while back, no way i can grow a vaguely ginger beard now! I basically rode in and cast off, my loyal falconer retrieving the animal although I did lure it in a couple of times on foot. Not good swinging a lure around our four footed friends. They are fine, but if the rider mucks it up it gets tricky for all concerned.

I'll add the hunting book of Dame Juliana Berners into the mix, plus Gaston Pheobus wrote stuff. A good book on medieval and renaissance hunting is 'The Hound and the Haw', the authors name escapes me.

[Gossart Pierre]

Hello Scott !
http://www.anfa.net/fr/livres-actuels.html
maybe this can help you , the last one
" De arte venandi cum avibus de Frédéric II de HOHENSTAUFEN (XIII siècle) "
https://www.librairie-obliques.fr/livre/555088-l-art-de-chasser-avec-les-oiseaux-le-traite-de--frederic-ii-jacques-laget
(the "replica" of the original edition of the middle-age book exists ....835 euros... , the edition from Anne Paulus and Baudouin V d A ..80 euros )

Baudouin Van den Abeele is a Belgium guy ...

Pierre

[Scott Roush]

Ah Pierre.. I should have known you would know something of falconry!

Thanks for the references....

Well here is my first bell. The tone is.. OKAY. The next one will have a thinner walls on the top part and I will not use nickel... I will stick with brass, copper and bronze. But it's a start...

[Mark Griffin]

Hohenstauffen is absolutely spot on if you are doing mounted stuff. Instructions on how to mount with a bird on the fist are great plus loads more.

[Scott Roush]

So I've ordered a few books and am anxiously awaiting. In the meantime.. I've been given hints that there was a dispatching spike (for prey I assume) and a gut hook type skinner. I have not yet found any references to these in a Middle Ages context.

But there is this image:



It does seem like a spike. However it looks like he might dispatch his own hawk. :-) I know that 'blood letting' was a popular way to fix various issues with animals in ancient society.. but that doesn't look like it would make a tiny prick.

EDIT: Hold on.. just realized I'm using the wrong search term. I need to be thinking of BODKINS.

[Mark Griffin]

Re the above pic, from Emma Raphael of Raphael Historic Falconry:

[Scott Roush]

[Mark Griffin]

We also have a far more vociferous animal rights lobby here which probably has a bearing. You cant pick most species of wild flower even. We have only a very small amount of countryside so its protected heavily. We fit twice into Texas after all! You can merrily trap most things, we have only a very few proscribed vermin species and they are very strict rules on trapping /hunting them.

We also have a land ownership issue so its very difficult to roam about doing pretty much anything. I'm in a very rural area and have been for 6 years. Heard my first hunt passing ever last weekend and they would most likely have been drag hunting and only accidentally coming across game. And after that happens its a whole bundle of legal fun.

Parliament spent 700 hrs debating the Fox Hunting bill but 7 hrs on whether to invade Iraq. Go figure.

[Scott Roush]

Well very interesting Mark. Hmm... Sort of forgot about fox hunting! Still going on then??

So here is the start of a Dutch style hood. I've purchased a Rollin's male red-tail hawk block for molding and burnishing. Once I get a better feel for period falconry I'd like to make some that I can connect to particular time periods.. but this is a start. I'm assuming that earlier period falonry in Europe used Arabic styles. I'm using 3 oz cowhide and the eye pieces have very thin stained goatskin laminated for for contrast in color and texture. Not sure how I will do the top knot yet.

[Harry Marinakis]

I was very involved in falconry back in the early-to-mid 1970s - started with kestrels and moved up to red-tails and goshawks.

Tips?
PATIENCE.
Be prepared to spend a lot of time with your bird.

[Scott Roush]

Great Harry! I'm reading a book about Steve Chindgren. Sounds like a lot has changed in the craft since the 70s...

Well here is my first hood (no braces yet). It is serviceable... but need to improve the stitching. I accidentally stitched the wrong way out.... so that will be easy to improve on with the next one. And perhaps a nicer looking stitching material.

[Mark Griffin]

for a first effort that's really good, great stuff.

[Shahril Dzulkifli]

Starting tomorrow Raphael Historic Falconry will host an autumn fair at Beeston Castle in Derbyshire. Traditional falconry will also be performed.

[Mark Griffin]

Importantly its Beeston Castle in CHESHIRE, not Derbyshire. Good old England for having two castles with the same name. There are a few of those in fact... all sorts of fun can be had shouting into phones when two people are in different counties...

info for the one Shahril mentions is here:

http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/what...3-10-2015/

[Scott Roush]

Oh that sounds fun. Wish we had events like this around here.

Well we finally have had some freezing temperatures and leaves are falling in earnest. I will be going out soon with my sponsor who will be flying a goshawk for grouse (partridge) and training a gyrfalcon on released pheasant. So excited. He will also be training a particular breed of dog that was supposedly bred specifically for falconry and comes from the UK I believe. But I can't remember the name. I'm pleased however because I was just taking a quick look on the internet to see if I could find it.. and I found that my own breed of dog ... a French Brittany.. is a favored falconry dog. Right now she is so intent upon killing birds that I will be very interested in seeing her first impression of my first hawk...

[Harry Marinakis]

Hunting with Eagles

"Deep in the unforgiving wilds of far western Mongolia, the last remaining Kazakh eagle hunters harness a powerful force of nature...."

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-10-30/palani-...rs/6890392