Falconry: Don't make this mistake trapping redtails

This falconry video describes a common mistake that falconers make when trapping red tailed hawks. Red tails are commonly used as falconry birds. They are common, fairly easy to trap, forgiving in disposition, and fairly easy to train.
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[@oldschoolhawking8191]

Every sponsor should insist on going with the apprentice trapping, not only to identify the bird, but to make sure the whole trapping process is safe. There's too many things that could go wrong.

[@Kapok6]

I'd have to disagree. My sponsor was never with me for the plethora of birds I trapped and I did really well. Some people need more involvement from their sponsors than others.

[@mrkus-nc7od]

It's always fun ? when the Hawk has novice by the Hands😮 instead the novice the Hawk 😂. Austringers Greetings 😊

[@halluxtalon6203]

I trapped a Red tail that had 11 juvenile tail feathers this season. 18 days into training I noticed 1 red tail feather that had started growing in. I panicked thinking I trapped a haggard that was struggling and hadn't started molting. I learned that if a feather gets pulled out, the next feather that will grow in will be next years feather, in this case a red adult feather. Also it wasn't a deck feather which in a typical molt should be first to drop. Moral of the story is you could trap a red tail that had 1 or probably even two red tail feathers and it still be a juvenile bird. Hope it helps someone and isn't off topic from video.

[@oldsagerat]

A decade or two ago the regional fish and game office asked me to take in a young redtail blown down in a windstorm. They used to do that. I was an apprentice falconer. Odd coloring on this young fledgling. I ended up putting it on my permit. This bird was nuts. Weight control was a crap shoot. I kept it through one molt. Coloring completely changed ! Obviously a Swainson's. Fish and game were cool about it. I knew he could catch voles and mice, so I fattened him up and turned him loose with about a thousand other Swainson's in a cut grain field. I like to think he made it to Argentina.

[@pacodogtule]

“Savanna Falcon” was a colloquial name in an old bird ID book. The dark phase gets a double take. “That’s not a Harris”

[@freebirdofreason1994]

Cheers Ben 👍

[@bsdoweidt]

Thanks Ben

[@lancespangler8487]

Was a falconer as a teenager. Had a male and female that would follow me in tandem over large ranch property.

[@hunterarmstrong4451]

You definitely have to watch the personality of a red-tail. I knew a guy named Tom who had one named Nasty. She chased a fox squirrel out of a pine and when it hit the ground, the dog started right after it. The dog had cut off the bird, and the bird was pissed. Nasty must have spent 10 minutes trying to get that dog.

[@dandillon3344]

great content , appreciate you

[@tedmorgan7715]

I made this exact mistake on September 27th 1986 but it was corrected within the hour by my sponsor. He hated to tell me what it was and us cut it loose on my birthday.

[@benwoodrufffalconry]

You’ve felt the pain all too well. After all that work, setting free that bird feels devastating.

[@troy5292]

Need...More...Trapping...videos...thanks! I need to get that book of yours too.

[@benwoodrufffalconry]

Hopefully this fall I can take the time to do some good trapping videos. The migrations were completely off this past season and my trapping adventures were some of the most diminished in decades. But we had a good winter and a wet spring so hopefully this will allow for some good hunting and good trapping this fall

[@troy5292]

@@benwoodrufffalconry I imagine falconers of all ages enjoy that huge dopamine rush when they see those first birds in their traps each year. I've watched a ton of videos, and I'm thoroughly intrigued with the American Kestrel. Although I need to do more follow up on red-tails as an obvious favorite. There's a game warden I was trying to go on hunts with last year with a couple of red-tails, but schedules didn't work out, so I'll try again this year. Oh, I know you're a DJI drone pilot. Not sure you heard that they are trying to ban DJI drones in the US?

[@troy5292]

@@benwoodrufffalconry It may also be a good video to make for new falconry hopefuls like myself to create a video of all the do's and don'ts of falconry etiquette when allowed to go tag along on a falconry hunt. Things like not wearing fluffy items that the bird may mistake as a prey item, standing on the opposite side of the falconer as their bird, don't make big, fast, or sudden movements, don't approach the bird until given permission, etc., etc.

[@seanohara9845]

In Ohio, it is a requirement for Apprentice falconers to have their sponsor with them. I also find it interesting that the rules vary for each state as to how to become an Apprentice. Simply put, in Ohio, you must have a sponsor before you can test or have your inspection performed. Not a critique, but an observation. I believe it is a help.

[@sherizaahd]

Just this weekend I saw what looked like a small juvenile Red Tailed hawk eyeballing my chickens, flying around the yard and looking down at them from my fence and tree, but it was a good deal smaller than the other juvenile Red Tailed hawks I had living behind my house, which I heard giving the telltale Red Tailed cries. I wonder if this other bird wasn't a Swainson's, I live in Colorado.

[@benwoodrufffalconry]

Definitely could have been!

[@jakethebirdnerd5411]

Luckily I live outside of the swainson’s hawks range (Ohio) so I don’t have to worry about accidentally trapping one when I go to trap my first bird

[@seanohara9845]

Reach out if you want to go hunt.

[@briscocounty2810]

Having Swainson's Hawks around is definitely worth the potential hassle of accidentally trapping one, which an apprentice of mine did many years ago. And with a little practice, they're easy to distinguish from Red-tailed Hawks. A fair number of older falconers (including me) had eyas Swainson's Hawks as kids. They were considerably safer to train than an eyas red-tail, but that's largely irrelevant today.

[@myfalconry76]

Most of the swainsons I see hunting in Washington state are hunting valley quail and pheasants seen them eating them on many occasions

[@stressly.]

Hi, I was wondering if you have ever had any experience with the great black halk. I've seen them in my area and have wondered if people use them for falconry.

[@benwoodrufffalconry]

I know in Latin America people have worked with great black hawks using falconry equipment and techniques, but I have not heard if they have been actively hunted. The whole black hawk family (buteogallus) are small eagles. The largest two members (crowded solitary eagle and montane solitary eagle) are about as big as golden eagles. Great black hawks and common black hawks both have great potential as falconry birds. It is true that they most often target aquatic prey, but they have strength and agility and are cousins of Harris hawks worth of being given a fair chance.

[@johnballard7736]

Ben, can you fly a Peale Perigine Falcon in Illinois?

[@lubomirasaaakvasnicakova8800]

Ahoj aj ja som sokolirka ❤

[@phillipwasson2980]

💯👌

[@kristensorensen2219]

#93👍🤔I hear red tail Hawks are lazy. Really? Is there both Federal & State law governing the sport? Love the site!! ERAU 80 CFIA&I ret.

[@benwoodrufffalconry]

Red tails are not as spirited of hunters as accipiters or large falcons. But they are still amazing versatile hunting companions.

[@truongle-nn9jv]

muốn xem mà nói k hiểu có thể để hình con chim r thêm giọng đc không

[@pascale_eagles]

You show goshawk and not RTH at least at the beginning of the video. I won't say what I think about falconry and trapping FREE BIRDS. as you might see and understand I LOVE FREE raptors and not humans keeping them in captivity - in exception of unreleasable birds used as ambassadors. You guys make me sick. 🤢

[@sct3339]

I agree with you 1000%. leave these animals freaking alone already. These are very selfish self serving people. This practice amongst others should be banned. Get lives would ya and leave the earths creatures alone to live the lives they were meant to live. NOT IN YOUR CARE

[@benwoodrufffalconry]

Interesting. I have practices as a falconer (someone who flys birds totally free and let’s the hunt and do everything a wild bird does and they CHOOSE to come back) As a wildlife rehabilitator (an unpaid person who rescues, rehabilitates and releases injured raptors) And as a wildlife educator using, as you say, nonreleasable birds that cannot go back to the wild because of injury. Now if you are taking about a bird being “free”, of those three examples, the one you are okay with (an injured ambassador) is the LEAST free of all of them. For example a bird illegally shot and now missing its wing. It cannot fly. It cannot hunt. It cannot even die in a natural way. It is a prisoner, forced to be used in shows whether it wants to or not. With terms like “avian ambassador” used to virtue signal. A trained falconry bird flys totally free. The “ambassador” is, with most groups, a sympathy and revenue generating prisoner with no quality of life. While the trained falcon that flies a mile up wind, then three thousand feet up, dives 150 mph and catches a duck and then happily goes home on the falconers fist of its own choice, is infinitely more free then that wingless ambassador. But you yourself have a bit of a moral dilemma. As I do wildlife rehabilitation and wildlife education with the very ambassadors you describe, in addition to being a falconer, you must confront the fact that I represent both what you loath and hate, and also what you claim is morally just fine.

[@benwoodrufffalconry]

Also, on that, if you haven’t watched the documentary series “tiger king”, I think you should. Having practiced wildlife education, wildlife rehab, and falconry for decades, I have seen that Tiger King is a syndrome very real to powerful animals and the people who work with them. Everyone wants to be the “special one” Bird watchers rip on falconers and say “birds should be free” rehabber a rip on wildlife educators because they “don’t put in the work to rescue, and only make money off of the rehabbed birds” bird banders rip on the bird watchers for disturbing rare species in mass, to get the perfect photo. Falconers rip on the bird banders for trapping birds and stressing them out, and then hypocritically ripping in falconers for trapping. Across the board, it seems everyone who loves or works with powerful animals (eagles, tigers, wolves, bears) wants to be the special one who gets to share their passion and they attach their ego to it. And then anyone who comes along and also does it in a different form represents a threat to their ego. They viciously attack and slander the other group and vilify them and then virtue signal their own interaction with the animals to justify their slander of the other group.

[@benwoodrufffalconry]

Two more quick things. You are mad that there was a goshawk at the beginning of my video? Did you watch any more? There was also a peregrine falcon, a black eagle, a Lanner falcon and a eurasian sparrowhawk….. I do intros like that in ALL my videos. Don’t know why just the goshawk is so bad. Second point. Why are you disturbing and recording wild nesting raptors on your channel? They should be free to nest and breed in peace, right? Without any disturbance from you or anyone else. And if it is to keep tabs on populations or a supposedly virtuous biological reason, then why share it on KZbin? The world doesn’t need to see it in order to help birds. However maybe it strokes your ego, or maybe you just like sharing your love of birds. But you are still disturbing them. In the USA it is illegal to film or climb up to raptor nests without a permit or reason, because it IS disrupting them. I personally do not have a problem with that. I think it is great that you are sharing your knowledge and passion with the world. It is a good thing. I am just pointing out that you are actively interfering with wild birds and showing that on KZbin. I know you hate falconry and will justify that it is different. But the fact remains, the bird do NOT need you to set up cameras and do NOT need you to share your footage. You yourself may have passionate people complain on your channel to “leave them alone! Let them be free to breed and nest and raise their young in peace” but you feel your position is defendable and just, and so you share. I personally hope you continue to share your videos. But hope you remember that you are forcing them to be disrupted and and disturbed as you do so and are interfering with wild animals.

[@danhughes3626]

@@benwoodrufffalconry you gave a thoughtful Answers... utube is full of people who don't understand falconry at all...plus all the regulations time efforts money gas Training...and alot of immature die first year The hard work involved...makes it hard to do it...

[@sct3339]

Falconry should be banned. Leave these creatures alone to their own natural habitats. Doing this, makes you very selfish and entitled. There is no justifiable reason for falconry.

[@benwoodrufffalconry]

In many parts of the world, the bulk of falconry birds utilized in the sport come from captive breeding programs. The pedigrees and generations in these programs go back more than far enough to be considered “domesticated” Just as a captive bred house cat still has hunting instincts, so do these captive bred birds of prey. We fly these birds completely free in the wild and they come back. This is their choice. I am aware that you have your mind made up and nothing that I or anyone else says will change your close minded position. Just because the image of a bird of prey represents “the spirit of the wild” in your mind, does not mean that there is something wrong with cultivating a relationship of trust with a bird and flying it. As far as no “justifiable” reason for falconry, I could literally scour videos on the internet and make the same claims. There is no justifiable reason to make and use cars when we have legs for walking. There is no reason to go to grocery stores and restaurants when you could grow your own food. There is no reason to grow non native crops (corn, wheat, sheep, cattle) because they are destroying the natural plants and animals. Buffalo are the spirit of the wild. Get rid of cattle. Sagebrush should cover the heartland of America. Not corn. No justifiable reason to pay billions to football stars when people are starving. No justifiable reason to have the internet when we have books. I respect that you hate falconry. You have a right to feel as you choose and to voice your opinions. And in my country I also have the legal and moral right to practice the 7,000 year old history of falconry and to proudly do so. And as far as animals being a noble spirit of the wild that belongs in the wild, it was falconers who SAVED the peregrine falcon from extinction.

[@eleeshafisher3998]

Actually there is. Understand that easily 90% of passage birds don’t live to see their first birthday. Illegally shooting, rodenticides, electrocution from power lines, starvation, disease like HpAI, and vehicular collisions are just some of the causes. Many birds are trapped, trained and hunted for as little as 1 season, before being released to live as they please. With that training and that partnership they learn to become proficient (if not excellent) hunters of usually more game than they would have attempted on their own their first year. Their chances of survival to their first birthday are essentially guaranteed and their chances of reaching breeding age and raising their own young are vastly increased, thus HELPING the wild populations. These are not our pets. While we are very fond of our hunting partners, they are just that. We know and understand they are wild animals with wild instincts. And if we all followed that mentality of leave them alone in their natural habitats, understand we would have a lot more extinct species and there wouldn’t be cats dogs or other pets people love so dearly. The vast majority of falconers are HUGE advocates for conservation and there are many of us who do educational events to educate the public on BOP.