Dec. 12th 2009
Today I decided to tag along on a Falconry hunt with my friend’s bother Ron. Ron is a master falconer and has been for over 10 years. It’s a pretty cool sport.
The basic premises is take a bird of prey condition to hunt with you.
We got out on a open field put let the bird sit on a perch. They then used sticks or dogs to Russel the bushes and scare out prey. Prey like rabbits, rats, and other small birds like quails and believe or not ducks.
Today we hunted the red tail hawk, the Harris hawk and the coolest of them all the peregrine falcon. The peregrine goes waaaaaaaaaaaaaay up then does a crazy free fall at almost 200 miles an hour. Attacking their prey but grabbing them by the neck. This method does one of two things. One it strangles the prey and two breaks it’s vertebrae.
I filmed most of the time as photos would’ve been pretty tough considering all the brushes in the way. I got the birds attacking rabbits, quail, rats and ducks. Not all is great footage as these guys are fast! I the kill video on many of them as well. The most exciting part of the day came when we ran into a 5.5 to 6′ rattle snake! He was coiled up and rattling for well over 20 minutes. I got some great video as well as stills.
I made a quick short clip to share with you guys. This video here is the done on the D300s but I got better action stuff on the tape.
