On the Park - August 2007

Slow, slow, quick, quick slow

Hobbies (Falco subbuteo) breed from June to August, so the chicks are in the nest when recently fledged passerines are abundant, and learn to fly when dragonflies are numerous. They tend to use unoccupied nests, quite often those belonging to carrion or hooded crows; in England this sometimes means nesting on electricity pylons! Hobbies can lay up to 4 eggs, with an incubation period of 27-31 days. Fledging is at 28-34 days old but they become independent at 20-40 days. Normally they winter in southern Africa, the northern Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia, and have very occasionally been reported over-wintering in Europe.

Mike 'gentling' the Hobby

In October 2006 we had a juvenile Hobby brought to the Trust by the RSPCA from Lymington. He showed no signs of any injuries, but sadly had to be kept at the Trust because he had missed his slot for migration and would have had nothing to feed upon on the long trip back to Africa. So he had to winter in the hospital.

Now the plan is to release this bird back to the wild, so initially this meant getting the Hobby working to a lure (a leather pad with food attached which acts as an imitation bird), chasing and catching it. Hopefully just by flying him he will start to catch his own food such as dragonflies and other large insects and, when he becomes proficient at this he will be ready for release.

But we have a long way to go before then.

Mike swings the lure … the hobby watches

Once spring was pushing into summer it was time to put on his equipment; this included a pair of leather anklets and a pair of leather jesses. Once he was jessed up he was placed on a block up on the falcon lawn to ‘weather’ (to be exposed to the elements i.e. rain, wind and the sun).

The next step was to get him used to sitting on the glove and feeding from it; when doing this with falcons it is called ‘gentling’. Once he started to feed we were on our way and then I tried to get him to jump small distances for a reward, gradually increasing the distance each time. Once he was jumping a leash’s length, it was time to increase the distance still further and this was achieved by the swapping the leash for a creance (a thin nylon line, about 45ft in length). So the leash was removed and instead the creance was threaded through the swivel and tied on. Then I placed the bird on a perch and got him to jump small distances for a reward, gradually increasing the distance until the he was coming the full length of the creance.

… and finally he flies at the lure

I’ve worked a male (Jack) Merlin and they seem to be much snappier, quicker on the uptake, but this little chap is proving harder; it has been slow progress. He seems to grasp something and then it all slows down until he’s really sure about what to next.

When he was flying the full length of the creance it was time to introduce the lure. This really slowed things down; he knew it was where dinner was but all he would do was look at it and bob his head up and down, so for the next week I had to revert to small jumps to get him to come from the post to the lure on the ground.

Once he got the hang of that, it was time to start trying to make the lure look more like a bird in the air, by swinging it rather than laying it on the ground. I swing the lure for this bird in the same way as I would for any other falcon, but with the line a little longer. The swinging lure certainly attracts his attention, but at present he will not fly at it, until I release it in a big looping arc and, as it hits the ground, he goes for it.

He is now at the stage in training when he can be flown free. However we always use telemetry for our falcons and I am currently waiting for a new telemetry transmitter to arrive before I can begin this stage of his training.

Hopefully all will continue to go well with this little bird. I will keep you posted on his progress.