Find your wings

1. How long have you been doing falconry for?

2. How did you find someone to apprentice under?

3. Have you ever lost a bird? If yes how did you cope with it? (This is honestly my main fear going into it. I know someone who had her peregrine killed by a golden eagle!)

Hey, thanks a lot! That's honestly a good start already, I hope you can get into it fully in the future!

1. I met my mentor and shadowed him for 2 years before my hawk Aramis was born (he's 8 yo now). So about 10 years!

2. Completely by chance! I explained it a bit in an older ask, you can find the story here: https://www.tumblr.com/awkward-parabuteo/767712163306651648/also-how-did-you-start-with-falconry-is-aramis?source=share

3. I have, a couple of years ago - though not even while flying. Someone entered Aramis' mews while I was away and he managed to fly out (SAS door was left open too). That was in May, while he was fat for the moult: I couldn't just get him back through recall. You can imagine how livid I was!

It was a whole ordeal: we set up a modified Swedish goshawk trap at home; notified the raptor rehab center in the area and contacted a lost bird organisation that published a missing poster which I shared in local ornithology FB groups. Some people reported seeing him, so I drove there to investigate. Nothing. I remember it being very windy in the days following his escape, I was worried he could've travelled long distances.

But after 3 days, Aramis simply reappeared back at the house. He sat in a tree looking down at us, so we placed a bal-chatri underneath and he came down on it. As soon as he was caught and I got my hands on him, I burst out crying in relief! That whole situation was incredibly stressful, I felt so angry and powerless during those 3 days he was missing. 0/10 would not recommend.

Hi! Honestly, being around and handling medium and large sized parrots/cockatoos (in a rescue setting) made me more ''nervous''. Idk, something about having the intelligence of a young child and a pointy nutcracker on their face made me stay extra aware of both them and myself when around them. I personally never had an accident, but I know someone who's worked there for years that got bit through the nose by the resident 63 yo Moluccan cockatoo recently.

you also just seem like a cool person in general :3

(i'm sorry if my english is a bit sloppy, it's not my first language :P)

Hey! Thank you so much for your kind words, and don't worry about the likes! Knowing my blog can bring people even just a little bit of joy makes me really happy <3

To answer your question, I'm not really considering getting a second bird at this time since falconry is a hobby and I work fulltime. Being my only raptor, Aramis gets all of my attention and time! However, when he is gone one day, I've thought about maybe trapping and flying a wild red-tailed hawk since it has become legal where I live in recent years.