Thread: falcon having a go

have a video but cant get it to load yet

he (i think was small) came and checked us out 1st .

It's special when you see stuff like that, even better when you can capture it as an image.

https://www.facebook.com/757765135/v...ssed&ref=notif

That's cool, three years ago one appeared out of nowhere and killed my son's pet dove 8 feet in front of us.

Then just a few weeks back I plucked a young female off the budgie cage wires and put her in a box for Wingspan to pick up. It took me a while to catch her, she ran under the car, then into the garage, then flew under the house - but the budgies were her downfall.
Once I had hold of her she was totally placid - but was skinny as buggery with what appeared a growth all around her beak - I thought it was gone. Wingspan cleaned her up and said she had a tiny beak and was badly malnourished - they took her to bring her back to health and she died two days later.

A few years back i was at a wedding in a winery in queenstown, they had two doves in a cage, that were released right on the "you may now kiss your bride". Both got smoked by falcons about 3 seconds in to their flight. Must've been a bad omen because the marriage didnt last but shit it was funny.

We had one turn up and smoke all the pigeons at one of our calf sheds a few years back, one pigeon escaped and flew into the workshop, falcon went screaming in there after it, through the open roller door, smashed it out of the air and in the same movement hung a sharp left and came hooning out the small man door on the side of the workshop. Then landed and hopped back into the workshop on foot and collected its stunned prize which was still flapping around on the ground. Some pretty impressive flying!

Watched this one chase a sparrow around my dog kennels one day. Sparrow dived into a pile of old branches. Falcon landed and proceeded to ripp chunks of wood off trying to reach him. This went on for about 10mins before falcon flew away about 100m and sat watching the pile to see if the Sparrow come back out. Was really cool to watch.

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ive seen them smoke pigeons and harass seagulls but never managed to get any pics, thank f my wife was with me as she knows how to work a camera.

Brother in Rotorua had a falcon take up residence at his place. Said falcon killed sparrows and tried to feed the morsels to bro’s ducklings. It’s on YouTube somewhere.

Originally Posted by Ryan_Songhurst

We had one turn up and smoke all the pigeons at one of our calf sheds a few years back, one pigeon escaped and flew into the workshop, falcon went screaming in there after it, through the open roller door, smashed it out of the air and in the same movement hung a sharp left and came hooning out the small man door on the side of the workshop. Then landed and hopped back into the workshop on foot and collected its stunned prize which was still flapping around on the ground. Some pretty impressive flying!

I had the pleasure of hunting with Hawks back in the old country. Mostly for Rabbit and duck. The flying skills just leave you awestruck.
Body weight of the Hawk/Falcon is the of the utmost importance if hunting. A couple of grams over weight and they will just sit in a tree .
Ultimate for me was flying a Russian Steppe Eagle

Yeah they're great to watch. Saw one chasing a big hare on a steep rocky face, diving down picking it up and dropping it on the rocks about 10 times until the hare gave in. I also was driving over the Karemea bluff a couple of years back and saw the fatest rat ever waddling across the road then a falcon dives from nowhere and picks it up. We were going quite slow on a steep section so we got a nice close-up of a very sad looking rat well hooked by this beautiful bird that cleared my windscreen by centimetres.

well you guys there is another raptor not native recorded in NZ and thats the Nankeen Kestrel - any body seen one - I think I did one day on side of road far north but did not have a camera - was smaller bird than harrier and rather different colour - be interested if any of you know this bird - always keen on different birds - same as bob white quail supposedly Hawkes bay but are any still around