A Fresh Start and a discount

Well after a long 6 months I've got a more or less all clear on my Lymphoma,Huge thank you to the clients who have bee3n understanding when I had to cancell the odd day due to being wiped out by the radiotherapy treatment, (and Bah Humbug is all I can say to the two that were less than understanding).
I'm mow back up to full function and playing catch up as well as starting to prepare hawks for the up and coming hunting season, we have two very exciting hybrid falcons joining our crow hawking team, and Barney and Harley are getting fit for Magpies, Monty the young GSP is coming on in leaps and bounds (Literally ) and will be aiding the two small falcons when the snipe come in.
We're also breaking in a new Landie as our previous much loved one was an insurance write off after being driven into by a suicidal ford KA, and two new falconry ponies, both ex race horses as there is starting to be more interest in our unique falconry from horses day.
Any how to celebrate my good health we are running a 20% discount on all vouchers purchased before the end of the month for people who follow my Blog , our face book page or follow @dartmoorhawker on twitter, just enter code lymph on booking

The Shaggy Pointers

I've been asked on several occasions why dogs future so prominently in what is a falconry centre.
  Well, firstly anyone who knows me knows that working dogs have always featured as a large part of my life,as workers and companions ,and if I'm somewhere my dogs are not far away.

Secondly dogs are actually a very important part of what we do at Dartmoor Hawking,the majority of our hawks hunt as well as doing our various falconry experiences, and we would have very poor days with out the dogs to find and flush Rabbits, Pheasants ,woodcock, snipe and hares for our hawks .

for the experience days they also add huge amounts of entertainment as both the Ginger thing and Little Will . I . Woof are big characters and are guaranteed to butt in at some stage to disrupt things.
  Thirdly on the odd time I have to camp up at the barn they make fantastic hot water bottles.
 so the dogs are very important to me, Mt right hand men, and constant companions . if you don't like dogs Dartmoor Hawking is possibly not the place for you

Back when I had hair

10 years ago, we a couple of years after I started crow hawking seriously the BBC approached me about featuring the Dartmoor Falcons this was the result

Watch "The Dartmoor Falcons on inside out" on YouTube

With typical journalistic licence they failed to mention that we caught 7 crows whilst filming this

A moment of fame

A great article in the western morning news

Bumpkin in London

Well we had a fun trip on Ednesday, leaving at 2.30 am with Archimedies, Ben, galahad and Rosie for a trip to the ITV studio's
7 hours later ( I thought traffic problems wad Colin Pearce moving his cows) Philippa safely delivered us, you find our 15 minute presentation recorded bit (you'll be on your way home by 11!) was going to be 5 minutes live at 3, so we checked the studio, did a quick briefing,  let Rosie traumatise a few people and drowned ourselves in Coffee to keep awake.
Of course changes in plan mental the very noisy Ben was not the ideal choice but he excelled by shouting down Alan Titmarsh and thought the whole thing was laid on for his amusement (crèche reared Harris',  you've got to love each their attitude to life) and Rosie let herself down badly by not taking a swing at the tv vet
A lot of time and effort for not much return,  but we had a great time, a whole day off,  not even a display at Bovey castle just slightly embarrassed when it took us 5 minutes to work out the big building we were stuck in traffic near was the houses of parliament (and we could not work out the point of bus lanes)

3000 displays at Bovey Castle

Well this week I did my 3000th display at Bovey Castle hotel, quite an achievement as I started contracting there when it opened in 2004, coming in to cover for a couple of months whilst they got their own falconry set up going, but for some reason they never got rid of me.(apparently someone did laugh at one of my jokes once)
It is one of the most fantastic places to be doing displays, the setting on the terrace is stunning, made to have hawks flown round it, and the views over the golf course gives the eagles a chance to spot potential targets!
We've been using the Hotel for lunches for our falconry days and hunting days, and have never been disappointed in the top quality food, the only problem being getting clients out again if the weather is a bit Iffy, and quite a few of our clients have decided to stay there during their visits to us.
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Artemis' first display

Well Artemis too part in her first flying display today, performing (in a very limited fashion) in the breafast time display at Bovey Castle this morning

Her manners are still lovely, and as training progress she is going to be a stunning adition to the displays at the hotel and give a great oppertunity to clients wishing to spend time working with an Eagle

Shazza's progress

She settled well yesterday and is even better today, hooding needs a quick hand, but is manageable.

She went into Bovey Castle today to look round and behaved perfectly, without baiting once, even posing inside for a couple of photo's.

The dogs are a permanent fixture while she's being manned, but  Danny gets a bit over excited, I think he assumes I've got a BIG Harris' for him to go hunting  with

Waiting for a rabbit to bolt,

Agravane,Gawain and Horrible hector a few days ago, back when we still had sunshine

The big old owl

I was talking to  someone yesterday about how much abuse Merlin, our Euraisian eagle owl gets from me during the course of a year, as apparently I can be  quite rude about him (I'd say honest was more appropriate) and we started trying to  tot up how much he's actually done in the 10 years that I've had him .
Even at a conservative estimate the figures were quite amazing, he's done getting on for 4000 public displays, flown to around 6000 individuals, appeared on TV at least 6 times,  done 4 radio interviews.
No wonder with  all  this he has managed to embarrass me in more places and in front of more people than  all my other birds put  together

We're moving

After a lot of persuading we are taking out the lease on a new 60acre site with room Indoor flying s so we can do our introductions in practically any weather, better hawk accomadation, and better facilities for clients to make the Falconry experiences we do even more memorable.
We will be able to offering pub lunches as part of our day experiences (to give clients better defrosting in cold weather), adding to the hunting team to make our hunting days really unique, and adding even more variety on the Falconry experience and Falconry day.
The move won't be happening till after Easter so in the mean time it is business as usual (obviously with a lot of plotting and planning)

A view from Puddaven

Looking at the fantastic sky this evening it made me really appreciate the beautiful part of the world we live in.

Crow hawking is running down as with the snow most of the crows have rolled off the more into the agricultural land at the edges, so only Morguasse is still in action for a few final days.
We're in quite exciting times now as we are discussing planning permission for a new venture which is going to be a huge bonus on what we already have going on at Dartmoor Hawking, among other things making the hunting days even more exciting,  possibly making the experience days better (though we'd be the first to admit they are very hard to improve on ) a great improvement for the evening with owl sesions (which are turning out to be very popular) and making expansion of the business easier (Have no fears we're not opening to the public) as we're growing nearly faster than we can keep up at the moment.
Last year, apart from a couple of minor blips was a great one for us, this year is looking even better.
we never like to rest on our laurels, we think what we offer is already excellent, but excellence can always be improved on

Letter from America

I had a lovely email from a couple from America who came out with me a couple of years ago, and with Marks permission I'm copying it here, it's really made my Christmas:

Hi Martin,

Sometimes you have a profound effect on someone's life, and you might never hear about it.  That's sad.
Here's an instance where your kindness enriched someone's lives, thousands of miles away.

We flew with you one day about 2 years ago.  Attached is a picture from that day, of Cindy, me, Mark and Grumpy.
Also attached is our Christmas card this year, Cindy, me and Roxy.

Roxy is a beautiful red tail that we trapped January 19 of last year.  She's been an incredible companion.  We have done
everything except catch the elusive cotton tail.  Hopefully, that will happen soon.
I was just overdue in getting a note off to you, thanking you for starting us on this falconry journey, and for being such a
nice friend one week long ago at Bovey.

Mark Choate

A few thoughts

Well I've been stuck in all day sorting out accounts, and as always at times like this my brain drifts off to anywhere except the job in hand, and looking at tthe diary I realised that apart from an odd space on things we already have going we are completely booked up until the 10th of January, the busiest Christmas season we have had. Richard Lammin, came over the other day to discuss the work we had in,and where he'd be able to help out, and he started telling us about some of the going's on when he lived in Basingstoke,  this was quite an eye opener for someone like me who's always lived the quiet rural life,some of it was very funny ..

For those of you who have met richard I found this great photo of him from when he was helping us out a couple of years ago, with Annous and Borris

Highs and Lows

Today was one of those days that started of really well, working out details off some work i will be doing with the BBC, quite a challanging project to say the least, which left me buzzing away with ideas, and on a real high.
Unfortunatley I was exercising Sebille later this morning and she took off after a crow she sighted at the top end of the farm. She did not return so I jumped into the truck and tracked her down, to find her dead on a lane where she had been run over.
Accidents are always a possibility every time I let one of my birds go, but they are incredibly rare and all efforts are made to make every thing as safe as possible for them, When it does go wrong it's devastating, , but the only way of putting them at no risk would be to leave them sat at home never flown.

A bit of time on the farm

With yet another miserable day forecast i postponed the falconry day we had in (good call), so put my time to good use, and slipped out with gawain to catch a rabbit so I had a carcass to use with Bors, our potential hunting owl. That took 5 minutes and a walk of at least 30 yards from the hawk barn.
With a bit more time to spare Aly and I spent a hectic aftermoom starting on the endless task of tidying some of the hedges om the farm, and now I have the joyous job of pulling black thorns out of various bits of me :-)

A fun afternooon

Having not been needed at Bovey Castle this morning I took the luxury of a lie in and did not get up till 8am, half way through the day by my standards.Any how I used the morning to catch up on something my solicitor had been working on for me and one of those conversations with the Inland revenue so thought I deserved a little playtime this afternoon anbd slipped out with Morguasse , Sebille and Mordred.
The two Girls both flew well, with Morguasse cathing her crow in the air after a nice flight, and Sebille lost hers in a flock of sheep when the flight slid off the moor.
Great fun with Mordred (aided by Danny) as we rat hunted a magpie up and down a gorse bank, before it made good it's escape when he slipped out of position. Next year I'm hoping to fly a cast of male Prairie/Barberies at magpies as my magpie hawking has been some of the best fun I've had this Autumn. No photo's as I'd left the Camera at home