Archive for the ‘Falcons’ Category

UP, UP and Away!

Wednesday, June 30th, 2010
Norm and Jacques have taken off on a flying adventure of a lifetime! They spent a great deal of time re-packing the plane so as to keep the weight appropriate and evenly distributed. Their final destination – Eureka, Nunavut! We will follow their travels over the next few weeks so be sure to check in on us as we keep you posted.

We (and the collies) are very excited about our new ranch members – Charlotte and Tiger. They have settled in quite nicely in their new home along side the creek by the Honeymoon Cabin. It will be fun to watch their personalities develop, not to mention their weight!

Brian entertained the Clinton elementary school children as they stopped in for an informative visit and demonstration during their year’s end school trip. They seemed to be as entertained by the turkeys as they were by Brian and the falcons!

The morel mushrooms are out and many are taking advantage of the bounty. There are pickers and buyers everywhere in the area as last year’s fire has made for an exceptional growing year. We had a chance to sample some of the harvest as both Nan and Yalaporn cooked us up some delicious morel dishes – a great compliment to a wonderful meal!

We were blessed enough to have clear nights surrounding the full moon. Hopefully Canada Day will gift us with continuous, beautiful summer weather for us and our guests to share.

Happy Canada Day !:)

Norm and Jacques spent countless hours preparing for the their flight, repacking and repacking ... and repacking!

Charlotte and Tiger are very happy in their new home!

New EVR members rooting away!

Brian flying Jeffery for the Clinton elementary school children.

Jefferey is excited about his reward.

Now it's "Spook's" turn.

Brian and Spook

Spook's turn to fly.

The school kids loved the turkey's response to their many silly questions!

Full Moon overlooking the Lookout lodge

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May Long Weekend, and Beyond

Friday, May 28th, 2010

The Victoria Day long weekend at Echo Valley was filled with beautiful spring weather, great food and many laughs as guests enjoyed horse back riding, fly fishing, falconry, hiking, viewing the new bear cubs in the horse pasture, and many other activities offered here at the ranch.

And, of course, after all this exhilarating spring activity, the spa was the perfect escape for rejuvenation – a popular topic at dinner time!

The Gyrfalcons are now over one month old and eating non-stop! Brian keeps the food supply topped up so they never run out. The adults feed the young as often as they demand.

They are now half feathered out with immature plumage. Once they reach their first birthday, they will molt and grow their mature plumage; a colour and pattern that will change very little, if not at all, throughout their lifetime.

The final falcon count:

2 Gyrfalcon clutches totaling 7 chicks. 5 females and 2 males, both of which are white, an extremely rare result!

4 Peregrine falcons

Gyrfalcon chicks resting and gazing at my camera flash, content with bellies full from their last feed.

Brain has been introducing "Spook", the 3yr old white, male gyrfalcon and "Jeff" the 1yr old male peregrine falcon to his new duck-like lures created by Ritchie Elliott from the lower mainland.

The guests really enjoyed a runway walk with Norm, Nan and the collies after a festive, flavourful and filling Victoria Day dinner!

Heading back from the end of the runway on this beautiful, sunny evening.

Time for a break after an exciting canter up to the look-out!

And for Memorial Day weekend…some looking forward to the Clinton Rodeo…and others, well nothing more relaxing and rewarding than an authentic Thai massage!

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Just 10 days out of the shell!

Saturday, May 8th, 2010

At last we had the opportunity to take some pictures of the Gyrfalcon chicks.
Next year we will set up a video camera so that we can watch the entire process of raising the chicks from the time the nest is made through to when the chicks are ready to leave the nest, for this year we have to wait for opportunities such as the following when the chicks are removed from the nest, rings placed on their legs and then quickly returned to their, by then, agitated parents.

OK, so I should have used a flash :) , but let's describe what is going on. This picture shows brian climbing the ladder to the hatch that is located just above the ledge that the Gyrfalcon makes its nest. Dorothy is seen about to enter the Mews, her job is to distract the falcons such that they will not attack Brian when he reaches in to take their chics - Dorothy is brave, Brian is brave too plus puts a lot of faith in Dorothy! :)

It amazes me how fast the chicks grow, in the following pictures the chics are only 10 days old! (more…)

Posted in Falcons, Nature | 3 Comments »

Gyrfalcon eggs

Wednesday, March 24th, 2010

The two pair of gyrfalcons have now produced eight (8) eggs between them, four per pair.
 Last year Brian took eggs from the nest and incubated them himself with the aid of a fancy incubator. When you do this the falcon will lay more eggs to bring the clutch up to four again – amazing!

The male gyrfalcon is the smalleer of the pair and can be seen at the top right hand corner, the femail is sitting on the ledge upon which she has laid four eggs.

By the way, we used to have three breeding pairs of gyrfalcons but a bobcat managed to climb to the top of the mews, which is covered with a wire mesh, then kill and half eat a female!
This was of course very upsetting and annoying to say the least, apart from the bond between the gyrfalcon and Brian in particular, the bird is valued at over $25,000 and would have produced four more falcons this year!
Having said that, one has to admire the ingenuity of the bobcat which does, after all, need to eat; Brian figured that the bobcat climbed up a nearby tree (..plans in place to remove it) from which it jumped across to the wire mesh which covered the top of the mews (..mews is a fancy name for places birds are kept in). The bobcat must have then snagged the gyrfalcon when it flew by close to the wire and within range of the bobcat’s claw – the bobcat managed to eat half of the gyrfalcon before what was left fell to the floor.

(more…)

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Flying Falcons to the lure

Monday, February 8th, 2010

Falconer Brian Davies has been working with Echo Valley Ranch for over 14 years and one of the things he does is raise Gyr and Peregrine falcons. Brian is a falconer from way back and we will be writing more about him in later blogs; Frank L. Beebe, who is very well known in the falconry world and had a book published “The Compleat Falconer”, rates Brian amongst the top best natural falconers in the world – coming from Frank, that means a lot.

We will be blogging the raising of Gyr falcons at Echo Valley Ranch, from the time the falcon makes its nest in our falcon mews through to having young falcons ready for delivery to other falconer’s  who will use them to hunt.

 We will also be posting some pictures of Brian flying the falcons to the lure, which our guests love to watch; Brian releases and flies falcons to the lure every day at the ranch at 1:30PM.

We do have a short video showing Brian flying the falcons www.youtube.com/watch?v=WAiiv40n1xU

The two pictures that come with this blog show what needs to be done when, on very rare occasions, the lure is not moved away from the diving falcon in time to avoid a strike. The pictures show the strike which is immediately (more…)

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