jason wall / 13 Nov 2010 06:58

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Tippler Subject Category: 

Over the last couple of years i have noticed a slight change in the way the
falcon hunts the birds (colour wise). This year i had a kit of 11 young
birds pretty well settled and on a few hours, coming to the droppers in good
time. The colours of the 11 were, 6 blues, 2 blacks, 2 creamys (i think
people call them silvers elsewhere) and a print. I had to train the kit as
an 11 because of time. On a single training toss they were hit by a pair of
falcons. The 1st falcon dived into the kit and hit 1 of the creamys and
killed it but did not take it. The other falcon took the nest mate to the
creamy, also a creamy, and stayed above the loft eating and stripping it.
The 1st falcon came back and took the whole wing and tail out of a black,
ripping a blue so bad i had to kill her then taking another blue with it. So
i lost 2 blues and 2 creamys and had a black injured. Over the next week or
so i was left with 4, 2 blues a black and the print. I trained the 4 to fly
well until the last time they were trained a blue and the black were took.
The kit had loads of attacks, even the surviving blue had her tail out but
the print never got bothered.

My mate Lee Price flys mainly Plesters and Bowden type pigeons and know he
has trouble keeping any creamys due to falcons but also the darker colours
seem to be high on the hunting list. The reason we think this is now
happening is because the majority of the tumbler flyers have light coloured
kits and these kits are very very wise to the falcon attacks and are good at
escaping, making the falcon work hard for a feed. On the other hand the
majority of the tipplers in the area are darker coloured, blues, blacks,
silvers (greys). The falcons take the young tipplers with ease often without
a chase. So are the falcons adapting and seeing dark coloured birds that fly
steady are easy prey and taste just the same as the lighter coloured ones
that are more difficult to hunt?

Dont get me wrong the lighter coloured ones do get taken as well but the
hunting patterns are defiantly changing.

Submitted by jason wall on 11/13/2010 6:41:07 AM