2014/15 Season

[sussex 5,777]

What sort of acreage would you need to fly a bird , and is there a specific type of land that suits the bird better or is it they will hunt were ever they are flown ? Some of the places I do the stalking are not short of rabbits to say the least ..

[pointer 543]

They can be flown just about anywhere, I don't know how many acres we can walk over but it's a lot. The thing is if rabbits are scarce the acres aren't the issue. I used to go ferreting in North Yorkshire where we could have a good day bolting rabbits for the lurchers and the landrover was still in sight all day because every set had rabbits in.

I like the long flights on big rabbits on the sloping dales covered in rushes but I need to find more woodland for when the wind makes it hard to fly on the open land.

[Accip74 7,112]

What sort of acreage would you need to fly a bird , and is there a specific type of land that suits the bird better or is it they will hunt were ever they are flown ? Some of the places I do the stalking are not short of rabbits to say the least ..

You don't actually need very large areas as such, personally when I was in England, I didn't have any one particular large permission......but I had many small places which I could alternate, smallest of which was an area at one end of a large reservoir, I had a permit for a very small area of maybe a few acres between the water & a busy road & I took many rabbits with a goshawk there :-)

As long there is an abundance of quarry, a small area can be hunted with a Harris or Goshawk, woodland is good which has decent ground cover, ferreting in woodland with a goshawk is hard to beat IMO or open land with clear rabbit warrens for ferreting or open areas of ground cover which can be walked up easily.....

Alternating the land & quarry numbers I think is the most important thing, not so much the size of it.

Edited April 12, 2015 by Accip74