One of the greatest gifts in falconry is seeing that bird choose to come back to you. But that's not the only decision available to your bird. Quite often I see both new and old falconers handle their birds roughly. I want to divide this into impatience and invasiveness, though some fall into both categories.

Into the impatience category I want to put the following actions: swinging the bird back onto the glove after bating, instead of letting it scramble up and lowering the glove to make it easier; picking up the bird by pushing it hard in the chest or behind the tarsi; excessive whistling; expectations of invariably immediate response. Falconry is done best by people who are patient and can put the bird's priorities before their own.

Invasiveness is excessive, aggressive handling of the bird which is justified by the belief that it's part of 'manning'. Handling can be done with dignity, but it's often done badly. A hoodshy hawk will not become less hoodshy if it's turned on its back with its tarsi held, and the hood forced on its head.

My personal opinion is that the falconer who respects his bird as an intelligent creature will give his bird its space and ability to choose. A bird that steps up to the glove without any more prompting than the glove being available is a bird that has decided the owner's glove is a good place to be.

There's a fine line between swinging and assisting to get the bird back onto the glove. The actions are nearly identical. The difference is one of timing. The impatient falconer is the initiator of the action; often there's both some backwards and upwards motion. The patient falconer waits for the bird to initiate and the glove goes straight down. Believe me the bird does not like hanging upside-down any more than you! Once she has learned to regain the glove she will always try to get up.

Hoods, both regular and giant, are too often used to keep a bird in a state of unobtrusiveness to the falconer. I believe that hoods are necessary for training, hunting and emergency situations, but have no other purpose. The more exposure a bird gets to the human world, the better manned it will be. Certainly individuals do vary; some may never accept one and some may require a lot. My ideal hawk should be able to accept being hooded anytime, but never need one.

And again, sometimes the bird has learned something the apprentice didn't intend to teach. One of the most common ones is holding the hawk to the glove. Of course this is necessary in the beginning stages, but when you take the bird off the creance she must also learn that leaving your glove is allowed and encouraged. Before you flush a rabbit or set up a bag, she needs to know she will not be held back. Flying the hawk between yourself and a friend is extremely helpful in the late creance to gamehawking period for both this and getting the bird into condition.

There are plenty of times when you want or need to hold your bird to the glove, but in most hunting situations the bird, having vision approximately ten times your own and zoom capability, will likely spot game before you do. You want to let that bird go when she wants to go. After a while, the feel of her stance and the determination with which she takes off will tell you whether she has spotted the game, or she thinks something may be there, or she's going to take a little cruise-around, or she's going to a pole. (See 'Observing the hawk').

On the other side of the coin the bird can become too independent. In my area the lack of game can cause the bird to want to hunt by itself because the falconer isn't flushing anything. Bagged quarry or tidbits can help keep the bird on the glove.

If a bird doesn't do what you want it to do, consider first the external factors. There may be an eagle cruising nearby or some other momentary distraction. A new field will cause some insecurity in a hawk, an injury may be bothering it. A bird newly added to a cast may distrust the other bird or birds. The weather may be too hot, or too cold.

If the bird consistently does not fulfill the falconer's desires, the next guilty party in line is the falconer. (The hawk is never guilty.) Perhaps he's not flying the bird at the right weight. Perhaps his handling makes the bird uncomfortable, or his training is ineffective, or perhaps he's accidentally engendered a bad habit. He must find a workaround method.

Always assume you are the guilty party first and take responsibility. I've seen falconers justify their bird's behavior by on one little phrase or fact they've heard from their mother's cousin's best friend's kid's teacher's wife which, like in the Telephone game, has been mangled by travel into something entirely different from the original fact. All kidding aside, I've heard people say "That's the way X's are," filling in the blank with gender or eyas or passager or breed. Such a statement could be entirely true, but to use it place of serious self-examination is wrong.