The Orange Equipment Book

Many, many years ago, I co-wrote a book on Falconry Equipment with Jim Hodge. It has gone through 3 reprintings and 1 minor revision and we are now SOLD OUT of that last reprinting. It is time to seriously update the thing and that is my goal this summer. I should've had this in the can and ready to go a year ago, but there's nothing like being out of copies to encourage one to get busy.

Actually, here's why I haven't worked on it.... After going full-tilt in falconry for over 15 years, I dropped out for nearly 10 years. In 2000, we went to the national meet which was in Amarillo TX that year. The next year, David was born and life just got busy.  I had a great redtailed hawk- one of the best birds I've ever had- but hawking in NE New Mexico is dismal and I just started getting burned out, especially after hawking in some truly spectacular areas. I let the redtail go and lucked into a female prairie falcon which I kept for 3 years and- I'm embarrassed to say- never flew. I also let her go and then did nothing with falconry for several years. In 2010, my youngest son, Derek, was showing an interest in birds and the national meet was just down the road in Dodge City, KS, so we loaded up and went for a day.

Derek had seen a video featuring white gyrfalcons and was all interested in seeing one up close and wanted to know if there'd be one there. I said "Oh, you bet!" We pulled up to the meet after parking our Coleman camper down at the "Gypsy Hawking" place, and walked up to the weathering yard where, none to my surprise, but all to Derek's delight, there was a white gyrfalcon sunning. We hadn't been there 5 minutes when the owner of the gyr picked the bird up and came back to the gate. He recognized me immediately- remember, I haven't been to a meet in 10 years- and we shook hands. I mentioned how Derek was all excited about seeing his first gyr and the bird's owner said "Here! Hold her!" and slipped Derek's hand into the glove. Another falconer behind us snapped a picture and here we go:

Derek at his first falconry meet
(Photo- Ellen McIntyre)

We ended up going hawking with the group and not only did Derek get to hold the gyr, but we got to see it fly, helped a redtail catch its first jackrabbit, and made several new friends.  Derek was hooked. That night at the NAFEX (a falconry forum) dinner, I sat next to our Mountain Director, Paul Domski and talked to him.  "You should put in for a peregrine this year", he said.  The little wheels started churning and well... I documented it all, starting here.  And that was the start of our return to falconry.

At the NAFEX dinner, Paul Domski on the left. I'm thinking about peregrines.
(Photo- Brandi Nickerson)

We missed the 2011 meet.  I was going to take David that year, but the meet was in Utah and his blood was just super-low, and Mom and Derek were gone to southern NM.  Here's my post from that week.  In May 2012, of course, David died,  Derek was very interested in falconry then, and I took a kestrel from a nest box on the ranch and let him train it. I think this really, really helped him get through the loss of his big brother as it gave him something that's his and something new to hold on to. And he's turned out to be a talented trainer, too. That fall, we went to the meet in Kearney, NE and I was asked to play music after the country band couldn't make it. I hadn't really played guitar since David's passing and, as I talked about last week, I was pretty much brain-dead creatively.  But, I got up there and did it, had a good time, and met some new friends in the process. It made me think that, like, people actually like to hear me play and that was encouraging. I started thinking about actually practicing again.

Playing at NAFA 2012
(Photo- Scott McNeff)

I'm telling you all this to tell you this- in the course of going back to the meets and talking to falconers again, I realized that my little book has made an impact on people. I can't tell you how many people would come up to me and tell me how useful the "orange equipment book" was in their falconry progress. When our friend Heather visited a few weeks ago, she told me how a group of young falconers would gather every week and study books, including the "orange equipment book".  I met some great hood makers who told me "we learned from the orange equipment book!" Someone actually kneeled down in front of me in the weathering yard!  All this was encouraging if somewhat humorous to me. I mean, do these people know the truth about me?

At one point, I sat down and crunched the numbers and figured that I LOSE money on the book- if I spent the same time working on guitars as I did writing, I'd make more money.  Up to 2010, I'd pretty much decided to drop the book and not reprint it, but going to the meets and meeting people made me realize that it's not about the money. It's really about helping people, being a good influence on them, and contributing back to the sport. That kestrel has been great therapy for Derek and I want to say "Thanks" back to the falconry world. So, I'm forgetting about the money part and working on a revision and I'm putting some Effort into it. 

At this point, I have all the chapters in place with all my existing photos and illustrations placed. I can now see where the holes are and what needs to be filled. It's been a lot of work. I've been working until midnight most nights, but it's fun and I feel good doing it. It feels good to be pushing and driving again. It's also interesting contrasting today vs when I first wrote the book.  Here's what I posted on Facebook:

As much work as this _revision_ has been, it's hard to believe I actually wrote this thing from scratch at one point. Actually, after spending 4 years gathering information, I spent 4 months doing almost nothing but writing it and my Master's thesis. I'd work on each one for a week at a time and then switch to the other one. I took a semester off school to do this and I'd get up and be writing at 8 am, work until lunch, eat lunch, work until 3, go hawking, and then work until 10-11 pm. All of this was in DOS 3.3 and what a Godsend it was when I got DR-DOS and could switch programs w/out closing them on my big, mean 286/16 machine with a 10 mb hard drive and 1024k ram. When I was all done, I had my thesis and the book in hand. I was 30 years old and I told Georgia "I can die now."

But, I didn't. I'm still here as you may have noticed.

I'm revising the falconry book, but I not going to revise my thesis. Funny story about THAT. After graduating, I set out to get a "paper" published from my thesis ("Differential migration of Sharp-shinned and Cooper's hawks in NE Nevada"). So, I pulled data out, slapped it around, and sent it off to The Condor or The Auk, I don't remember which. It came back with "Where's N?" N being "total sample size". Well, that's a dumb thing to miss in a peer-reviewed paper! I went to my thesis to get the missing magic number and....not there. After going thru my 3 committee members, the dean's office, and independent reviewers NO ONE noticed that "N" was missing!!! Incredible. I was in full-tilt working mode by then, so I just tossed everything in a file drawer and forgot about it. I don't even know if I still have a copy of my thesis- I think I threw away the last copy a few years ago. I suppose I should go down to the barn, dig around in boxes, and see.

Yeah, Science!!!

Book progress!

And so, that's the story of the orange equipment book.  I should post this blurb from the new edition:

About the Authors
Bryan Kimsey became a falconer and NAFA member in 1983 and has flown hybrid falcons, prairie falcons, peregrine falcons, Harris's hawks, redtails, a ferruginous hawk, and Cooper's hawks. 

Jim Hodge has been a falconer and NAFA member since 1970 and has flown redtails, Harris' hawks, kestrels, peregrine falcons, and hybrid falcons.   

Kimsey and Hodge met in a trapping blind in south Texas in 1986 in which Hodge proposed the idea for this book. Kimsey thought it was a good idea and had nothing better to do so over the next 5 years he did the bulk of the writing while Hodge collected information and handled logistics and together they got the book done. The 2nd edition has been a long time coming but here it is- we hope you find it useful.

Special thanks to Bob, Ellen, Don, Heather, Natasha, Paul, Jeff, Manny, Michael, Mario, Brandi, Rich, Chris, Tom, Greg and all the rest of my "falconry family". You are great friends who have given me much encouragement.