#anyway. tldr yes theyre nicer in person kajsdfhdkas

[kiwisoap]

hi! this is kinda a weird question, but ive been looking into starting my falconry apprenticeship for ages now (still gotta work some shit out first) and ive noticed that a huge amount of falconers seem particularly... hostile? to newcomers? and appear to be unforgiving of small mistakes and things like that. (this is in my states facebook falconry group, so take this with a grain of salt.) do you have any thoughts on whether people are nicer in person? im afraid of applying for a sponsor and they turn out to be super rude when it's my first time doing things. sorry if this is a bad place to ask!!!

So i will preface by saying that things, of course, will vary depending on the specific community but in GENERAL all the falconry groups I've interacted with in person have been very friendly, open, welcoming, and helpful! With that being said, the attitude in online falconry groups can be quite different lol

and yeah that kind of attitude can be kind of pervasive in online falconry spaces, in PARTICULAR toward people who are not yet apprentices, but a large part of it is that, like... falconry groups (especially facebook groups lmao) can attract a lot of people who really like the idea of falconry, but are in no way prepared or willing to deal with the reality of it. Plenty of falconers have dealt with 'pre-apprentices' asking for sponsorship who then either don't follow up, or only commit for a few weeks then bail. So a lot of the rudeness/hostility can be a way of sorta,, curtailing that type of person from futzing around and wasting everyone's time LOL.

And another aspect of it comes from the fact that, in general, you should have a pretty solid grasp on the basics of falconry before you ever attempt to get a sponsorship (imo taking your state falconry exam before you ever try to find a sponsor is a great way to single yourself out as someone who is genuinely dedicated and willing to put in the time and effort to learn, and you will probably get a sponsor much more quickly and easily that way haha). So if you are, for example, a new apprentice making careless mistakes, then it can be a sign that you're not actually taking the sport seriously, which is a risk to both your bird and yourself AND makes your sponsor look bad.

However I will reiterate that IN PERSON the vast majority of these folks are super kind, friendly, knowledgeable people who are happy to see people get interested in the sport! I would recommend trying to go to your state club's picnic (usually held in the summer) or to one of their meets (held in the winter - in TN we usually have our picnic in august and our meet in january). Showing up in person does absolute wonders for showing people that you're actually serious about it and that you're not just interested on a whim and potentially going to waste people's time asking for a sponsor without following up.