This years DHC was held in Oracle, AZ at the world famous Biosphere 2.  It was certainly one that will be remembered for years to come.  Fantastic venue, great company and pretty decent hunting fields. 

As with any AZ meet, Harris's hawks made an appearance in force.

They also certainly did their job racking up the headcount.

They didn't take all the glory as we had a nice variety of other hawks, falcons and even a good amount of eagles this year!

We were fortunate enough to have eagle falconers willing to share the experience of apex north american falconry and introduced eagle handling to many other eager falconers.

The Hawk Talks were very popular with the biosphere tourists and we were happy to share our passion for the sport and these animals with them.

At the banquet there was a lot of important recognition to go around.  The apprentice of the year award was so difficult to choose this year.  We ended up picking Jack McQuerry but had to give two other awards to exceptional apprentices, Amber Danforth and Carissa Wood.

Two other special awards were given out.  The Ken Mesch award was given to Pam Hessey and a special thank you to former president Charlie Kaiser for his his of service and dedication to the club.

As with any meet, of course the best part was building new friendships and reinforcing old ones in the field over quarry and back at the venue over drinks!

If you happen to be reading this post trying to decide if it's worth it to go to an Arizona Falconers Association Desert Hawking Classic hopefully this answers the question with a resounding yes!