My first season of falconry was a blast. Squirrel hawking in GA is maybe the best falconry that can be practiced. My first year I flew a female RT named Zeke. I gave her a boy's name because upon being trapped, we all thought she was a he. Zeke flew around 1200g and was and is the best RT I have ever seen in my short career as a falconer. RT's are the most popular bird here in my neck of the woods.
Zeke started off kind of slow but that was due to my inexperience as a falconer. You can see in the table below that she steadily improved as the season progressed. What made Zeke such an amazing bird was that she had a TREMENDOUS hunting drive that left me and her worn out most days. She would literally hunt until the "squirrels" came home. In retrospect, I think the funnest season of all was with Zeke so far. The reason for this isn't that I didn't greatly enjoy the other birds or my dogs, but simply because I could go out and catch multiple heads of fun game with great style and I could do it on demand!
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Zeke may have been one of those once in a lifetime birds, but I doubt it. I believe the key to making great birds, that leave other falconers with desire to have a bird "just like that bird", is hunting a bird regularly and flushing lots of game for it! If you do those things, I suspect more than 99% of the birds will work out just fine.