Lures and Baggies

Musket had an interesting week. I decided to work her on the lure again to reinforce the response since I have been teasing her with it in the field to encourage her to follow. Our routine has been to, weigh the hawk, free-fly her around the yard, getting her to come to the fist for tidbits and follow me through the trees, then give her the lure. It has been going well, for the most part.

Early in the week when I flew her and she was below weight, she was getting eager and took off just as we walked out the front door and I didn’t see where she went. When I came out, I blew the whistle and she came down to me from the trees for the first time! I can’t explain the feeling of wonder I had at that moment. I flew her around the yard and gave her the lure just as I had planned, it was perfect.

We did this little exercise several times throughout the week, and she was behaving well until she discovered the rabbits. I’d been covering the rabbits with a tarp on our little forays because I knew if she caught a glimpse of them, she’d try to kill them. She was following well and then stalled in a tree. I walked across the yard and whistled to try to get her to come to me, but she was distracted. I didn’t realize until too late that she had seen the rabbits! Sigh. I heard her bells and to me it sounded like she was after something, so I came rushing around the corner to find her under the rabbit cages trying to figure out how to get to them. Dismayed, I made for her, but she leapt and grabbed the cage from the bottom. She had the cage with so much force that I thought she had one of the rabbits. I pulled back the tarp expecting to see a mangled rabbit, instead I saw my breeder standing over the treacherous claws, sniffing them!!! Stupid stupid stupid!! I could not dislodge Musket from the cage, so I brought out my lure and tossed it to the ground. She hesitated, but eventually decided that she preferred the lure to the rabbit and went for it. Then, I traded for the lure and took her away from the rabbit cage.

I had hoped that this incident was the end of it. On Saturday, I waited all day for the squirrels to show up, but they stayed away so I decided to hunt her on a baggie. She was about ½ an ounce high but I wasn’t too worried about it. Lesson learned. At first she was attentive and flew to objects and back to my glove. I got her into a tree and she was following a little slow and far behind. Then she got into a tree above the rabbits and even though I had covered them very carefully so there was no way she could see them, she still knew they were there. Typical lazy red-tail, content to be patient waiting for the food to come to her, sigh, no amount of whistling could get her to budge. I had to pull out the lure to get her to come to me and away from those rabbits. She was sluggish so I decided, okay, let’s just go ahead and give her the baggie and end this. We used one of the babies, the cute grey one that had frostbite on two of its toes. She took a while to see him, but when she did, she shot down like a rocket and got him by the head. He never made a sound and she held on until he was dead, which did not take very long. She traded off easily for a chicken leg and I put her back in her mews.

Hazen said he was paying close attention to her when she went for that rabbit and she didn’t miss a step. It didn’t seem as though her eye impaired her whatsoever. Maybe she’ll just have to be a bunny hawk. But I haven’t given up on squirrels yet! She gets the next two weeks off while we vacation in California. My wonderful in-laws have agreed to brave feeding her for that time. Then I get to see where her weight is and start working her back down.

Merry Christmas!!

Flying Squirrels

I should re-name my bird Crash after today!

I got in touch with Rudy's other apprentice, Tom Norris. We decided to meet up and hunt our birds together this morning. He has a small female redtail named Rose. He's had her a few months longer than I've had Musket.

We decided to meet up at my office since it is in a Wildlife Management Area and I've seen squirrels frequently outside. Right when we got there we could hear squirrels barking in the trees. He got his bird out and we headed out to the woods to see if we could track them down. As soon as we got near the trees, the squirrels went quiet. We put Rose up in a tree to see if she could see them better than us from the ground, but Rose was not very responsive; Tom said that she was a little high in weight. Well, she went up into a tree and followed us fairly well at first, but then, got rather sluggish and decided that she was pretty happy up in that tree. We got her to follow us through most of the pines and found a nice oak hammock where we could hear some more squirrels barking. But we could just not get Rose to come down to where we were. Eventually after calling her for 20 minutes or so, Tom decided to lure her down and end her hunt.

Then it was MY TURN! We got Musket and headed back to where we had heard the squirrels barking. Tom brought his bird with us, which I was at first unsure about, but Musket and Rose did not seem to mind eachother's company. I put her up in a nice oak tree and started to work my way through the brush. Musket followed faithfully keeping a close eye on me the whole time. At one point in the hunt, Hazen (aka eagle-eye) spotted a squirrel in a tree just as it flattened itself along a branch. He kept his eye on it and I coaxed Musket to where we were. I did have to tease her with the lure once, but after that, she was on me! When I'd blow the whistle, she'd try to come down to me or come to a branch over my head. She never hesitated to crash through the small branches in her flight, it was pretty fun to watch. All this was new for me since before, she's been happy to stay up in a tree once she's there, usually. I had her working all around this squirrel. We tried to get it to move by throwing sticks at it, but it knew that in order to survive, it needed to say perfectly still. After about 20 minutes working Musket around this tree, she finally saw the squirrel and took off for him. She grabbed the branch where he was huddling and footed it hard, just missing him. He shot off like a rocket and she was in hot pursuit. She lost her balance and landed in another tree facing away from the squirrel just has he took a desperate dive out of the top of a 50 foot oak tree. She didnt see the dive. But she heard the scuffle and saw the squirrel scurrying up the tree. She headed right for him and followed where he went. She lost sight of him eventually but jumped into a squirrel nest and flushed him out again. I thought she had him then, but he managed to escape again and flattened himself against a limb. Hazen said that he could see the squirrel and the bird in the same view from his binoculars, but she didn't see him. We tried in vain to get the squirrel to move so she would try for it again. Eventually I blew the whistle at her and she made over to me, but the squirrel still didnt move. I tried one more time to get her to go back to that tree to go after him, but she was intent on me and eventually made her own way back to my fist. At that point we were done. I called it quits for the day because she wasn't trying anymore, but it was an exciting chase anyway.

So, we still have no wild game. We've had two exciting chases this week though, and I'm encouraged to see her trying for squirrels so hard. Maybe we'll get the next one!

North Carolina and Nuisance Squirrels

It’s been some time since I’ve been able to update this blog. We spent a fabulous week with the Mitchell/Warren Crew in North Carolina. Musket came with us and was wonderful to travel with. When we take our dog, we have to make bathroom stops for her to get out and stretch. Musket calmly road in her Giant Hood, never making a peep and hardly moving her bells, you hardly knew that she was there.

The three story beach house that was rented for the week had a wonderful garage where we housed the bird. She spent the week being visited by friends and family and staying tied to her perch. She was quiet and stoic except when she decided whe was hungry and ate the glove sheath and the rag that was on her scale, which she knocked off and broke. Oh well, she can't be perfect. Despite the below picture, I think she's more proud of herself than ashamed. She cast up a pellet of rag pieces after we got back to Florida. Pretty funny.

I had hoped to have the chance to hunt her on some North Carolina rabbits or squirrels. I had to purchase a special falconry license to be able to fly her there, in addition to an out of state hunting license. Warren had picked out a good potential rabbit spot in a field across from his house. Not willing to lose her 12 hours north of us, I did some practice flights on the creance. The first was out on the beach where we attracted quite a crowd. Musket did not know how to react to that kind of stimulus. She saw the big blue ocean and tried to take off for it. I did manage to get her to come to me, but she was sluggish and unwilling, so I quickly put her up.

The next morning, I woke up early and tried her just the two of us in the street in front of the beach house. She was a little more responsive, but still a bit sluggish. I wasn’t feeling good about her response, so I decided that I would not hunt her. The next day, it started raining and didn’t stop until we left. Though I think some of the family were disappointed that they did not get to witness a hunt, I felt good about my decision and took my bird home with me.

This week I had to work a day out of the office because they were working on the electricity and the power was off. I kept a careful eye out the window in case one of the squirrels that we have been feeding all year decided to make an appearance. Well, lo and behold, in the early afternoon, two of the squirrels showed up on the feeders. My heart racing, I gathered all the equipment I needed to hunt with, covered up the rabbits, and took my bird out of her Mews. We came around the front of the house and I showed Musket the squirrel. She took off! But in the wrong direction. She wanted a better perch so she took to a pine tree in the yard. I watched her go and the squirrel that had been on the feeder had vanished. I searched for it and saw it magically transported to the end of property line. They can really book it when they need to.

I walked over to the gardens behind our house and tried to find the other squirrel since I didn’t see where it had gone. Musket followed me to a better perch. I was considering calling her down and walking into the woods to search when I noticed that she had her eye on something. She took off straight for the largest tree we have in the garden. I thought she might be going for another perch, but she slammed into the trunk of the tree and then I saw the squirrel she had been going after. She missed, but barely. It probably had something to do with her eye. She was brilliant though. She landed in another tree and tried to see where the squirrel had gone, but it had managed to get up into the tall branches and out of danger.

I called Musket down to the fist by teasing her with the lure and took her back to her Mew. She was pumped! Poor bird. At least she got to kill her lure. The hunt was thrilling regardless of the miss. I just hope she can get something soon.

The baby bunnies are getting so cute. It's amazing something so cute could come out of something so dog ugly (mom is no beauty queen). I'm trying desperately not to become too attached to them. Hopefully we get some squirrels soon!

Hunt by our Lonesome.

I had been gearing Musket up all week for a hunt this Saturday. Rudy and Tom (the other apprentice) were planning on heading out to the 1,000 acre place to hunt squirrels. At the last minute, they cancelled, so I was stuck with a hungry bird and no place to hunt. The farm where I keep my horse usually has squirrels in the trees, in fact, their dog had killed one the past week and I figured if he could get one, so could my bird. We got permission from the owners to come out early Saturday morning to hunt. The night before was below freezing, but we braved the cold weather in anticipation of what was to come. We arrived at the farm in the early morning when the squirrels would be most active, or so we thought. When we got out and started looking, there were no squirrels to be found. Concerned, but determined, we let Musket go and she flew into a tall oak. Something I’m beginning to notice about her is that she is unwilling to come back to the fist once she’s up in a tree no matter how hungry she is. I don’t know if it’s inexperience, or unwillingness, but I think it might just be her personality.

Musket kept a close eye on us from the tree and would wait until we were out of sight before diving between branches to find a perch near us where she could observe our activities. We walked all through the wooded area of the Farm and saw lots of little warblers and woodpeckers, and even got mobbed by crows, but no squirrels… anywhere! Musket diligently followed us through the entire woods. She still has not learned to stay ahead of us, but the fact that she is starting to follow and I didn’t have to tease her with the lure once is a vast improvement and well ahead of where I thought we were.

Eventually we had to give up the hunt. Maybe it was just too cold for the squirrels to be out yet, who knows. We had brought “Brandy” with us to hunt in the event that wild game was unavailable. Musket sure knows a rabbit. As soon as she saw the baggie, she made for it and latched on with determination. She had the rabbit by the back legs and it struggled for a while, but eventually gave up. I was amazed at how quickly the frisky rabbit who had clawed up and down my arm, easily outweighed my hawk by double, and with the threat of impending doom just lay down and gave up. Musket worked to get a better hold, always trying to get control of the head. She definitely knows how to work rabbits. Hazen and I assessed the situation. Musket had wrapped herself around a branch and the rabbit and I was afraid if we tried to adjust things that she would break her leg because she was not letting go of that rabbit to save her life. Eventually we decided to cover the rabbit from her view, quietly finish it off, and then get her to trade off to the chicken leg I had in my vest. It took her a while, but she eventually gave up the rabbit and came up to the fist. I let her have the whole leg since I wasn’t planning on hunting her again that weekend. She was very satisfied with herself.

So, now we’re down 1 baggie and 1 previously dead squirrel. Still nothing wild taken alive. I have a lead on a 600 acre place in a sandhill that is supposedly loaded with squirrels. Hopefully I can get access to it and put her somewhere where she can’t miss a squirrel. So far so good though.

Our second "Brandy" kill. Don't feel sorry for it, this rabbit was a DEVIL!

The Hunter... well, sort of.

Saturday was the big day. I worked all week to try to bring Musket's weight down just another ounce or so. I got half an ounce, and that was with her eating only every other day. She's been spending most days with me in the office, so maybe this inactivity has her holding on to those ounces. I'll try to leave her at home most of this week and see how it goes. Ahh... the joys of weight manipulation, it's really an art.

Well, I got in contact with Rudy, my sponsor, and he was gracious enough to let me come to his house and hunt one of his squirrels. I wanted his moral support since this is still new to me. His calm attitude about the bird flying helps to keep me calm. Hazen and I woke up at 6am to head out to Rudy's place. We got there just after the sun came up and the critters were starting to move. There were three squirrels in Rudy's front yard right as we got there, so after we greeted him, he instructed me to let the bird go. I got myself together, pulled Musket out of her box, and turned her loose. She went right up into an oak and started working her way up the tree. The three squirrels stealthily slunk away and Musket didn't see them.

After a while, we decided to head to the back yard. To get Musket to follow us, I flashed the lure at her. She came right over and landed in a tree above us. Then, we started looking around for squirrels, eventually, we saw one sitting stock still on a branch. All of our moving and shaking could not get this little fellow to budge. We finally decided that we would wound him to see if that movement would get Musket's attention. Rudy pulled out his high-powered air rifle and shot it in the leg. The Squirrel, injured, tried to climb out of the tree, fell, and Musket saw him! She came shooting over and the squirrel scampered up a tree to potential safety. Musket landed in the branches near the squirrel and he stopped moving immediately. He was pretty clever, hiding behind the trunk of the tree just out of Musket's view. Apparently, she's not very skilled with squirrels. She never did manage to get this little guy. He found a woodpecker hole and ducked in to escape.

Bummed, we moved off further into the woods to scout out another squirrel. We finally found one way high up in the small branches of an oak. Now the trick was to get Musket down to where she could see this squirrel. I went and flashed the lure at her again, it took her a little bit to decide to come to me. I put it away and she landed in a tree above me again. She was still not following, so I flashed the lure again and she came down to my glove! Perfect!

Bird in hand, I walked her over to where we saw the squirrel and she put herself up in a low snag. Rudy, following the same procedure as before, tried to wound this squirrel to give her an easier target while we are training. Well, he has a really nice air-rifle and a good aim, because with one shot, he killed the squirrel. It was dead before it hit the ground. Strike two. Musket was way out of range and didn't even see the squirrel fall. I went and gathered the squirrel and we tried to decide what to do.

Musket came over to us on her own this time and landed on a tree above us. Rudy and Hazen were working out how to do a mock hunt with the dead squirrel and I decided to go check and see if that other squirrel we had wounded was feeling brave enough to come out of hiding. Musket came along behind me and landed in a nearby tree. I moved forward again, and so did she. This wasn't just a fluke, she was following me! I was amazed.

Eventually we decided to tie a string to the dead squirrel and loop it over the crook of a tree. I held Musket on my fist and Rudy and Hazen readied the "hunt". She saw the squirrel and immediately grabed it out of the tree, taking it to the ground. We let her sit with it for about 10 minutes as she held it unmoving. I slowly worked my way in there, and she gave me some worried looks and started making small squeeking sounds. Eventually I offered her a whole chicken neck on the glove and she actually left her squirrel to hop up to get it! Rudy said that the fur on the squirrel is a lot of work and they prefer the easy meat of raw meat to having to work through a tough hide.

I still think that we had a successful day. We didn't get anything alive, but she followed me. Rudy was even pleased with it, he says we are moving along quite nicely and gave me a pat on the back.

Hazen took a picture of her on her squirrel that I'll try to add to this post soon. We're going to try again next Saturday at this 1,000 acre place that Rudy has access to.

Fun fun!!

Flying High!

Musket’s weight has been slowly dropping. The washed beef helped her loose a few grams, but she still has not dropped as much as I would have liked. It’s been cold the last few days, but I’ve been keeping her in the house, so I might start putting her outside at night… that should help take the weight off.

Saturday and Sunday, I free-flew Musket at home. She has gotten better every day. Last Monday when I flew her, she was pretty good, but still made me nervous when she was a little hesitant to come back. She was a bit lower this time and she flew pretty well with Hazen videoing the whole thing. She’s usually pretty shy when he’s there. I think bringing her down another ounce will just give me that edge.

Sunday, I flew her without distractions. She was fantastic! She usually wants to fly to her bell perch, but she didn’t give it a second glance and was looking all over for perches to try. She decided at one point that the ground was a pretty good perch. I don’t know how to break her of that, maybe I’ll only reward her occasionally for a ground perch. Her favorite perch is the post that sticks up above the mew. She’ll fly to that and I’ll walk around all over the place. When she feels like I’m too far, she’ll make for me. Some falconers don’t like it when birds just want to play the game of coming to the fist. I don’t mind it because it means my bird wants to come back to ME!

I put her in a small cherry tree and she took to it really well. She even took the initiative of working her way higher into the tree to get a better perch. She was wonderful! She’d come before or instantly after I called. I really think that she’s about at the point where she is ready to go! I love this stage! There were moments in our flying yesterday that I really felt like part of a partnership with this wild bird. I’m so happy.

LOOOONG Week

After the excitement of Monday's free flight at home, this week has been relatively slow comparatively. Musket and I have plateaued. I have been flying her mid-day at work and she's been pretty slow to respond. Her weight has also leveled out, so I bought some beef that I let soak in water to get all the blood out of it and have been using that as our tidbit meat for the last day.

Yesterday night at the house, she managed to get her leash loose and I was outside when I heard this loud crash against the door. Guessing what happened, I peaked inside to see my bird looking at me with those hungry eyes. I went around to the other door and grabbed my glove. Once she saw it, she b-lined for me. I still had some left-over tidbits from our earlier session at work (since she was so slow to respond then, I decided that I needed to work on dropping her weight and that was more important than finishing the creance flying). Well, she got her tidbits. Oh well.

When I finished with my outside chores and came in to feed Sabel, I found a disaster in the laundry room. I guess she had gone for that window too. One of the living stone succulents had been knocked off the shelf, pot broken, and a bite taken out of it! I guess she really was hungry! I wonder if she saw a squirrel or bird through that window and she went for it.

I wanted to try to hunt her this weekend. I might try a hunt around the house and wait for one of those squirrels to show up and then ambush them. I need to get in touch with my sponsor and see what his plans are. I'd prefer to do the first hunt with him, but we'll see.

Big Changes, but still a long way to go.

I wanted to take a break from my regularly scheduled blog to talk about the recent events in our country. This gives me an opportunity to write down some of my thoughts and I invite others to share their opinions as well.

I believe that yesterday marked a great milestone for our country. The United States has elected it's first black president. Amazing. I was reading stories today about black centenarians, some who were the children of slaves. In their lifetimes, they have first hand accounts of what slavery was like, struggled for civil rights, and were able to cast their ballots for the first black president. It's taken over 100 years to reach this point. I will not say the struggle is over for black Americans, but yesterday, I think, belonged more to them than the rest of us. I heard an estimate that over 90% of the black population nationwide voted for Obama. I think that is wonderful. And I hope that because he got such a large percentage of the American People in general behind him, that he can be effective as the unifying force that he is making himself to be. Americans put their faith in Barak Obama yesterday, I hope he lives up to the expectations. I have a good feeling about him, that he will.

Beside the hope and joy I felt last night, and the pride in our country to prove that we have a wonderful working democracy, I felt anguish and frustration that we still have so far to go. I was able to cast my vote for the first black president on the same ballot that has the most hateful piece of legislation that has ever been my duty to vote against. The Florida Ban on Gay Marriage, or the "Save our Families" constitutional amendment. This passed by a narrow margin last night, and was up for voting even though Florida already has anti-gay legislation that already defines marriage between a man and a woman only. It just wasn't enough, they had to take it a step further and ban civil unions too.

"This amendment protects marriage as the legal union of only one man and one woman as husband and wife and provides that no other legal union that is treated as marriage or the substantial equivalent thereof shall be valid or recognized."

This is the vague legal language that is now written into the Florida Constitution. I heard people say that they were voting on this to protect the children. I just don't understand what that means. I know they wanted to be sure that "activist" judges could not declare that it is legal for gays to marry and that was the motivation behind this, but they took it way too far. And they got what they wanted, of course.

I did a lot of soul searching after the poles closed yesterday. I thought about the struggle that women went through to be granted the right to vote. I thought about the new president and how long it took for us to get him. I firmly believe that in my lifetime, I will be like those centenarians and see real change for the gay community and they will be able to one day marry the ones they love without so much controversy. I hope that day will come sooner for me than it did for the black community. I hope that we will be able to look back on the past and wonder what the big deal was. But I see a long road ahead and I hope that this new president will be the beginning of that change.

Free Flight Part Deux

The days have gotten shorter since the time change. On my way home from work yesterday, I could feel it getting dark. I had prepared for this in getting everything together for my attempted free-flight. I had a new pair of field jesses that I cut earlier in the day ready to go. I put a phone call into my sponsor to tell him that I was going to make the attempt. I had mentally planned the steps I needed to take to get the bird out on the creance as quickly as possible. I even covered the rabbits just in case she got around to where she could see them. Everything was ready.

I got my gear on and had Musket weighed and ready to go. She weighed 41.6 oz, a full 5oz above her flight weight from last year, this worried me quite a bit. I thought… okay, I’ll try her on the creance for a few flights to see how responsive she is. Well, she was instant! I couldn’t get 10 feet from her without her going for me. So, my heart literally in my throat, I brought her back in the house and took off her mews jesses and put on her slitless field jesses.

Trying not to think about the freezer full of hawk food that would sit for months until I could trap again, or the rabbits that I’m breeding just for her, or the 10 months of training that I had put into my bird, I stepped out the door and turned her loose. She jumped down to her perch with such gusto that I was sure she knew that she was not tied. Undaunted, I held out my fist and she came before I blew the whistle. My mind went numb and my body filled with adrenaline. She came back! I did it again, mechanically, not breaking from our routine, and she dutifully came back to me from her perch every time. I took her to the mew and asked her to fly on top of it like we had done last year. She remembered that perch and hopped up to it. I held up my hand, wary about her being up higher and getting ideas into her head, and she took one look at me and came immediately. I was thrilled! I thought I’d try it again, just one more time. The day was getting late and I know that the birds have a tendency to want to go up and roost when the day is ending. I was afraid that she would decide to find a nice comfortable tree to spend the night in instead of coming back to me. When she went back up the second time, she did sit there for a few seconds, but just a few seconds. I held up my fist and she was busy looking around. I started to panic a little even though it was such a short amount of time, it seemed like she was realizing my fear. I blew the whistle hard and she looked at me, thought about it for a second, and then came to my glove! Ahh… sweet relief!

After that, I didn’t take any chances, the sun was setting and the shadows were past being long and starting to disappear. I flew her back and forth to her perch, having her fly to me at different directions and when I was moving. She came instantly every time! I finished it up with letting her have a Day-old Chick on the glove. She mantled over it and was very satisfied with herself. With a great sigh of relief, I brought her back into the house. I had flown my bird and she had come back to me, by her own free choice. Magic!

Video: Musket was drinking out of her water dish on and off for half an hour last night. She was pretty thirsty after our free flight!

Creance Flying Going Well

I creance-flew Musket outside several days last week. She did really well, though you can’t really tell by this video. She was very wary of Hazen out there with us and kept looking at the camera instead of me. That was not the response I wanted, she should have her full attention on me no matter what if I'm getting close to free-flying her.

I decided to feed her up on the lure on Wednesday and she did much better than last time. Before when she ate off the lure, she freaked and tried to take my arm off. There was none of that aggression this time. She was a little cautious as she ate her quail, but eventually got used to me being there and quieted down. When she finished and was searching the ground for more food, I threw out a tidbit to her and she went after it instantly. Then I covered up the lure and held out my glove to her. She jumped up to me immediately, just the response I wanted! Successful trade-off!

I then let her sit in her Mews for two days to work off the extra weight she got from a full crop and flew her again on Saturday. She was absolutely perfect, coming to me even before I called her. She was never like this last year; I think she’ll follow well in the field. I had a moment when I was flying her Saturday that I thought, boy, she’s ready to go! And I almost cut her loose. But I didn’t have my field jesses or a garnished lure with me so I decided to wait. I also wanted to have her lose an extra ounce or two before trying to free fly her. Last year her response weight was still a full 100g less than it is now, and I worry about that. But her response is just what I want, even better than when I cut her loose last time, so if the weather holds today and it doesn’t get too windy, I’m going to go for it!

I really hope that next time I Blog, I still have a red-tail.

Lure?

I'm going to try to get some footage of the creance flying if Hazen ever makes it home at a reasonable hour.

I creance flew her outside in the wind yesterday and she was absolutely perfect! No hesitation, jumped to the fist many times before I was ready (and yes, this is a good sign). She's doing just wonderfully. At this rate, I may be free flying her sooner than I initially expected.

I wanted to post this funny little video. Musket decided to investigate the dog toy. She got nervous when I got too close. I was glad I had the camera nearby.

Progress

We have been doing jump-ups all weekend, and she has been very quick to respond. She has figured out again that she needs to get herself back to her perch and she’ll wait until I present the fist to jump to me (well, most of the time).

I am very impressed with her. At this stage and weight in Jan/Feb, she was slow to respond, but now, she’s jumping immediately when I present my fist and blow the whistle. Some of it has to do with my experience; I understood where her aggression was coming from and I knew what to do to curb it. I also think some of it has to do with her experience; she’s less afraid of me and now sees me as a source of food instead of a predator. Yesterday, I had her on her indoor perch most of the day and she only jumped off of it once in 10 hours! At the beginning of the week, she was jumping two or three times every 5 minutes. Amazing!

Now that she has been spending her days with me sitting on a perch instead of flying around in her mews, she is not loosing weight as quickly. I have some meat “washing” in the fridge, which basically means that it is sitting in a bowl of water where it will clean out a lot of the blood. It will make her feel like she’s eaten, but without the weight-gain. I plan on starting the creance flights again this afternoon, as I got her flying to the end of her leash indoors yesterday. But, I won’t feel comfortable cutting her free until I get her weight down another 100 grams or so. With the cold nights (we were down to the mid 40’s last night) it should help her drop some weight quickly though. If all goes as planned, the weekend after next we can start hunting! I already have some good squirrel spots picked out.

Jump-up success!

It may be too soon to tell if my feeding her up scheme worked or not, but I have a suspicion that it has! Musket has spent the better part of the week with me in the office. She has spent evenings with me on my fist or on her new "bell" perch (picture to come soon) inside the house. She has had two evenings gorging on chicken necks and has not attempted to foot me once since. Yesterday I decided to try my hand at jump-ups again. Jump-ups involve just what you would think; the bird jumps to the falconer from a perch for a “tidbit” as the whistle blows, then returns to the perch for another round. These birds are highly intelligent; they quickly learn what they are required to do for food. Up until this point for the last 6 months or so, Musket has not been expected to perform for her meal, but not any longer.

I cut up the tidbits and readied them in a pouch for the test. I placed her on her bell perch and held out my fist with a tidbit on it. She almost immediately jumped to it and ate her treat. Earlier this week when we tried this, she just about took my arm off with her aggressiveness. I had to hold her jesses tight so she wouldn’t crawl up my arm or jump at the treat. This time she was perfectly calm, but couldn’t remember what to do next. I pointed to the perch with my free hand. She looked at the ground searching for dropped treats; since this is usually my sign to her that she needs to look around. She sat on my fist for a minute or so, trying to figure it out. I didn’t want her to start footing my glove looking for more food, so I sneakily took one treat from the pouch and placed it on the perch. By some miracle, she did not see me do that little maneuver. Once she saw the treat on the perch, she hopped down to it. I garnished my fist again and presented it to her. She popped up immediately and ate the treat and I blew the whistle. This time she still wouldn’t go back to the perch, so I dumped her off the fist by dropping my hand quickly. I had to do this two more times, but then, the lightbulb turned on and she would make her own way back to the perch! Awesome!

By the end of the session, she was jumping to my fist just as I blew the whistle! In January, it took me two weeks to get to this point, I feel very good about our accomplishment.

So I think my little experiment worked. It took the edge off by giving her lots and lots of food. Her attitude is almost 180 degrees from what it was on Monday when I was worrying that I had broken my hawk and made her aggressive. She’s calm and responsive now, all I have to do is get her to start coming to me across the lawn consistently, then I’ll cut her loose and we’ll go hunting! Wish me luck!

Musket with me at Work. I've changed the wrappings in that box... yuck!

Fed up!

I fed Musket 6 chicken necks yesterday; she was a pig! I have been using another “regular” glove to feed her to protect my hands from her sharp beak (and once her sharp talons when she got over-excited and grabbed the morsel with her foot!). I decided that two gloves were too much for her to deal with so I wanted to use my bare hand to feed her. In the interest of saving my fingers, I thought tweezers would work well.

I tried it last night and she only got to me once with her beak, and not too bad. As the feeding went on, she did finally start to calm down, but not until she had the bulging crop that you can see in the video.

She sat with me quite nicely for the next hour or so, content with her full belly. I hope this works. My biggest problem last season was weight management. I think I have a better handle on it now. At this point she does not have a whole lot of fat on her, so feeding her up for a few days should not put too much weight on her. It should make her feel content, and hopefully more willing to work and less frantic.

I have a couple of silly videos I’m going to add here. In watching these, I detect a bit of a southern accent. sigh. "Folksy" is charming though, right?? But if you think this is bad, you should hear me when I'm talking to southerners.

Musket's Reflection.

We Begin Again!

Upon the advice of other falconers, I have decided that it is time to start working with Musket again! There have been significant, if not unexpected, changes to Musket's behavior from the calm, scardey passage to the aggressive, fearless adult.Probably due in part to my feeding her regularly in the mew, Musket has started to become a little footy. By "footy" I mean that she'll aggressively grab me with her foot, the danger end! I am hoping that I have not inadvertently created a monster in my bird. From my reading, second year birds are much different than first year birds. By now, they know that you are not going to hurt them, so they can get more aggressive. This aggression is fine as long as it is directed towards prey and not the falconer.

I was a bit worried about it last night when I went to take her out of her mew. I have allowed her to fly free in her mew, a condition that will be changing soon, so it is somewhat nerve-racking to come into the mew, present the fist to the bird, have her hop up to it, and then hope that she does not foot me when I go to put the jesses in her anklets. So far she has been cooperative, knowing that she will eat when she gets out of the mew, she’ll sit calmly and wait for me to put the jesses on. (She has been allowing me to do this above and beyond my expectations. Last week she would not stand on my fist and let me do this so I had to jess her in the dark.) Yesterday, I got one jess on her, no problem, then she decided that my glove had to have food in it somewhere. She looked down at my glove and deliberately footed it hard. I dropped her to the ground to let her know that this behavior was unacceptable. After 4 or 5 times of her doing this, I left her in her mew and went inside. Half hour later, I came back and tried again. She footed my glove one more time and then stood there and let me jess her. She did not try it again.

My hope is that she is still very wild from being free in the mew for months and eating whatever she wants. I am bringing her to work with me every day now and sitting with her for hours at a time in the house to start from square one. I’m hoping I can quell the demon inside her and that she’ll calm down.

Her weight is also very low right now; she is close to her old flying weight. She has shown aggression during feeding, trying to jump at the food or grab it with her foot. This is the type of behavior I want in her when we are getting ready to fly, not when we are manning. I think I will take her weight up over a few days so she’ll feel fat, and then slowly work it back down as we work. I hope this will make her easier to work with during the re-manning. I think I have my work cut out for me. Wish me luck! I am very excited to start working with her every day again!

Arrr... One Eyed Musket!

Musket on Trapping Day (Early January)

Musket after Hurricane Faye (Late August)

Since Day One I have noticed something strange about my bird’s right eye. Her pupil was not quite round and when I shone light in there, I could make out a milky whiteness deep in her eye. Since I trapped her in early January, I figured if she did have some impairment that she had done well enough to survive for that long on her own so she would probably be okay. We are slowly coming out of the molt, so I have been working with her more and more to man her back down. Her eye has gotten much worse over the intermew! The pupil is all screwy now with the iris moving into it and the milky whiteness that was just barely visible when she was put up for the molt is now very obvious. When I was holding her on the glove this week, watching a movie, I decided to test her to see just how much she could make out. At this point I was sure that there was some visual deficiency, but after my little test, I am now almost positive that she is totally blind in that eye. I could sneak my hand around and just about touch her eye without her noticing. When I did this same test to her good eye, she would pull her head back and react like I was poking her. Not Good.

I posted this comment on the apprentice falconry board that I'm a part of and got back a few responses. One of the members has a red-tail with a very similar condition and she seems to hunt just fine. In fact, he said he'd put up his one-eyed red-tail against any bird out there. He hunts a lot of squirrels with his bird. I have not tried squirrels with Musket, but I am hoping to try my hand at it this year. Squirrel hawking seems like a lot of fun with some dynamic chases and in-the-air dives after squirrles that bail out of a tree.

For some strange reason, I like Musket even more after this little discovery. I feel like it's my sacred duty to find her squirrels and rabbits to chase. I hope she does well. I have this idea in my head of making a hood with a pirate hat and eye-patch. If I figure it out, I'll post a picture of her with the new hood.

I'm going to start taking her weight down and working with her every day starting this weekend! Wish me luck!

Experiments in Bunny Making

Peregrine Falcon

Well, I think I've worked almost 70 hours in the last week. It's been pretty crazy! I had the opportunity to take a work trip down to the Florida Keys to visit some sites that are important stop-over habitat for the Peregrine Falcon as part of a team writing a management plan that is part of the process of removing them from Florida's list of endangered species. I am completely thrilled to be a part of this process! We headed out to Grassy Key and stayed in this beautiful beach house with a hawk watching crew for two days. I saw more birds of prey in one place than I have ever seen before and got two new species (short-tailed hawk and broad-winged hawk)... amazing!

Sunset in Key West


Hazen stayed at home and diligently took care of the crop of rabbits, the dog, and the hawk. I got home late Sunday afternoon, exhausted, and dreading a long busy week of work culminating with a speech on Friday! Sigh.


I was pretty sure at least one of my rabbits was prego. I figured that since the were in the cage with the buck when I purchased them, that she had conceived that day. I had done the math so I could be prepared for the babies if they arrived when I thought she would be due. Last week I had planned on constructing a nursery cage and the nest box I needed for the babies. Rabbits are not like dogs and cats, they cannot pick up and move their young, so the babies need a "nest" where they can stay warm and dry until they are old enough to open their eyes and move around.

Tuesday night, Hazen and I worked diligently making a set of nursery cages to install this weekend for the girls. I was feeling particularly anxious about this because I was absolutely positive that one of them was pregnant. I felt her belly and definitely felt movement! I was pretty excited, but still thought I had at least a week before the babies would be born.

Wednesday morning, I go out and feed the rabbits. The suspect prego rabbit is frantically pulling fur out of her belly! All the books I read said that this is a sign that she is getting ready to have her babies, but you usually have three days from that point before she gives birth. I was planning on making the nest boxes that night, so I figured I had plenty of time to get things in order before she had the kits. However, she had become aggressive of her cage-mate, so I decided to go ahead and separate them. I had an animal crate that I filled with hay and put her in there since she was so frantic about building her nest. I put her inside in the spare bathroom, wanting to keep her cool and away from stray dogs. 20 minutes later, I went in the bathroom to wash my hands and I heard a squealing sound! She was giving birth! I was shocked and amazed and grateful that I had been home and paying attention! I would have been very sad if she had given birth to the litter in her cage and they had died from cold. She gave birth to 8 healthy rabbit babies from an unknown father. She had to have been pregnant before I bought her.


Hazen stopped by the Tractor Supply store and bought another waterer and feeder for the new rabbits. He definitely won points for doing this without being asked! That night, I made the nest box and put the nest mom had made and the new babies in it. All was right with the world.





The next morning, I checked on the bunnies and took the above video. I put the new waterer in the box and left to my meeting. When I got home, I found one baby bunny dead in the front of the cage. I figured he had wiggled out and gotten cold. That was not unexpected so I didn't worry about it too much. These rabbits are meant to be food, and I had seven others still in the back of the nest. That was when I noticed that something was horribly wrong. The water bottle had leaked! The cage floor was soaked! The babies were in the back of the nest box, but instead of being warm and dry, they were cold and wet! Half of them were dead, drowned. Four of them were still alive, but were very cold and thin. I did what I thought was best and tried to warm them. I realized my mistake too late when mom would not touch them because they had my scent all over them. The last few babies died later that night. I was horrified! It was a hard lesson to learn. Such a waste!

I was finally able to breed the other doe rabbit on Saturday, so with luck, there I’ll have a new litter by mid-November. It’s so long to wait, and a disappointing failure for my first litter, though I keep reminding myself that I was lucky to have even caught it in the first place. Even still, I’ll be ready for the next one.

Bunnies!

As promised, here are pictures of my rabbits. I took a little movie because the little buck was so energetic about the camera I wanted to share. I think he's trying to tell me that he's too cute to be hawk food! He might be right.

Enjoy!

Tragic Weekend!

Well, I was going to make my next post about the cute bunnies that I purchased to breed for feeders. I thought it'd be okay to show you all pictures of the parents since they will be kept as pets (for the most part). Tragedy struck this weekend and I have a sad story to tell.

First of all...Thursday when I got home from work, I discovered that the beautiful falconry glove that I had wanted for so long and had lovingly covered in protective oils had been brutally eaten by my very much in the doghouse German Shepard. I think I flipped a switch when I saw it laying there; I felt like my child had been murdered. (silly, I know). You can see a picture of the in-tact glove on the previous post. I was so sad. That glove really made me feel like a falconer. I loved putting it on and staring at it, and it fit my hand so perfectly. All that was left on Thursday afternoon was a few fingers and the lovely trim that looked like a soaring hawk. Sigh.

As if that wasn't bad enough, the next day I get home from work and start bringing things in from my truck only to discover that my rabbits are gone! Everything around where they were housed was torn up or knocked over! I couldn't believe it! I had been planning on breeding my rabbits the very next morning and finding out a way to put them up off the ground, but I was too late... dogs had gotten to my rabbits.

My neighbor has a habit of walking through my yard to take her daily walks. I haven't really had a problem with this, but she has a tendancy to collect dogs on her walk that follow her home. I am very sure that they would not have seen the rabbits that day had she just gone up her own driveway!

With that background... I get home and find my rabbits gone, the yard torn to pieces. One of the cages had been drug off and I found my poor buck (boy rabbit) dead next to the cage. One of the dogs had torn the cage open and pulled him out of it. I was furious! I went to my neighbor and asked her if something happened at my house. She went into a story of dogs going wild and her trying to scare them off, but the most she could do was to get her dogs out of the mix. It never even occured to her to pick up the cage and rescue the rabbits. I was so angry that I just had to walk away. My rabbit was dead. She did all she thought she could, but still, my rabbit was dead.

I got back to the house and saw one of the girl bunnies. She was alive and happily munching on grass. I was so pleased to see her alive that my anger just melted away. I called Hazen and told him the news, and as I was on the phone with him, my other doe (girl rabbit) came out from under the deck. I figured they had both run off, I was so happy to see that they had found a safe haven. I kept them in the house that night and Hazen and I spent the weekend making a secure place for them to keep them away from dogs.

This weekend I had to replace my buck rabbit so we went to the flea market and found a vendor who was willing to sell them to us for 5 dollars each. Now I have four rabbits, two of them are cute lop-eared brown rabbits that are just so adorable. This is just an experiment to see if I have the ability to raise these rabbits for meat. If I don't have the heart for it, they get sold!

I'll post some pictures of the bunnies tomorrow.

Lure Training Revisited

I ran across another method of teaching lure flying to red-tailed hawks. Typically, lures for red-tails are only used to bring the bird down if she is reluctant to return on her own. As I've mentioned before, it's a safety net to be used only in emergency situations. The books I read said to give a full crop of food on the lure all the time and if you show the lure to a bird, you have to give it to them, no exceptions. Well, we already broke the rule of "you have to give them the lure when you show it to them" because of Rudy's methods, so that idea kind of went out the window.

When you hunt falcons like Peregrines or Merlins, falconers will use the lure to exercise their birds. You swing the lure and the bird comes in and tries to catch it, but you are also playing a game of keep away. It's a good way to condition the falcon. A big time falconer Gary Brewer has written a number of articles on red-tail hawking. He has a fascinating one on training the red-tail, who is typically a sit-and-wait predator, to work to get the lure. Eventually you can get them doing ariel strikes, and not just the "road kill" approach to coming into a lure. I think it will help sharpen her response a little as she has to work harder to get the lure. She likes it so much already that I figured a little more work could be rewarding for both of us.

I set about making her a new lure. I narrowed it and covered it with a rabbit hide. The first day I gave it to her, she literally jumped on top of me! As I walked into the mew with the lure hidden, she must have picked up on my excitement in giving it to her because she baited and landed on my shoulder! I quickly transferred her to the glove, but it was a little nerve-racking there for a second. Then I put her back on her perch, waited for her to settle down, and revealed the lure. She eagle-eyed it and dove for it, hitting it hard! Then, like she had actually killed it, she started to mantle over it and shake. It was very satisfying to me to see her so enthralled with this new lure. I gave her a knuckle-sized tidbit on each side of the lure. The idea is that she is eating on one side, then I have to come in and turn the lure over so she can get to the other side. I thought this sounded like a good idea so Musket would get used to me approaching her kill again. Before she'd easily give it up, but now that she has lost some of her natural fear of me, she'll fight me for it. I want her to realize that I am not going to steal her food, but trade her for it. I brought an extra glove with me and when I reached down to turn the lure over, she nailed me lightning fast with her foot. I was expecting it so I didn't react, but continued to approach her "kill" until she eventually gave it up. I turned it over and invited her back. I also gave her a few tidbits thinking that hopefully she will not see me as competition, but still the one who feeds her. We'll see how well that works. My goal is to do this with her meals for the next few weeks until she gets really used to me "making in" and trading off her kill for a tidbit.

I covered up the lure as Rudy had shown me and stood up. Musket took one look at me and jumped to my glove! Perfect! I rewarded her for her good behavior with the rest of the tidbits, then collected the lure securely wrapped in a rag and left her.

I did this again the next day with Hazen videoing the whole thing. I put it up on YouTube for those of you who want to watch. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E0XX3eFM1Ls . She was very wary of Hazen being in the Mew with us, so she was much slower to respond than she was the day before. But we're moving along. You'll notice that she still has two brown tail feathers in there. Hopefully by next week she'll be all red!

*Edit- Because this training session was experimental and I didnt want to give YouTube viewers the wrong idea about falconry, I took this off the public forum. If you want to see it, let me know and I'll give you access.

Enjoy!

Last Hunt of the Season

The next weekend, Hazen and I headed out to the Quail Farm. We stopped by Rudy’s house, hoping to persuade him to join us, but his children and grandchildren were visiting so he elected to stay behind, giving me the needed boot out of the nest. Hazen and I tackled hunting with my bird for the first time by ourselves.

We set off for the Quail Farm and went to our “usual” hunting spot. I sent Musket up into a tree and we proceeded to crash through the bushes. She still was not following very well, but I think she was starting to pay attention to what we were doing which was better than last time. I managed to lure her to follow us a little and towards the end, I think she started to figure it out.

Hazen and I diligently kicked through bushes, leaving no stone unturned. We managed to flush a rabbit. I blew my whistle to Musket, but she was a little far out of range, she dived but missed the rabbit. I thought for a second that she had grabbed it because it did seem so close, but we did not hear the tell-tale scream. When we got to Musket, she was standing near a gopher tortoise burrow; we figured the rabbit had escaped down there.

I collected Musket and gave her a little break. After a moment I sent her up into a tree. She managed to get on top of a 10ft pine, not very high. So we continued to kick bushes and managed to flush another rabbit right under her! She was off after it in an instant and crashed after it into the brush (she has no fear once she’s on the rabbit!). Again I thought she had it, but still no scream. Musket was panting and pretty tired at this point. I collected her and held her over my head while I tried to kick the rabbit back up. It did flush one more time, and Musket tried, but she was just too exhausted to get it. She got a big reward on the glove for her effort and we decided to go ahead and put her up for the day.

Even though we didn’t come home with a rabbit, I still thought the trip was valuable. I now know how hard I have to work to condition my bird to get her in shape to have successful hunts. We got to witness a fair chase between hawk and prey, and this time the prey won. I really have a new appreciation of hunting after this experience. I can see now why hunters get so excited when they do manage to shoot something since there is so much work and preparation that goes into that culminating moment.

The next day, Musket got tangled in her jesses and broke the tip off of four outside primary feathers on one wing as she tried to regain her perch. She needed those feathers to hunt, without complete feathers it was going to make it even harder for her to catch something. Since it was getting close to what the books said was the moulting season, I made the decision to start giving her a lot of food and let her moult instead of fixing those feathers. She dropped her first flight feather 3 weeks later at the end of May. Now it is the end of September and she still has three brown feathers left, she’s pretty scruffy looking (The picture below was taken at the end of August). At this rate it will be the end of October before we are actually hunting again. I have been working with her for the past few weeks and things are progressing. I’ll be updating this blog on current events now that the history has been told. It may come a bit more slowly, but keep checking in for updates!

Attempt at Hunting

We went hunting again the next weekend. This time I met up with Rudy and Tom (Rudy’s other apprentice) and Rose- Tom’s red tail. Rose is much different looking than Musket. I don’t have a picture of her, but she seems bigger and she is much darker around the face. Tom keeps her on a perch in the back of his mini van and doesn’t use a hood for her. It was interesting to see how he interacted with his bird. I think he had been feeding her up for the moult because Musket seemed much tamer.

Since last time we hunted Musket, we decided to let Rose have her turn first. We drove out to the spot where we had seen the rabbits last time. It was windy, about 10:00 in the morning, but a beautiful clear day. We got suited up for crashing bushes, putting on snake chaps and bug-spray, and Tom got Rose ready to fly. She went up into a tree and we followed her, crashing bushes and searching for rabbits. I was interested to see how she did since Tom had captured her early in the season and had been working with her for several months longer than Musket and I. I was a bit disappointed, she wouldn’t follow us and seemed content to sit in a tree sunning herself. Rudy told Tom to tease her with the lure, he did, blowing a duck call to get her attention. She responded quickly and flew into a high pine tree in bad spot. Tom confided in me that he was nervous about teasing her with the lure since he’d never done that before. Apparently, we’d been reading the same books!

We were simply having no luck flushing rabbits. Rose was not interested in following or even paying attention, it was probably too windy and getting to be early afternoon. Eventually we flushed a big rabbit. Rose was way out of range and I couldn’t help but wish that I had Musket riding with me on the glove, she would have caught that bunny! Eventually we gave up.

Rose was still in the top of a tall pine tree; she was so far away that I had to find her with binoculars! Poor Tom, he just wanted to give it one more go before he put her up for the moult. We went back to the trucks to decide if we wanted to try Musket. Ultimately I decided it was too windy and getting too late in the day to try her. Tom was desperately blowing his lure whistle and swinging away to an unimpressed Rose. I was glad it wasn’t me, I’d be freaking if my bird decided to just ignore me. After about 15 minutes, Rose finally came back down to the lure and Tom was able to secure her… whew!

Ultimately, it was an unsuccessful trip, but still a good experience. Now I know it is better to hunt the birds in the early morning or the evening when animals are moving. Rudy tells me that the motivation to hunt at these times is stronger because it’s early or there is a limited time left before sunset, and the birds know it. The season was getting late, the moult should have already begun. Musket and I would have one more opportunity to go hunting before we were done for the season.

First Hunt!

Musket was doing very well flying free and coming back to me. The thrill never lessens. Now it was time to take it up a notch. Rudy had secured a place for us to hunt near his home in Lake City. The place was this old quail hunt preserve where he used to go all the time. It was apparently under new ownership, but they agreed that he could come out and bring us as long as we did not interfere with anything they were doing and let them know ahead of time. Its 200 acres of land that we can bash around on, truly incredible!

I met Rudy at his house to carpool out there. He had secured a small rabbit at the local flea market to use in case we did not scare up a wild rabbit. In falconry, they call the use of a live domestic animal to basically sacrifice to your hawk a “baggie”. It’s not very fair to the prey, but it helps to teach an inexperienced hawk that your activities out in the field will scare up game for it. It’s also a good technique to use if your hawk gets stubborn and won’t come down after an unsuccessful hunt. Rudy had this cute little white fuzzy baby bunny that he picked up. It was just adorable…sigh. We were determined to not have to use it if we didn’t have to, but the goal today was to put my fresh bird on some game no matter what.

We followed Rudy and his grand-daughter out to the preserve and met his other apprentice Tom who just wanted to come along. We found a nice place to start crashing for rabbits and Rudy told me to send the hawk up into a tree. Let me paint a picture for you. There are 4 people out in the brush stomping around and kicking bushes. There is a hawk in a little pine tree trying to figure out what the heck we are doing. She goes up into a tree, settles in, and immediately starts searching the ground for prey. We get pretty far from her to be of much use so Rudy asks me to call her to the glove. I held my glove out and blew the whistle, after a minute, she comes down to me from the tree (good bird), so I sent her back up into a tree closer to where we were working.

We start walking and crashing and again we get pretty far from her. She doesn’t quite yet understand that what we are doing is going to help her capture something so she’s settling in the tree looking around for prey. Rudy told me to call her again (the idea is to get her used to following us without my interference). This time she doesn’t come right away, so he tells me to throw out the lure, but not to give it to her. I don’t feel really good about this because before whenever she has seen the lure, she gets to eat a big meal, but I follow his advice and throw the lure out to her. She comes instantly! He tells me to put it away quickly, so I do. When she no longer sees the lure, she changes direction and lands herself in a really big pine tree with a great vantage of what we are doing below. This is what we wanted!

So we start crashing again, then it all happened so fast! Suddenly I start hearing shouts behind me, someone has flushed a rabbit and Musket has seen it. She launched herself from the tree and crashed to the ground. I come tearing over to see if she succeeded, inwardly grateful that if she did catch a rabbit that maybe we don’t have to sacrifice the cute white bunny that Rudy’s grand-daughter has been playing with. Before I get there, Musket is trying to launch herself from the ground. She had missed the rabbit, but saw where it went and was taking off after it! The poor bird was out of shape from spending almost two months getting trained, but they are not built to chase rabbits from the ground, so she had no chance. I was pleased that she tried anyway.

She managed to get herself into another small pine tree (she was pretty whipped by this point) so we started crashing around where she was, hoping to scare the rabbit again. It must have found a gopher hole because it was nowhere to be seen. By this late in the season, these rabbits are getting pretty good at escaping, unfortunately for us.

So it came down to it, we had to use the baggie. Rudy’s grand-daughter had been playing with it. Being a country girl and one of Rudy’s, she was used to animals dying, but it still made me nervous that we were taking her pet and sacrificing it. She had even named it Brandy… ugh! Musket was still looking around and starting to catch her breath. Since Brandy was a white bunny and we didn’t want to train Musket to catch white cats, we attempted to dye her brown. Yeah… that didn’t work out very well. I think we ended up more brown on us than the bunny, but it would have to do.

We took Brandy and (hidden from Musket’s view) put her in a bush. As you can see in the picture, she just laid there limp. We had to push her around a little to get her moving. Musket had no interest; it didn’t look like prey to her. Eventually we go her attention and she came over to see what we were carrying on about. She saw the rabbit and starred at it for what seemed a long long time. Eventually she decided that it must be prey and dove on it. A lot of things happened at once. Brandy started to scream, Rudy’s grand-daughter (though she had been making jokes about dead bunnies) started to cry, and we rushed over to Musket to help her in her capture. Brandy didn’t scream long, Musket knew what to do with her. She grabbed control of the head and held on. I think it’s an instinct to do that because Brandy immediately stopped screaming, this might help to not attract other predators. Musket sat there frozen, holding on to Brandy who was still trying to breathe. I was glad that she didn’t try to eat the poor bunny alive. Rudy coached me through what to do. I brought out a towel and covered up the rabbit. I got control of Musket’s jesses and offered her a chicken neck on the glove. Once she no longer saw the rabbit, her attention was on the meat in front of her. She let go and hopped onto the glove to eat her prize.

Hazen took the poor broken Brandy and put her out of her misery. I was hopeful for a moment that we could save her so Rudy’s grand-daughter could have her, but Musket had done too much damage. It was an interesting lesson. I was excited for my hawk and that she had killed and had let me take the prize (though she did get to eat every bit of it later). I had mixed feelings about the sacrificed rabbit, I wished it had not come to that and we had caught something wild, but I was not sad about it. It would have been much easier if Rudy had left his grand-daughter at home and that she had not formed an attachment to the bait, but he told me several weeks later that she did end up getting her own rabbit that would not be hawk food, this rabbit was fawn colored and would have been perfect bait, irony. In my mind, our first hunt was very successful. I walked out of the field with my bird.

No Strings Attached!

Rudy kind of laughed at my hesitation, but he was supportive. I went to work and thought all day about the task set before me. I called my father on my way home for some moral support and he asked me to explain exactly what the steps would be when I flew her free. I realized that I hadn’t actually gone over them in my head; I was just going to do it and hope for the best. I felt better about it after that conversation, that I was really ready.

When I got home, I mechanically took Musket out of her mew and went through the normal routine of hooding and weighing her. I’m sure she could tell that something was different, but she probably didn’t care. I had her tidbits all cut up and ready in my pouch and switched out her mews jesses for jesses without a slit in case she did as I feared and took off for the wild blue. Then I brought her outside.

I placed her on her lawn perch and backed up as I did routinely with our creance flying. She came immediately. No hesitation. I asked her to fly back to her perch and she went. We did this several times back and forth until I felt comfortable. Then I placed her in a short cherry tree and asked her to come to the fist. She came! She came back to me every time. This wild bird willingly came to me when she could have left at any moment. How wonderful!

I’m sure to her it was no big deal, not much different than creance flying. The training was there, she just kept doing what she always did, come to the glove when called.

I did these flights several times in the yard over the next few days. I could get her to follow my finger and land on an object I pointed at and then get her to return to my fist. I took her out into the acre of woods behind our house and asked her to come to me from logs and fence posts. She’d fly to the top of her mew and back down to me when asked. Now this was fun! All that hard work and fretting was finally coming to fruition.

Now that the line had been cut, it was time to hunt!

Creance and Lures: Houston we have a problem!

I had Musket’s weight down enough that she was eagerly jumping free to my gloved fist from a perch across a room. I decided that it was time to take her outside and try her on a creance. A creance is a line that can be any length (50 ft is pretty good) that is attached to a weighted object. It’s basically a leash. It allows you to fly the bird outside without fear of losing the bird. If she takes off for the sky, she can’t go further than the end of the line. She did a good job with this; it wasn’t much different than our flights indoors except that she could fly to me further. She was mostly okay, but still kind of skittish.

I had her coming well to my fist when called on the creance line outside when I realized that I had not spent the time to wed her to the lure. I am sure that you all have witnessed falconers swinging a lure around to call a bird in. This is not something that is essential to the type of falconry that I am doing, but it is a good tool if the bird goes into a tree and decides to sit there for hours until she feels like coming down. It’s extra incentive to bring her back in. Falconers “wed” their birds to the lure which basically means that the bird learns that when it comes to the lure it gets a huge reward. Most birds pick this up quickly and treat the lure like prey. Musket was no exception and learned that the lure was something to be desired fairly quickly. The only problem was that in order to wed her to the lure, I had to give her huge meals on the lure, and that also meant that my training slowed down as she had to sit for a few days to get rid of the weight. It was frustrating because in my mind it had already taken far too long to get her to the point we were at already.

When we finally arrived at the point where I felt that she was properly wedded and I was getting ready to free-fly her, we had a bad day on the creance. The following was a post I put on an apprentice falconry board, you can probably tell how frustrated I was at the time.

I've hit a snag with my Female RT "Musket". I trapped her in early January at 49.9oz. Let me say that I like to do things slowly, especially things that are very important to me. Well, we had some weight issues early and my sponsor advised me how to solve those, but after all this time, she still is not where I want her to fly her free. She has been doing some great flights on a creance from a post on the lawn to my glove with very little hesitation. I have her flying the length of my yard to me with no problems. She’ll come to me almost immediately as soon as I put my hand out there, and after we’ve done that for a little while, I blow a different whistle and throw out the lure with a full crop of food on it. Yesterday she almost jumped for the lure before I had it on the ground and then she hopped down beside it and leisurely ate the chicken I had put on there. She let me walk around her without problem, letting me put my hand right above her as she ate. She reluctantly went after a few little tidbits I tossed out trying to get her to trade off, but eventually we did that as well. All was going as planned until I took the lure away. When the lure was safely in my pocket, she walked around seeking out bits of meat that she had missed (she’s really good at this, I had no idea that there were bits of meat anywhere). The last two days of lure flying, she decided to fly back to her "creance post" after her lure meal instead of coming back to me. So, I stood between her and the perch, blocking her from flying to it and offering her a tidbit on the glove. After a while she gave me, what I can only describe as the “screw you” look, and took off! She made it to the end of her creance line and kept trying to fly off. I waited her out, patiently ignoring her escape attempts and would every now and then present a tidbit and blow a whistle to her. Well after about 10-15 minutes of this, I decided that she was not going to willingly come back, so I gathered up the slack in the creance line and walked toward her. Then she acted like a wild thing and flung herself on her tail and stuck her feet out at me. After a few attempts, I did finally get her to hop up on my glove by pushing my hand on her keel, but she was not happy about it. It was funny though because once she was on my fist, she was a different bird, totally calmed down. I actually probably could have flown her again on the creance, maybe I should have, but I put her away in her mew, and left her there for the night.It’s a bit frustrating to me because I really should be at the point where I am flying her free. It’s been a month and a half, she should be trained by now. Some part of me feels like a failure in this endeavor. But, my general way is to take things slowly. I am sure that part of this is my slow pacing and also inexperience, so I probably shouldn’t be too hard on myself (that’s what my husband says). But I can't shake the feeling that I'm doing something wrong. I have put a call in to my sponsor to try to help me troubleshoot a little bit. I think it’s just a matter of weight reduction. I know if she was not tied yesterday that I would have lost her. I know that free flying's a leap we are going to take hopefully soon, but I don't think we're quite there yet.

The board had some good suggestions. Ultimately the one that worked was to give her a full crop of food over a few days and let her feel fat, and then take her weight down again quickly so she felt hungry. I guess the birds can get used to getting little food and it gets their attention to have a full stomach and then go without again. After I tried this last suggestion, Musket was all over me! She would not let me get far away from her without coming to me and this, as I now understand it, is exactly what I needed to see before we flew.

We were now ready. I called my sponsor and told him I was going to do it, I was ready to fly her free.

Fay and Falconry

I want to take a break from my training history to give an update from Hurricane Fay. It was pretty exciting for us! We got the Florida version of a “snow day”, both Hazen and I were given administrative leave and told to stay home and brace for the storm. It would have been really fun if I hadn’t come down with a nasty cold that I’m still getting over. Oh well, it was nice to sit at home, listen to the wind and rain, and watch the Olympics.

We had no major damage, but we did have a lot of limbs come down and a few dead trees in the lot behind our house came down as well. But over-all, this was a tame one and a nice wake-up call to us Floridians who have gotten complacent over the last year. It’s easy to forget about these devastating storms until you have one barreling down. Fay hit the whole state. It came over the keys, crossed over the state south of us, and then turned right around and came back over us. We got the first of it Thursday night with the wind picking up pretty good and torrential rains, but no lightning or thunder. Earlier that week Hazen and I caught Musket in the dark so we could get jesses on her in case I got nervous about the storm and wanted to bring her it. I was doing fine until we started getting 50mph wind gusts, then I got worried about her in the rain and wind in the dark. When we finally got a lull in the rain, Hazen and I ran out and brought her in for the night. As you can see in the picture, she was pretty bedraggled. She simply refuses to get under shelter and will sit out in the rain all day long, silly bird. She spent the night in her giant hood in a warm room.

The next morning, I put Musket back out in her mew after things had calmed down. I guess I should have known better because we were in the eye of the Hurricane which spanned about 65 miles so it took many hours to move over us. Well, things get pretty calm in the eye, clear skies, little wind, and you start to think it’s over. The wind picked up again towards the late afternoon moving the other direction just as strong as before, so I went and brought Musket in again to spend another night safe in her box. I took the opportunity to weigh her and she was just over 50 ounces! Sigh… I have almost a pound of weight I need to peel off her before we can safely fly again in the fall. Oh well, it’s good to know what I have to look forward to.

All and all it was exciting. That was a “good” storm. Some folks lost power, but most had it back up and running within a day, unlike Hurricane Frances where almost everyone I know was without power for at least a week, I had no power for two weeks. They say there is another one brewing up south of Cuba. Maybe it will come and get us, it’s hard to say, this one sounds bigger. It’s good to know that I can just pack up my bird and leave if I need to.

I’ll resume my next post with what happened the first time I flew her free. I hope you enjoy the videos and pictures of the storm!

Early Training

Transforming a wild hawk to a reliable falconry hawk, in my limited experience, has everything in the world to do with food. Hawks, in general, are not social animals. Musket doesn’t put up with me because she thinks I’m cool. She is simply smart enough to realize that if she does what I ask, she gets to eat a free meal. Getting food from me is way easier than hunting for herself! Hawks get this for some magical reason and with proper conditioning, will respond to their falconer while flying free! Then, when they do have a successful hunt, they will allow their falconer to trade them for that rabbit or squirrel with whatever morsel they have brought to barter, like a chicken wing. Maybe one day I’ll be able to see behind the curtain, but for now, I find it simply stunning that this even works.

There are tons of different methods for building that working relationship with a hawk, but the common thread in all these discussions is to bring the bird’s weight down. I knew this golden rule, but still did not realize just how crucial it was to do this as quickly and safely as possible.

The first week I had Musket, I got her to take food from me from day one! I thought this was a wonderful accomplishment. The books said that most birds will not do this and it will usually take them several days to get hungry enough to get over their fear and take food from you. Now I wish she had been like a typical bird and was too afraid of me to eat from me. But, I had to learn the hard way just how much to feed my bird.

I don’t know how many of you have ever clicker-trained a dog, but working with a hawk is very similar. They call it operant conditioning in psychology, the “Pavlov’s dog” response. For every positive thing she does, she gets a reward. As she gets the reward, I make a sound so she associates that sound with the reward. In my case, when she did something right, I blew a whistle. This is a sound that can be heard over distances which is vital when she’s somewhere in a tree and I can’t see her, or if I want her to come to me. I’m getting ahead of myself.

When I started working with her, I’d give her a treat and a whistle just for being brave enough to take the food from me. This also helped establish to her that the sound of the whistle meant a food reward. I also wanted her to develop the association with me, that I meant food. But there was a problem, I was feeding her too much! My goal was to safely bring her weight down and work on training at the same time. I only offered her a few ounces of food a day, and her weight would drop slightly, but it I always felt like I was starving her, and her weight drop was not significant.

Still, I felt as though we were making progress. The books outlined a series of steps to follow when manning and training your bird. Some of these steps could be combined, but with my limited knowledge, I didn’t know that at the time.

I continued to feed Musket her regimented portion every day. She’d take what was offered, gradually becoming bolder as she got over her fear. I could get her taking food from my hand never taking her eyes off me, then she would eat from my glove and put her back to me. After a while, I could get her to walk towards me to take food. Eventually I got her to step on the glove to take food, until I finally got her to jump up to my glove to get food. Her weight was dropping very slowly as I needed to feed her to train her, and our sessions were already short. It was a catch 22 situation and I couldn’t figure out how to break it.

Throughout this process, she still seemed kind of wild! In the middle of my training, I had to leave for a week (Phillip and Roseanne got married), so I asked Rudy to watch her for me while I was gone. Well, when I got back, she was a different bird. She had this calmness about her eyes that she didn’t have before. Rudy had been working hard with her to man her down and was successful in dropping her weight safely, but quickly. I was a little disappointed that it was not me that was able to do this to her, but I was grateful nonetheless.

Next post… more training, and finally… free flight!!