Tuesday, August 26, 2008

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!

Thursday, August 21, 2008

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!!

Thursday, August 14, 2008

Manning

So now I have this bird… what next? How do you go through the process of taking a wild fearful bird and transforming it into something that will fly to you out of a tree on its own accord when called?? It still seems like magic to me!

Now we enter the period called manning, this is when you get a bird used to the presence of people and calm them down. There are lots of different methods to man a bird. Some falconers try to get it all done at once and throw a big party to get the bird used to all sorts of sights and sounds right away. Some keep them awake for days to keep them tired so they will, in theory, accept their lot faster, too exhausted to resist.

Other falconers approach this period with caution and try not to scare the bird. They might place the bird in a darkened room to start with, since they are so visually oriented this method is instantly calming. They will then introduce the bird to new sounds and later sights slowly, gradually allowing the bird to get used to their new life with minimal stress. I have heard folks say that this method can create a bird that is less easily spooked and can later be flown at higher weights without as much fear of loosing the bird (more on that later). I don’t know how much of this is true, but all these methods will help bring the bird down to a calmness level and ease that allows it to work with people.

I chose the middle ground. I kept my bird with me at all hours of the day but let her sleep at night, keeping her constantly involved in her new world. We set up a tarp on the wall and floor with a ring perch to keep her in an active area of the house where she could see us moving around at all times, but not requiring her to physically be with us at all times. I put her in her giant hood and brought her to work with me every day, exposing her to all that I could.



It was hard for her, but I was amazed at how quickly a wild bird adjusted to the hustle and bustle of the alien human world. It wasn’t too long before she would fluff up and get cozy on her perch, or eye us warily but make no move to try to get away. I remember the first time she was comfortable enough to start cleaning her feathers with us in the room, I was thrilled!

Throughout the entire process of manning, I would work with her every day, monitoring her weight and slowly bringing her down to where she was hungry enough to get over her fear and accept food from me. Managing their weight is the key to success. I’ll go into detail on how to I got her to start looking at me as a source of food and not as a predator in my next post.

Wednesday, August 13, 2008

Home, the First Day.

I brought Musket home! I had a red-tailed hawk in my house! It was like a dream come true.

After the trapping, I got my new bird home safe and sound. Rudy helped me put her equipment on, so she was bedecked with new anklets, jesses and a leash. I transported her tied to a perch in a box made special for her. They call it a “giant hood” and it’s basically a narrow tall box with breathing holes that a falconer uses to safely transport his/her bird.

I spent the rest of the day with her. I laid down some tarps (because a red-tail can shoot poop up to 6 feet, maybe they should make it an Olympic sport!) and watched a few movies with her on my fist in a darkened room. I first had her out with her hood on, which she had on since we had trapped her. She had no idea where she was. When I finally took the hood off for the first time, the look she gave me was absolutely priceless! It was this shell shocked look of panic, I could only imagine what was going through her head. Poor bird, she’d get used to it all soon enough. She was pretty calm for being freshly trapped and only baited (jumped off my fist) a few times that first day. I think she was sizing me up, she was definitely scared, but I was able to get her to swallow a few pieces of raw meat that day.


You can see this funny picture of Musket and I on our first day together after Hazen got home. The house is a wreck, I’m in pajamas (typical) and Musket and I are a little unsure of each other. (You can see the giant hood in the background to the left, it’s the big white box).