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!!
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!!
No comments:
Post a Comment