The last week with Goblin has been fairly challenging. I have been following a training method set out in Gary Brewer’s book Buteos and Bushytails. I had my doubts at first, but once I got Goblin out of the house and flying to me on the creance, he was a superstar! Then, we had some bad weather days. The day after our first spectacular session on the creance was raining, so he just got to eat some food in the mew. The next day was insanely windy. I watched a tree fall in the 1 acre woods behind the house as I was trying to fly him. He was a little shaky, but I couldn’t blame that on him, the weather was terrible. The next day the weather was perfect and he did well on the creance, but after a few minutes, he would start to lose interest and look around. We also had a bad day since Sabel had torn up a toy in the yard and he attacked it and tried to eat it. He traded off well (which was something I hadn’t even worked with him on) but after that little incident, he was more focused on the ground than on me. The next day was better, but he lost focus early so I terminated the session early. I tried to figure out why his response would slow down. He seemed to be making a good effort, but it looked like a lot of effort. I thought maybe his equipment was too heavy or maybe since he’s coming off of a low perch, it takes a lot of effort to get altitude. I also had the thought that he might be too low, but I felt that if he was too low, he would be insanely aggressive about the food.
The next day I went to my class in Tallahassee. I didn’t get back until just at dark and by then, he had already gone to roost. I was anticipating not feeding him on this day and hoped that he would show keenness during our next session. Then came the flurry of storms. We had about 4 hours of thunderstorms descend upon our house dropping more than 5 inches of rain in that time. The whole time I was sitting at work on pins and needles wondering how my bird was fairing the storm or if the high winds or chance of tornados would rip the roof off the mew. When I got home, Goblin was soaking wet and sitting on the bottom of his mew… uh-oh! When I went in to get him, he was eager to take the food but had trouble getting on my fist. He was too low! I called my sponsor and he walked me through what to do. I imagine that the stress of the storms combined with low weight was enough to put him over the edge. He had dropped a ridiculous amount of weight since I last fed him. Musket could take several days without a feeding, but this little guy’s metabolism must be much higher than hers.
I took the poor sopping wet bird inside and fed him as much as he would eat. I stuck him under a heat lamp and he started to feel better and look around. I’ve never felt so horrible in my life. Rudy made me feel better about it, it happens, and now I know his low weight. Now I also know to listen to that nagging voice in the back of my head telling me that he seems a little weak, and that might be why his response is slow. I’m going to bring his weight back up and then down again. This has set our training back at least a week, but I don’t care as long as the bird is healthy. Right now he’s sitting nice and cozy with a foot tucked up and a full crop of food.
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