Hawks and Hijinks

Fat and Happy

2010-01-27T08:13:00.006-05:00

Goblin is doing much better now. It's taken about 5 days of constant feeding, but he has finally reached a point where is is gaining weight!

It's been a process. I was told that it is almost as hard to put weight back on them when they get low as it is to take weight off of them when they're fat. Well, as usual, the experts were right. I managed to get him to eat fairly easily and I gave him 2-3 feedings per day. Basically, when he'd put over his crop, I'd feed him more. After 3 days of loading him down with food and after his energy level appeared to be improving, I finally weighed him. To my utter shock, he weighed the same if not less than when I pulled him soaking wet out of the mew that horrible day! Wow! At least this time he had energy and he seemed to be more eager about taking food and he was definately taking larger quantities.

Monday he started futzing around with his bells and jesses again, so I knew he was really starting to feel like his old self. When I weighed him, he'd put on a significat load of weight. Yesterday he spent the day in the mew and Hazen stayed home and was able to watch him. I took him in to spend a warm night indoors and when I picked him up this morning, he was noticably heafty. I've gotten him back up to a good weight. For good measure though, I am going to give him a few more gorgings and then start bringing his weight back down.

I feel much better now that I know that he is feeling good. Even at this higher weight and with all the food he can handle, he is still allowing me to handle him with minimal resistance. It is interesting though how closely our relationship ties around food. Even though he does let me handle him, he couldn't care to give me a second glance right now where I could hardly keep him off of me when he was lower.

In the picture, he has on a hood that I made this weekend. I spent a whole day on it, so of course he doesn't like it! Even though it doesn't touch his eyes, I think it's a little on the small side, so I'm going to try again this weekend to make him another one.

I still think that we'll have time to get a few hunts in this season. I hope to free-fly him before we take the trip to Texas. When we get back, I'll have to manage his weight again to get him in the right condition and hope for a few good hunts before the season is over. Whatever happens, we'll knock-em dead next fall.

Listen to the Nagging Voice!

2010-01-22T09:22:00.002-05:00

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.

And time goes on.

2010-01-11T14:28:00.002-05:00

It took Goblin 4 days to get brave enough to eat from the glove. I had to coax him by shoving a piece of meat in his mouth. It was fun watching his reaction to the meat hanging out of there. I could see his little tounge lightly touch the meat and then his eyes got wide as he realized what it was and he snapped it up. Then he gently reached down and eventually convinced himself that he wanted the food on the glove. The next day he was a little hesitant, but he took the food with no coaxing and the day after that he eagerly went for the food.

It took me two more days to convince him that he need to step to the glove now to take his food, but he did it! Yesterday, I got him to hop to my glove from this perch you see in the picture. He was entirely focus on the food, it was amazing. That first leap was hard, and the next two or three were similarily difficult, but I think after building his confidence (and stomach) for a few days of these excercises, I'll be ready to move him to the mew (hawk cage) for his next phase of training.

I love watching his progress as he learns that I'm not going to kill him, and now I'm feeding him. How confusing that must be for a solitary hunter. Now when I look in at him in the hawk box, he starts to smack his lips (as much as a bird can) in anticipation of feeding. He is also starting to settle down, and does not jump off my fist as much (though he still takes the leap whenever the mood strikes). But those moods are becoming less and less frequent. He's starting to feel like a falconry bird and less like a wild beastie. Now that he's letting me do things with him and I'm starting to settle into a familiar routine, it's hard to not call him Musket. He looks so much like her but in miniature. I still miss that bird.

Wish me luck as we move on the the next phase. Soon I'll be asking him to come to my fist in the hawk cage, which should be interesting...

At last...

2010-01-04T16:03:00.003-05:00

After thousands of miles, countless hours, a lot of frustration, and some tears; I finally brought home a beautiful little red-tail! We call him Goblin.

After our wonderful vacation to Texas to spend Christmas with Hazen’s family (and seeing tons of beautiful hawks lining the roads) we started back at trapping. Since the days are so short now, we had to wait until New Year’s Day to have the opportunity to get out and look for some birds. As forecasted, New Year’s morning was windy and wet, but it cleared out and turned into a really nice sunny day at about 2pm. After watching the Rose Parade on DVR (I love DVR!), we headed out to look for a bird. Secretly, Hazen and I were thinking, “this time we’ll get one.” I figured that after a bad weather morning, there would be birds all over trying to catch a meal before the sun set. Well, we saw birds, but no juvenile red-tails and the other birds seemed pretty scarce too.

After that day, I was feeling pretty down. Hazen later admitted to me that he felt the same way, but on the outside, we were both trying to remain optimistic even if we felt differently.
Saturday morning came and we got up early and headed south this time. We took the back roads to Ocala—Horse Country. I figured that Ocala would provide lots of open fields and we might have a better chance at seeing a bird. It took us over 2 hours to get down to the Ocala area, and that whole time we saw only 2 adult red-tails where we had seen 8 the night before. I was really starting to get depressed at this point. The way I figured it was this was my last weekend to trap with help since Hazen is teaching a class starting next Saturday. After that I’d be on my own, so I really wanted to catch a bird this time. Also, time is running short for the trapping season, it ends on January 15th.

We hit Ocala and then tried to figure out where to go next. I decided that we should make it a loop and start heading back for home so we took a turn and headed North-west. After we got out of the town of Ocala, we started to hit some open fields. Hazen saw a bird and casually informed me. It took me a second to register and then even longer to get off the road. We were too far away by the time I stopped to get a good ID on it so we made a U-turn and headed back towards it. As we were watching, a person on a bicycle drove right under the bird… d’oh! But it didn’t get scared and stayed put. It was a red-tail, but more than that, it was a juvenile! Hazen identified it before I could through the Kowa spotting scope lovingly passed down to us by Hazen’s folks. (Thanks for the scope, it came in quite handy!)

After making a game-plan, Hazen and I drove across the road to set the trap. (another U-turn) we got a pole’s length away from the bird, threw out the trap, and drove away without frightening the bird (we’re pros at this now). We came back around the road to watch the bird where we could easily drive up and grab him if he went for the bait (2 more U-turns). After about 5 minutes, he looked across the road and left his perch… curses! But he didn’t go far. He landed on a tall stake on the fence-line, not too far away. As we were evaluating our next move, he made a dive for the ground after some small animal concealed in the hedge-row… more curses! After a few minutes, he left the ground and flew, without anything obviously caught in his feet, to a small billboard. Even though he had shunned the bait before, we decided to go for it. I figured that he’d still be in hunting mode at this point. We came around the road (yet again, another U-turn) and set the trap. As we were driving off, he took to the air… I figured that we had spooked him. But I watched him in the rear-view and he was making a B-line for the trap.

I didn’t know what to do so I slowed down and Hazen told me to hurry up and loop around so we could get him. From what I could see in the rear-view, he looked caught… if only we could get to him before he managed to get loose. 2 final U-turns later, I made it back to the trap. Hazen dove out of the truck and leapt on the bird. I ran out, everything looked fine, so I went back to grab my video camera and took a short movie of Hazen with the bird. Little did I know that Hazen did not actually have a hold on the bird, he was just pushing him down, and the bird slipped out of Hazen’s grip. Realizing what was happening, I dove for the bird and in my panic yelled at Hazen to not let him go. Luckily, he was pretty bound up in the trap and I got a good hold of his legs and worked on getting him out of the nooses. About this time, a concerned citizen drove up to offer assistance. He thought the bird was hung up on something and came over to free it. He was very concerned with what we were doing and why we were trapping a bird. He asked if we had proper papers to trap a bird and I assured him that we did and offered to show them to him if he would like to see them. He was still very concerned when he left so I was sure to call our Law Enforcement Dispatch to let them know just in case someone else called with similar concerns. After the man left, we finished getting the bird secured, discovered that we were missing a few essentials like scissors and a towel, but we had enough to secure him safely.

An hour later, we had him home and in his new outfit. He’s a feisty little guy…perfect light colored male red-tail with large feet and squirrel bites on his toes. This little fellow has probably already hunted squirrels. I can’t wait to see what he does in the field!

On day three now and he still hasn’t been brave enough to take food from my glove. He got really close last night, but couldn’t quite make that extra effort. I’m sure he’ll eat tonight though, then we can really start training! He’s coming around nicely; I can see little improvements every time I handle him. Thank you everyone for listening to my whining for the last few months. I’m on cloud 9 right now, all that hard work has finally paid off and I learned a lot about trapping a bird too.

I doubt the Snuggie Corporation ever envisioned their product being used while manning a hawk!

Thanks for the perch Mom and Dad!!

Hazen with Goblin on the trap. Unknown to me at this point, he doesn't have a good grip on the bird.

First time on the glove.

Goblin is quite the fighter. Even not being able to see, he still tried to bite and claw at our voices. I'm fully impressed with his ferocity.

Christmas in Texas 2009

2010-01-04T14:49:00.005-05:00

Hazen and I spent the Holidays in Texas this year for Christmas! We took the 17 hour drive in one day (each way!) and exhausted ourselves with that little excursion. But the long drive was worth the time, we had a great time in Texas!

Hazen's folks have moved into a nice new apartment. It was so fun to see all of the paintings and furniture pieces that Hazen talks so fondly about. I felt at home right away, his parents are always so warm and welcoming! We spent the week before Christmas relaxing and catching up. We saw the movie Avatar that was stunning and fun to watch. I finally got to see some home movies of not only Hazen and Warren, but also of little Johnny Mitchell (aka Big Mitch) and his family growing up. I came away with a lot of information and finally faces to put all these names to. I also got to flip through the childhood picture albums that had been away in storage for so long. Unfortunately, there were no embarrassing nude photographs of baby Hazen to blush over. Oh well.

The week went by quickly and before we knew it, Warren had flown down and we were picking him up at the airport on Christmas Eve. We were treated to a skillfully prepared Turducken and spent the evening catching up with loved ones around a warm campfire. Christmas morning came and we awoke at a leisurely pace set by the last several days of finally being able to sleep in! We found that not only did we have lovingly constructed Christmas Stockings, but we each had enough to fill at least two grocery bags! Santa was very generous to us this year!

We opened our presents and ooooed and ahhhed over the gifts. I was particularly amazed at the hand-blown glass bowl that Hazen made for me in Alaska this summer and had skillfully hid from me this whole time. I'll take a picture of it and post it so you can see, I just love it!

Hazen's parents also passed down their birding scope. Hazen and I were just stunned when they gave it to us. I'm still a little in shock about it. We will use it well and I'm sure see many new lifer's with it. Thank you so much for trusting us with it! We've already put it to good use!

My parents also spoiled us for Christmas sending Hazen a huge Lego set (see the video below for his reaction) and many other goodies including a wonderfully fuzzy sweater-jacket that was a big hit! I'm still amazed at how spoiled I was this Christmas where they not only gave me the portable hawk perch that I've been drooling over for the last 4 months, but a piece of Vera Bradley Luggage overflowing with gifts! Mom... Dad... you really outdid yourselves this year. Thank you for the gifts, I feel so loved on Christmas and I miss home so much especially on that day. I hope to one day live closer to you. But, as it is we'll see you soon in Mexico!!

We spent Christmas Day sorting through the Mitchell treasures that could not fit into the new apartment. Hazen and I brought a truck-load of furniture home with us. We are so happy to have the extra storage and some of the beautiful pieces that Hazen has told me so much about to grace our home. Though we did discover a piece that I am sure we were not meant to have, we'll try to figure out how to get the clock back to you. Christmas evening, Hazen's uncle John made his standing rib-roast that was smoked to perfection. The meat was tender and delicious! I'd heard about this elegant meal from Hazen but had never partaken of it since the last time I was there and he served it, I was still a vegetarian... sort of.

Sunday we made the long drive home, hearts heavy at having to leave. Hazen's mother and Warren were hot on our tails hauling a trailer to North Carolina similarly laden with familiar furniture. Thank you so much for the time we spent together over the Holidays. We'll see you soon!!

Hazen opens his gift from my parents.

Warren opens the box of Christmas Goodies Hazen and I put together.

The Mitchell Treasures.

It's raining birds!

2009-12-14T15:50:00.001-05:00

So the week before last, I went with my co-worker Rebecca and picked up an injured adult red-tailed hawk. He was pretty awesome missing one eye (old injury), one toe-tip and claw and squirrel bites all over, definitely a warrior. He went to Rehab. Then I drove to live oak to rescue a downed Cooper’s hawk from Walmart and drove him to the rehabber. Then my co-worker picked up two injured bald eagles that were fighting and hit the ground hard. They flew away after they had rested about 6 hours. Then Friday a barred owl that was caught in a fence ended up in our office and I got a call that a rehabber had a red-tail for me. I went down to see the red-tail, and it turned out to be an adult bird. Sigh. Yesterday I went trapping with Hazen after getting skunked on Saturday with the constant rain. We caught a juvenile red-shouldered hawk. I let him go this morning after reading a review that they tend to take off as soon as they get a chance no matter how tame you get them. And today I got a call from my rehabber friend again that another bird ended up at the vet school in weak condition and he is definitely a juvenile red-tail, she got a look at him herself!

She told me that he’s a smallish bird, probably a male, but birds that emaciated have a tendency to die when they get that low. So it’s a possibility that he won’t make it. I need everyone to send happy thoughts to Gainesville and hope this bird makes it!

Boy… I wish this yoyo would stop!

morning view

2009-11-24T08:43:00.004-05:00

Ever have the feeling that you're being haunted. I was day-dreaming about trapping a red-tail when I looked out my office window and saw this...

I've seen a bird use this tree before, but for some reason today it was eerie.

Full Circle

2009-11-17T08:57:00.009-05:00

I had a conversation with a falconer friend who has been a falconer about 6 months longer than me. He recently applied for his upgraded permit from Apprentice to General Falconer and they took a good long 6 weeks to get his permit to him. When I asked him about the process he told me that I need to send a formal letter requesting the upgrade and Rudy (our sponsor) has to send a letter along with it basically approving my move from Apprentice to General. He also told me something that got me thinking, he said that they take your start date from the day you caught your first bird. Hmmm...

Monday I called the permitting office the lady told me that they really want to have seen me fly a bird for 2 solid seasons. I flew a bird for a season and a half since Musket was a late season trap and I have not yet caught a bird this year. I asked her if that hinders my ability to upgrade my permit. She told me that "if" my sponsor sends a letter telling them that I'm ready, they "may" agree, "but" it would be up the the feds to decide "if" I qualify for an upgrade at that point. OH BOY... went my mind, that's just too many "maybes" and ifs". I may have just shot myself in the foot here. So I asked her, "if I trap a bird in December when the season opens up again and fly that bird through this season, would I qualify?" She told me that I would. So... back to square 1. I'm going to be trapping another red-tail. I'm actually kind of relieved... that Cooper's was looking to be more than I bargined for.

Yesterday afternoon, I contacted a rehabber friend of mine, and she may have a bird for me. She wasn't sure what was wrong with it when I talked to her, but the bird was at the vet school, so I'll have to wait to see what the injuries were and if I can take it on. She's been getting a lot of hawks in the last few weeks, but only a few red-tails. I've also been seeing them all over. Looks as though the winter birds have settled in. I actually saw 2 adult red-tails sitting together on a power pole at the airport today right outside my office door, so it should (hopefully) be little trouble to find and trap another juvenile bird.

Ultimately, I've wasted a lot of time with this experiment... serves me right for trying to jump the gun a little. But I haven't been idle. I've found a good local supplier of day-old-chicks (DOCs) and I've made a few watercolors of raptors that I'm fairly happy with. So, time well spent I believe.

I scanned in my first 4 watercolor attempts to post on the blog. The scanning changes the quality of the images a little, it makes them much lighter and I had to darken them which threw off the color a little, but you'll get the general idea.

First Attempt-Eesh! I tried wet on wet and it turned into mud! I like the face on this one, but the rest... yuck. (it looks okay as a thumbnail though...)

Second Attempt-Getting the idea of blending down. I really like how the branch turned out in this one too. This was the bird that we saw in Texas going after those chachalacas.

Thrid Attempt -and I surely didn't spend as much time with this one... I tried doing details too soon, so it's pretty poor. I do like the tail on this one, but the scan didn't capture it very well. Also, I stretched the paper for this one, so it doesn't curl like the first two... it leaves ugly staple marks in it though... I guess that's what matting is for... not that this one will see a mat.

Fourth Attempt -I'm starting to get some of the techniques down and I took a lot more time with this one. I still like my second attempt better... I made the beak and feet a little too big on this bird. But, the feathers turned out much better, the eye is pretty good, the claws actually have a point and the shading is starting to do what I want. I don't know if I'm over the hump yet, but I definately feel that I'm improving with practice.

a sharp stick instead?

2009-11-13T15:51:00.001-05:00

I was just purusing a falconry forum and they said, if you think you want to fly a Cooper's hawk. Get a stick, sharpen it, and poke yourself in the eye, it's less painful!

Hmmm...

The Buzzsaw

2009-11-12T19:19:00.004-05:00

I just lucked into an affordable copy of the out of print North American Falconry and Hunting Hawks. It is "the" book on falconry and is in it's 8th edition. The promised re-printing of the 9th edition is looking less and less likely, so I jumped on this one once it fell in my price range.

I received the book today in the mail and I eagerly flipped to the section on Cooper's Hawks. What I found there was not encouraging. Let me put down the summary here, word for word, case for case as it is found in the book.

"Of all the birds in falconry, none requires consistent success as much as the Cooper's. NONE! The phrase 'a little success here and there' gives entirely the wrong impression of what these birds demand of the falconer. They need daily hunting with consistent success."

The book further recommends that you get and train a hunting dog to point quail a full year before you acquire a bird and recommends that you have at least 10 good quail sites that you can rotate so you can have success every time. The book says " Here is one for the experienced falconer living in the right area who wants to explore one of the pinnacle experiences that falconry has to offer." Sounds exciting, but I am neither that experienced falconer nor am I living in the right area. Quail are in decline here as they are in many other places and finding a good "consistent" quail hunting place is nearly impossible for me unless I could afford to belong to one of the expensive hunt clubs around here. Hunting every day is also impossible for me. I think I may be getting in over my head with this bird.

My sponsor is out of town until at least next week. I need to call him and discuss my options with him. He has flown these birds before so if he says I can do it, I might be able to, but he tends to be over-optimistic about accipiters sometimes.

I'm not sure what I'm going to do, but I certainly don't want a buzzsaw of a bird that I have to fly with a catchers mask over my face to protect me when we don't actually find quarry and the bird gets mad at me. EESH! Good thing I hung on to those gerbils, I might just trap a red-tail afterall.

Days Cooling Down

2009-11-03T09:54:00.009-05:00

After the scorcher of a Halloween weekend (87 deg on Saturday), it has cooled a a comfortable 75 and sunny. Hazen even turned off the A/C and opened the windows and doors yesterday! We're slowly settling in for a fun Holiday season.

The first cool weekend though we actually did some necessary outside work and moved the "carport" to another part of the yard. This was going to be our holiday project (over Thanksgiving) but we got it done early. We'll have to come up with something else productive to do on our 4-day weekend at the end of the month.

Hazen has also been subtly bugging me to post a picture of "bird" on the blog. I managed to acquire a few shots of her, but she's a bit twichy (yes the pun is intended) and it is hard to get a good shot. She was a bit scared of the camera and finally settled down into a fluffed out pose trying to look BIG. She's a good size, but still a far cry from Musket, so I was more amused than impressed by her display. The leg is healing nicely. She hardly favors it anymore and seems more feisty, which I attribute to her feeling better. After a few more weeks of R & R, she's going to be caught for her new jewelry and manned so she will be easier to handle and transport when needed. I'm really looking forward to the day I can officially take possession of her and start getting her ready to hunt.

Also, for the record, the birds finally arrived after the second cold-front. For the past week or two, I've been seeing red-tails every time I turn around. I saw a nice speedy-looking smallish red-tail near the airport across the road from work on my way in the other day. He took off in a vertical leap from the ground and landed on a telephone pole, his movement reminded me of the red-shoulders we have in our neighborhood that would pop out of nowhere when I'd fly Musket around the yard. This one was definitely a red-tail and a juvenile to boot.

I was mournful of my decision to wait for the Cooper's hawk after seeing that bird. But, Hazen talked sense into me and reminded me that if she does work out I will have a really fun hawk that will share years of enjoyment. If it turns out that the near-starvation and recovery experience makes a hawk into a better hunting companion... This situation might not EVER present itself again. He reminded me that I can't buy a bird like that and if I let her go and jump on a good male-tail (which in and of itself isn't a sure thing) I might get what I want in an RT and have a decades-long excellent hunting companion - but next year you could reasonably get the same level "male-tail" and I might not ever get a cooper's like her, EVER. ... He made a pretty good point, so I've stuck with my decision. I haven't given up the gerbils just yet though in case she just never heals well and I'll have another chance to catch an RT starting December 1st.

To help ease my eagerness to work with a bird, I have taken up drawing them. I'm going to try my hand at watercolor on some of my sketches. I drew this from a picture of a wet Cooper's hawk that I found in Google, I loved the "look-of-death" so I had to try it. We'll see if it turns out after I fill it in with color.

Original Picture

Drawing

Change of Plans

2009-10-07T19:26:00.002-04:00

Something exciting and unusual has happened today. I was talking with my Sponsor, Rudy, and it turns out that he has acquired a juvenile female cooper's hawk that was on it's way out. Apparently, he got a phone call from a friend who came across the bird in a parking lot. It was hardly able to stand when Rudy came to see it. He took it home and is nursing it back to health. He is very excited about the bird, I guess it is really really tame even now that she is starting to gain her strength back, which, according to Rudy, is very unusual. He is reluctant to release such a find since "passage" Cooper's hawks are difficult to come-by so he is trying to find her a falconry home.

I cannot have a bird besides a red-tail or a red-shoulder until I can upgrade my permit to General Falconer. Lucky for me, my upgrade is due in about 3 months. Rudy said he wouldn't mind putting the bird on his permit and hanging on to it for 3 months until I get my upgrade. So, I'm putting the red-tail hunting on hold in light of this very unusual opportunity. After I get my upgrade, he is going to transfer the bird to me. I am lucky in that I kept Musket for so long and hunted her for two seasons, so I will qualify for my General permit whether or not I trap a bird this fall.

What this means is no squirrel hawking in Texas and no Falconry hunting for me until the season is half-over. Also, Rudy tells me that you can't hunt a Cooper's hawk on squirrels, they are just too dangerous for their little feet, so I'll have to work hard to find some nice bunny hunting areas since Migratory Bird Season will most likely be over by the time I can get this bird. We may have to do some conventional small game hunting to build up on hawk-food. This probably means also that I'll be keeping my bunny breeding project going.

It's a crazy opportunity. I've worked so hard trying to find my new bird and have not come up with anything yet. I'm taking it as a sign. The next bird I wanted to do was a Cooper's hawk, so I'm very pleased that I will be able to do it sooner than later. Rudy is a austringer- which means he hunts with accipiters- and he's been doing it for over 40 years. I wanted to learn the techniques from the best, and for accipiters, he's about the top of the pile.

Wish me luck! Rudy will be taking a vacation in November, and he'll need me to watch the bird for him while he's gone, so I'll get to spend at least some time with her before I get to take possession.

What a strange and exciting turn of events. I'm a little sad that I won't be trying to catch my next red-tail, but this is something that I cannot pass up.

Cold Front Update

2009-10-05T16:02:00.006-04:00

Well, the cold front did bring some birds, but not the ones I want, unfortunately. Hazen and I have seen an adult ("Haggard" in the falconry world) red-tail almost every day we've gone out. Those birds weren't here last week, so it's an improvement. We've also seen an explosion in Red-Shouldered Hawks. I don't know if we're just getting better at spotting birds, but there sure seems to be a lot out there.

If this wasn't my last apprentice year, I'd be tempted to try a kestrel. I've seen probably a dozen or so birds with consistency. They're pretty darnned cute, but I think you hunt bugs with them or maybe sparrows, I'm not really sure. I am starting to re-think my desire to get a small male, I may just have to settle for whatever I can get. But any hunting partner is better than no hunting partner!

Eventually, I'll have something more interesting to post. My life has pretty much revolved around looking for a bird.

I took of yesterday afternoon and I might take off today too. My boss dug up 6 camelias from his yard. I'm going to see if they'll take in mine so I can get those early blooming flowers.

I took some time to snap some nice pictures of butterflies in our "weed" garden. I'll include some here. Right now it's awash with buzzing life of all kinds. It's great!

Thanks for all the encouragement everyone! I'm really looking forward to squirrel hawking in Texas this year!

Trapping Season Blues

2009-09-29T15:31:00.003-04:00

Still no red-tail for me. Boo.

I must have put 1,000 miles on my truck so far looking for a bird. It's hard to not get discouraged by the lack of birds. The few I have seen have either been in a soar or I didn't have my gerbils with me. Well, I solved the second problem by buying a small carrying box to take the little goobers with me everywhere. The little fellas fit in my purse! I feel like I'm carrying around a pocket dog or something!

I think we got a nice cold front come through last night though... so I'm going to kick my searching into high gear. The birds have a tendency to follow the cold fronts.

Wish me lots of luck, I need it bad! It's only a matter of time.

First Day of Trapping Season

2009-09-15T19:48:00.002-04:00

Finally Septmber 15th is here!! I've spent all weekend putting together my falconry equipment. I wanted everything to be ready in case I trapped a hawk today.

Well, I came home hawkless, but, we did see a juvenile Cooper's hawk going after a bird (which was awesome!) and we saw two juvenile red-tails. Amazing!!

The first bird we saw was near Alachua, Hazen spotted it. It was a little male, just what I was looking for. Unfortunately, we just weren't ready for it and we spooked it when we set the trap. Hazen was pretty dissapointed, and I'd be lying if I said that I wasn't either, but I was pretty encouraged because I had no expectation of really seeing any birds, let alone having a chance to trap one!

We headed towards home and took a road that I drive twice a day to work. I was remarking to Hazen that I never see birds on that road and sure enough, he spotted a red-tail sitting on a pole. I slowed down and sure enough, it was a juvenile! I slowed down the truck, tossed the trap out and drove away to turn around. Lucky for us there was a nice little road just across the street from the bird. We waited for about 20 minutes watching it. It was clearly looking at the trap, trying to figure out what to make of it. Eventually, it fluffed, pooped, and took a low dive off the pole right for the trap!! We waited a few minutes while the bird tangled with the trap. Finally it looked like it was caught and we gathered our towel and gloves and walked out to it. When I was about 15 feet from it, it took off, not caught. Boo!

When we examined the trap later, it had triggered several of the loops, just not enough to get tangled. But, I'm actually okay with it. That bird was every bit as big as Musket, and I want a male this year. It would have been really really hard to stick to my guns and let her go if it turned out to be a heavy bird. So, it's fine.

We'll try again tomorrow and see what we see. It seems that 6:30-7:30 seems to be the magic hour. I'm really excited that we saw so many birds on the first day of trapping season too!

Wish me luck!

Videos of Alaska

2009-09-14T11:18:00.005-04:00

I dont know how well this will work, but here are some videos of our time in Alaska. They speak louder than photographs.

The inside passage where crawled through sprawling hills and mountains that came right out of the ocean.

A view of the Harbor in Ketchikan.

Lovely Creek Street.

Salmon Running in Juneau... anyone know what kind of Salmon these are?

Historic Downtown Skagway

"Soapy" Jeff Smith's Parlor... Skagway. Video says it all.

Leaving Skagway.

A case of mistaken identity. From a distance, this really did look like a seal until I looked at the image in my zoomed in camera... oops. I think the commentary is funny though, I hope it makes you laugh.

This time it really was a seal.

A shot of the Ziprider from the bottom. EESH!

The Hubbard Glacier as we were leaving. It was hard to find a spot to get a clear shot with all the people on the deck.

Puffins and Auklets swimming underwater durring feeding time at the Aquatic Sealife Center in Seward.

The Steller's Sealion, quite a monster!

Well, that's it! I hope you enjoyed the videos. I hope the the next time I post on the blog, I'll have trapped my new hawk! Trapping season starts tomorrow!!

Alaska!!!!!

2009-08-25T19:48:00.008-04:00

Taking a page from Melissa's blog, I'm going to tell our story in pictures!

These were totem poles that greeted us at the Vancouver airport right off the plane.

Vancouver from the shuttle to the train. It looks pretty creepy. The driver said that they built all of these buildings relatively quickly. It looks like Russia. The driver also told us about the corner where you can "get anything." Crazy ride through town.

Our first glimpse of the Millenium. It was love at first sight.

Ahh, the inevitable lifeboat drill. We just want to eat... again.

This is Hazen's friend Steve the Hero. He realized the day before the criuse that his passport had expired. He is pictured here celebrating his 23rd hour with his new passport. He hopped a plane from Orlando to Huston Texass to go to the passport office. They took pity on him got it to him in 4 hours. He made it to Vancouver with 12 hours to spare. Amazing!

Here are Hazen and I posing at the inside passage. The land was this close on both sides of the ship. I'm amazed that something that big could fit down the passage. The scenary was beautiful! We stayed out the whole time and saw lots of bald eagles and whales.

Hazen and I perched on Evan and Caroline's (the bride and groom) veranda on the first formal night. Isn't he handsome?

Here we are in rainy Ketchikan Alaska. They get about 200 inches or rain every year. I can't even count the amount of times where we heard that they had beautiful weather for 2 months that ended 3 days before we got there. Oh well, we got authentic.

A fun scupture in Ketchikan that I made Hazen pose next to.

Creek Street. Beautiful! There were salmon running this stream, though we saw many more further north.

Hazen seeing a bird. I love this picture. We later discovered that it was a swallow that we had both seen before, but the discovery is the fun part.

Black bear fishing for salmon in Ketchican. Earlier, we saw a mother bear and 3 cubs in a tree not 50 feet from us, but my camera wouldn't cooperate.

One of the may totems that we saw in Ketchican. We got to meet the man who made this beautiful scupture.
Hazen feeding reindeer. They told us that reindeer were the first domesticated animal, after cats and dogs.

We toured an abandoned sawmill. Hazen was enthralled by the machines.

This was an amazing piece of scrimshaw. They let me take a picture of it. I think it is from a walrus tusk.

Hazen and I posing in beautiful Juneau just after Evan and Coroline's georgeous wedding.

Our bus driver did us a solid and stopped at the Mendenhall glacier lookout. That's it behind us. It's hard to see, but it was quite a sight.

Hazen took a glass blowing class in Skagway. He was the only one from our ship to take it, he had such a great time and made an awesome blown sculpture.

Hazen snapped this picture of me outsideo our cruiseship in Skagway. We were watching a distant glacier peaking over the mountain range and new birds.

I was facinated by this building. Our tour gide for the Ghost and Goodtime Girls tour told us that the park service bought this building for a whooping 2 million and it will take 10 years to fix it. It belonged to the town organizer Soapy Smith, it was the unofficial center of town. Soapy Smith ruled the town with an iron fist and pretty much made it what it was. He was pretty corrupt though and eneded up getting killed in a duel. Every year on the anniversary of his death, the town drink to his honor and then go pee on his grave.

Ahh.. our home away from home.

Dungeness crabs in Huna! They were huge, but we didn't eat them.

"Presenting the ship!" I was trying to hold it in my hand, but that never really works for me.
Here's a shot of our cruise ship while everyone is on deck while we are viewing the glacier. I got cussed at by a lady in french for taking this shot. Aparently, I was being rude by standing in her way, but she said some mean words in french and shoved me. Now who's being rude?

The Hubbard Glacier. After seeing this, I think everyone needs to see a glacier in their lifetime. It was indescribably beautiful. I could not stop taking pictures. See those tiny specks in the water at the foot of th glacier? Those are seals. This thing was huge!

Another shot of the glacier. This is not photoshopped folks. It looks even more stunning than this shot!

The sealife center in Seward Alaska. Warren suggested that we visit this place. We were not dissapointed. I got to take lots of shots of puffins. These were the only ones I saw on the trip.

Here's a puffin. Isn't he cute? They all thought I was going to feed them so they came swarming over to me. I could have spent all day with them.

We took a train from Seward to Anchorage where we caught our flight home. The train ride was spectactular! 4 hours of beautiful views and glaciers! We even saw some moose. I loved it.

Well, that's it. We had a great trip and saw some new birds. We had a wonderful time with friends and are looking forward to our next cruise to a warmer destination.

Magic Eyes!

2009-05-20T09:44:00.004-04:00

I almost can’t believe that it’s happened! I had my Lasik surgery on Wednesday and it went fabulously!

I was nervous that I would get to the Lasik center and they’d tell me, “thank you, now please pay us $5,000 bucks on your way out the door”, but that never happened. I am stunned and amazed at how smoothly this process worked for me. It literally took all of 1 minute surgery time per eye to have to whole process done. First they use a special laser to create a flap of skin above your cornea by creating a layer of bubbles just under the skin. That’s seriously the scariest part because the suction they use to hold your eyeball in place while the laser works is just bordering on painful and then looking through the layer of bubbles is a lot like trying to see through wax paper. I had this small moment where I thought… well, I’m blind now! Then they walk you over to the other laser and use a device to hold your eyelids open. On the table, you lie down and stare at a green dot. The doctor pulls the flap of skin away from your eye and the green dot gets bigger… that was weird. Then the doctor told me that the laser was starting and in 30 seconds, it was done, repeat for second eye. That was it! I must have spent 5 minutes in the operating room. They gave me a pill to sleep it off and when I woke up the next day, I could see!!! It’s nothing short of a miracle! Unbelievable that something so very simple could do so much!

Since the surgery, my eyes have felt like I’m looking through old contact lenses. However, my eyes just continue to get better every day. I’m using a lot of special eye drops but every day as I wake up and have healed a little more the haze gets less and less and the world becomes even more clear and wonderful. It’s amazing how bright and crisp things are, it is different than when I was near-sighted. Wow… when I was nearsighted! What a fun thing to be able to say!

The rest of the trip was fun. Mari and Jeremy brought their little bird Maynard and I had a fun time playing with him. The wedding shower was only a little bit awkward, and it was great seeing the niece and nephews again, they are getting so big!

Now I’m looking forward to spending a few weeks at home before we head back to Cali for the wedding!

Here's me after the surgery and my doctor. They sent it to me in an e-mail. My eyes are numb, so I look pretty strung out.

Spring has... passed??

2009-04-28T14:23:00.002-04:00

We went from freezing days to the near 90's in a matter of a week! I think we just skipped over spring and headed right into summer. The good news is that we seem to have planted our vegetables in time this year. We have a few tomato plants that are starting to put out flowers and the Columbine that I planted from seed last year and abused over the winter has decided that it wanted to bloom! I have these spectacular dark purple and white tube flowers, I'm just thrilled!

Hazen and I spent a long weekend with visitors from California down in Orlando. Since I've been in Florida, I have been to the Disney Parks 3 times, and always with the Californios. I guess I'm just not as loyal to the mouse as they are! My parents came over with my Aunt Cheryl and Uncle Taylor and their two youngest. We had a wonderful time casually strolling around the parks, taking in a few rides and shows, but mostly enjoying eachother's company. It was a fun weekend and it's always nice to see my family when I don't have a long plane ride just before and after. I'll take I-75 any day over LAX!

Still no sign of Musket. I made Hazen pull off the road the other day so I could examine a bird carcass that I thought could be a raptor, but turned out to be a very squished turkey. He says that he'll give me until Independence Day to be a spaz about the bird. Though I still keep my eye on the sky, It think it is starting to wear off now. I'm beginning to look forward to the next bird with eager anticipation.

We have a full summer ahead of us with two trips to California and one to Alaska, so there will be plenty of fun stuff to talk about in the absence of my normal obsession.

I love you all, thanks for reading! I promise more pictures soon!

Nowhere

2009-04-08T08:24:00.003-04:00

It's been four days now and still no sign of Musket. Hazen and I have gone back and checked three times, but still nothing. As I drive, I have been scanning tree-tops and power poles to see if she'll show up. I haven't seen a red-tail since I let her go.

It's been unseasonably cold the past two days and the wind has blowing steadily. She probably got herself up onto a nice breeze and pushed out of the area. I'm a little sad that I haven't had a chance to see her again, with the cold, I'd really like to be sure she has a nice solid meal. I'll keep looking for her, but I feel my chances of seeing her slipping away with every day.

On another note, I took my first horseback riding lesson in 3 months. Meredith (the lady who owns the barn) has a new warmblood horse that she let me ride for the lesson. He's just huge and his trot is unbelievable! The gal I was taking the lesson with rode him once at a trot without her stirrups and she bounced right out of the saddle and on the ground. She refuses to ride him any more! I had a lot of fun with him, but I'm seriously saddle sore this morning... eesh!

Musket's Release

2009-04-06T10:05:00.005-04:00

Well, I did it. I let my bird go. I decided that she was not destined to be a squirrel hawk and that is was just not fair to keep her unless I can get her on some rabbits. So for the past two weeks I have been feeding her as much as she would eat through her food chute. Even still, when I would come in to her mew with my glove, she would jump up to it without hesitation and let me change out her jesses. They say that the whole bond is about food, but I also think that it’s about the time you put in with your bird. After two weeks of very minimal handling to try to break the bond, she was still easy to work with and when I went into her mew Saturday evening to put on her jesses and leash for the last time, she hopped up all the same just like it was any day. I had not intended for this to be my last evening with her, but Hazen suggested that it was better to pull off the band-aid quickly then to spend a sleepless night dreaming about getting up early to release her. Ultimately he was right.

I put Musket in her box and loaded up a pile of chicken necks so she would leave me with a full crop. We drove to this creepy barn where Hazen wants to go one day and take black and white pictures. She was easy as I opened her Giant Hood and guided her on to my fist. Hazen readied the camera, and with my heart in my throat, I cut the anklets loose. On cue, he tossed out her meal and she hesitated before leaving my fist and I had to urge her to go for the fresh meat lying in the grass. I’m sure the hesitation was due to her lack of hunger, but eventually her animal instincts took over; she just cannot pass up a free meal. She glided from my fist to the ground and spent the good part of 10 minutes searching for all the chicken. Eventually she realized that she had found all of the food and finally jumped to a post.

I watched her for a few minutes and then we backed up and drove off. I watched the rear-view mirror as her image disappeared. I am sure that picture will be burned in my brain for the rest of my life. Hazen and I took a little drive and came back just to see if she would still be sitting in the same place, but she was nowhere to be found. I hope she has put herself up in a nice tree to spend the night in. Hopefully she will catch a nice thermal and get the urge to migrate north. Maybe one day soon she’ll make new little red-tail babies of her own. In the meantime, I’ll head back and check on her for at least the next week or so.

We went back the next day and drove up and down the road where we released Musket. On the way we passed two live squirrels and one dead in the road. Maybe she’ll be more successful on her own than she was with me. We searched the tree-line and the power poles, but no sign of Musket. As we headed back, I saw a large soaring raptor, but it was too quick to get a positive ID. Hazen thinks it might have been a red-shouldered hawk, but I’m not so sure… Hopefully I’ll get lucky enough to really see her, at least one more time.

Looking forward, I am excited about the next bird. In September I will try to trap a small male red-tail with big feet. I know so much about training a hawk and I think I can avoid the mistakes that I made with Musket. There’s nothing like living with a red-tail, and I can’t wait to have one of these amazing birds back in my life. Until then, I feel like a small piece of me is out there somewhere and I am starting to wonder if I’ll ever be the same again.

I've posted my release video on YouTube. I should show up on the top of the sidebar to the right of this post.

Wildfire

2009-04-04T19:47:00.003-04:00

In my last post I put up some pictures of a nice tame prescribed fire. Several weeks later, Hazen was called to particpate in a wildfire near his work. His co-worker Clell took a moment to take this video before he got scolded by his boss for not checking for spot fires. After this video was taken, they found that the main fire had thrown spot fires over 300 feet on the other side of the road. This was a tremendous fire. These trees ended up as black sticks. Oh, and that's Hazen standing in the fore-ground.

Fire

2009-03-09T10:28:00.011-04:00

I promised some videos of fire, so here they are.

Hazen spent the entire day away from me on the other side of a 2200 acre burn, but I did manage to sneak a video. Hopefully I can get on another burn at Blanding where I can get some decent footage and spend some real time with my Husband. I always liked buring with him.

In one of the clips, you can hear what sounds like firecrakers going off in the distance. Those were 50 caliber blanks from miliatry training that they had in late December. It sounded like world war 3.

Enjoy!

So... It's March.

2009-03-02T10:45:00.002-05:00

It’s been fairly quiet this week around the old house as I stayed at home and Hazen spent the week teaching at Engine Academy. The cold weather keeps making it’s way down from the north to give us a few days of freezing. All the outdoor plants that are not cold hardy have finally given up the ghost. I told Hazen that I want to replant our dead citrus with plums to see if we get a better result. Our sad little lemon and orange trees have completely frozen over and dropped all their leaves. I don’t think they’ll be coming back.

Musket was too high of weight to fly on Saturday and Sunday was full of high wind gusts and rain. Oh well. Only four more weekends to hunt and then she goes up for the season. I’m getting a little worried though, for some other falconers have seen small groups already starting to migrate, and Musket could easily get swept up in one of those sudden urges to move this time of year. I’m going to keep her in treed areas so she does not get a chance to go up into a good soar. Hopefully that will keep her with me for the next year.

I have reduced the size of my rabbitry by two does. My original breeder girls have found new homes, one as hawk food and the other as a beloved pet to a friend who is crazy about animals. She’ll have a good home, and I’m happy for her, she is an awfully sweet girl. The other who was not so fortunate, was not quite pet quality, and though I tried to find her a home, it fell through. With a heavy heart, I asked Hazen to do the deed, and he humanely killed her for me. Ultimately, it’s a good thing. That one rabbit was eating enough for the rest of my herd; she had a roll of fat under her chin and would push the other babies aside to shovel food into her mouth! It’s still not easy, but I’m getting better at separating myself from the cute factor of baby rabbits and the necessity of fresh, hormone-free food for my predator.

This week will see the return of the Mitchell Clan to our home to again block the trash-pile that has taken over my neighbor’s yard. I have all the parts to enhance our electric fence and I have been told that my hedge plants should arrive sometime in March. She won’t like it, but it is time to do what we need to do so I can start enjoying my yard again.

All and all things have been pretty quiet. I have had the chance to get out and do some prescribed burning the past few weeks. I’ll have another chance to do that again this week, and I’ll try to get some nice movies of fire. Ahh.. fieldwork… delightful!

TTFN

Fun February

2009-02-16T10:41:00.005-05:00

It’s been an interesting few weeks. I’ve moved my office from Olustee to Lake City, about 10 miles down the road. That was a huge chore! I have a much smaller office with a different drive and a bland view, but at least I have a window and the AC/Heater work wonderfully. The last building I had to keep a small space heater in the room with me, even on hot days because the building would cool to freezing and I wasn’t allowed to adjust my heat or the whole system would crash! There were times where I had the roaring of the AC blowing in my office and the fan on the heater blowing and it was difficult to hear my phone ring. So, things are better in some ways, but it’s difficult moving and adjusting to a new pace working at the regional office.

Hazen and I went to the Hogtowne Mideval Faire for the 5th year. Time has been flying living in North Florida. It’s become a tradition to dress up and head down to the faire for an afternoon back in time. This year the lady who does the falconry display lost one of her Harris Hawks as it climbed to the top of a power transformer and fried itself. It was very sad. Thankfully, I did not go on that day, I would have hated to have seen that. She had another Harris Hawk that she was obviously training at the presentation I saw that probably was a replacement of the bird she lost. That’s one of the hazards of flying in urban areas.

For the past week I have been suffering from the results of a tooth extraction and a bone graft to fill the socket. I spent four days just eating, sleeping, and taking my pain medications, that was kind of nice actually. But after the “honeymoon” period, I had to go to work and deal with the realities of daily mouth pain… eesh! I had a dull ache for so long with the bad tooth that I thought I could handle this other kind of pain, but I’m pretty tired of it. It’s hard to eat and I bet I’ve lost at least 5 lbs in the last week. Things are definitely improving this morning though, so I’m happy to say that I’m finally on the mend. In 4-6 months, I go back to the dentist and have them put my dental implant in. Then 4-6 months after that has had time to heal, they put the crown on my tooth. It’s a difficult and expensive process, but I think it will be worth all the pain and money in the end.

Hazen watched Musket for me while I was out for the count. She took to him pretty well.

In other news, my horse sold this weekend. She went to a nice home where she will be a lesson horse and serve as a low level dressage mount for her new owner. I’m happy for Zaby Baby, she’ll have a nice life with this lady and hopefully a good retirement. I had a surprising message to one of my ads from the woman who owned Zabra for a big part of her life. She sent me an e-mail out of the blue asking if my horse was the Iberian warmblood registered as Zabra Star Groove. Well after talking to the woman I bought Zabra from, it turns out that yes, this was the same horse. This woman had purchased Zabra in California back in the early 90s and had moved her over to Jacksonville in 1997. She told me that Zabra had at least one foal that she knows of and that she was born in the spring of 1992. That made her 16 years old this year turning 17 in the spring. Fully 3 years older than I thought she was. Well, it was a fun conversation with this lady and I made a new friend out of it. I am hoping to go watch her and her Friesian stallion show in Clay County next weekend. Small world. Oh, and the woman who bought Zabra brought my old horse Cisco to the barn for someone else to try out. She took Zabra home with her and Cisco stayed at the barn with his new owners. Weird how things work out sometimes.

We spent a wonderful weekend with Warren, Jenny, and little baby Lincoln. They did a low pressure “practice” trip down to visit us over their long weekend. Unfortunately, the weather changed for the worse and rained for the first time in two weeks. This Monday though, is just stunning, now that they have headed back… oh well. We spent Saturday at the Waldo flea market and had some boiled peanuts and popcorn and ate a fabulous lunch in Gainesville. Warren brought some snow goose from his January kill that we ate grilled and wrapped in bacon. It was wonderful!

Sunday we went out to the barn and hunted Musket. We had her chasing a squirrel for about 45 minutes, but she was pretty lack-luster about it. At one point though, she finally saw him and went for it, but missed. I was sure she had it this time. The squirrel bailed and ran for another tree. Musket followed in hot pursuit, but in the end, the squirrel managed to get himself in a good spot and got away. We ended the hunt by throwing out a bagged rabbit, that Musket had no trouble catching. I did the final killing of the rabbit, it was my first time breaking the rabbits neck. I didn’t know if I’d be able to do it, but I did! Musket traded nicely to a chicken leg and I let her eat the whole thing. Now, I bring her weight down and try again next week.

The First One Bites the Dust!

2009-01-29T13:26:00.005-05:00

I wanted to get this blogged immediately, but the flu struck me hard over the weekend and I wasn’t able to actually sit down and get this typed out.

We experienced several nights of freezing weather last week. In fact, I think it was hard enough to finally kill the lemon trees, so much for growing citrus in North Florida… sigh. Well, those cold cold nights were enough to take Musket’s weight down to where she could be hunted again. I decided that I would get everything ready so once the morning hit, we’d be able to hunt squirrels in the yard without having to go outside. Musket was eager, she was armed with new bells and a hungry attitude. She was as low as she’s been the entire season. I was pumped.

Two squirrels were casually raiding my feeders surrounded by maybe 100 local birds (they empty our feeders every day now). Hazen came armed with his air rifle to wound the squirrel if I needed him to in order to give my handicapped bird a fighting chance. We came around the house beside the RV and everything that was in the yard took off for cover. Musket put herself in a high tree, and didn’t immediately make for the squirrel as it blindly ran across the yard. Undaunted, I went searching for the squirrel, intent to flush it or work my bird around it. It had lodged itself at the base of one of the tall pine trees. Hazen asked me to walk forward to scare it away from me towards him so he could take a shot. Instead of hanging on to the tree, it decided to make a break for it and jumped off the tree across the bare ground. Hazen was standing aiming at it, knowing he didn’t have a prayer to hit it, however, there was this hawk, who happened to be in perfect position, a bullet with a set of eyes! She came diving out of this tree onto this squirrel and nailed it, dead on. It happened lightning fast! I rushed over to protect my bird from gnawing squirrel teeth (they can be nasty) and pulled him off of chewing the back of her leg. Then I just held on until he gave it up.

I clipped Musket in so I’d have her secure in case she decided to take her prize into a tree, which I’m glad I did because after she settled, she did try to carry it away. After a couple of tries, I finally managed to trade her off to a chicken neck, but later in her mews I gave her the whole squirrel, her prize. She was full from the meal of chicken I gave her as a reward, but that didn’t stop her from protecting her rightful kill. She spent the next two days on the ground with it, hunching over every time I came near to take a picture or to check on her. By Monday, there was nothing left, and she was fat and happy. It was amazing. I feel like I have finally arrived, like finally, after all this time, I can call myself a falconer.

It would not let me upload my video of trading Musket off of her squirrel. I've posted it on YouTube. You can probably see it in the video bar next to this post.

Yarak

2009-01-21T10:29:00.002-05:00

Last night was COLD! It got down to 22 degrees with a wind-chill of 14. In the spirit of bringing Musket’s weight down, I did not feed her and let her spend the night in the cold. When I came out to check on her and the rabbits this morning, she was not on her perch. Worried, I hurried over to the mew and found her perching on the ground… hmm… not a good sign.

I grabbed my falconry glove and went into the cage to collect Musket. She was fluffed up and freezing. Her eyelashes had droplets of frozen water on them. Eesh! I weighed her and she had lost 30g in a day an a half, that’s quite a lot! Well, I thought she’d had enough of the cold so I brought her to work with me to keep her warm.

Generally at work she just sits and keeps to herself, but I think this cold weather and no food has put her close to yarak. Yarak is a falconry term that describes a bird that is in a condition that it is most keen to hunt. The whole world then revolves around how to get a meal… NOW! It’s probably natures way of making the hawk aggressive enough to catch it’s next meal when it’s gone for a few days without food, the second wind. Musket was sitting calmly in her box this morning with the heater on her to get her warmed up. I guess she got warm enough because she waited until I stepped out of the office for 1 minute to hop out of the box and search for food. I came back from bringing out the garbage to find her reaching at the end of her leash for the tidbits I brought in a bag. Without thinking, I reached down and snatched them. I probably shouldn’t have done that because she was not happy about it. I tried to pick her up and she footed my glove… hmm. I hid the tidbits best I could and got a couple on my glove, then tried again. This time she came willingly. I put her back in the box and turned around to put the tidbits away, and she came walking out of the box again. Sigh. I went through the same procedure, but she was getting pretty upset with me by this point. When I put her in the box the second time and she footed my glove hard a few times. Double sigh. I’ve been trying to disassociate her aggression from my glove, but until we can get out and slaughter some things, I think she’ll still be fist-bound. So I thought, I bet she’s upset because this glove has taken food from her, so I let her have a couple of pea-sized tidbits. The first she took nicely, the second she leapt from her perch in her box and footed the glove with both feet. Triple sigh…just making it worse. So, I took her out and let her just sit on the glove for 20 minutes, eventually she calmed down and stopped footing the glove.

Just to be clear, the aggression is something I definitely want… it will make her a better hunter. I just need to direct that aggression away from my glove to the lure or the prey. I’m sure that in this situation today she was looking for any source of food and the glove was the only thing she could find. Not that big of a deal, I guess, but it feels discouraging.

As far as getting more food, I’m going to stick to my guns and not feed her anything more than the washed beef tidbits I’ve prepared for her. She’ll stay inside tonight though. Careful what you wish for.

Smart Squirrels + Fat Hawk = D'oh!

2009-01-20T13:04:00.007-05:00

It’s been a long couple of weeks pairing down Musket’s weight to get her hunting ready again. She still has another 50g to lose, but with the overnight temperatures dipping down to 22 degrees for the next two nights, she should be huntable by this weekend (fingers crossed).

Despite her higher than ideal hunt weight, I could not pass up the opportunity of 5 squirrels casually raiding my bird feeders yesterday morning. She had fed the day before on the creance with a slow response, but I still wanted to try… temptation is a dangerous mistress! Carefully and sneakily, I whisked the rabbits away. Hazen kept a watchful eye on the squirrels as I cautiously removed Musket from her mew. They must have heard the hawk because as soon as I came out of the mew door, I heard a scuffle in the back yard. I knew the jig was up, and when I got back to the house, Hazen told me that they were all riled up, nervously swishing their tails and on high alert in the trees. I waited with Musket inside for about 15 minutes, but the squirrels were slowly starting to retreat. This was the opportunity; I either give up or seize it. So I stepped out on the back porch with the hawk and must have set her off balance in my nervous excitement because instead of taking off for the squirrel that was so obviously running away, she was fussing with her jesses! Argh! The squirrels climbed to the safety of the tall pines and Musket was completely unawares. I thought we had blown it.

Eagle-eyed Hazen however, spotted a squirrel standing stock still on the corn feeder. His fat little body was frozen, knowing that any movement would attract the predator’s eye. Well, I started walking towards the squirrel and Musket finally did see him. She took off and flew high to try to cut the squirrel off, but he ducked behind the tree and she took to a high branch. Unfortunately, this is where her high weight hindered her hunting drive. The squirrel was climbing through the branches and she sat calmly in the tree enjoying the high perch. She wasn’t interested in hunting really. I walked back to the original scene of the hunt, and there was not a squirrel visible anywhere. So, I called her to the lure and ended the hunt.

Another miss, but I can hardly count that as her fault. I knew she was far too high to hunt, but I was hoping that the freedom of being on the wing after a month in the mew would light a spark in her. Nope, it’s all about weight and hunger… that’s the drive, nothing else. It’s amazing when it works though. We’ll get that squirrel soon!

On another note, we visited Merritt Island National Park this weekend. It’s right next to the launch pad for the space shuttle. We had a nice trip, saw lots of fun winter birds, and enjoyed a nice meal at a fancy fish restaurant. Merritt island was an easy place to bird, no exercise required!

Sneaking Snacks

2009-01-07T08:53:00.003-05:00

The weather has been ridiculously warm since we got back from California. It’s been in the 80’s or high 70’s most days, which makes it difficult to get Musket to shed those ounces. I was reading the hunting logs from some falconers up north where it gets below freezing every night, and they feed their birds lots of food, sometimes whole squirrels and they are ready to hunt again in a day. If I fed Musket a whole squirrel, it’d be a week before she’d be ready to hunt again. Oh well, my choice to live in warm sunny Florida.

But, apparently, my bird is getting her food from another source besides me! I went out this morning just as the sky was starting to lighten to check on the rabbits (my Red Bunny had 8 babies yesterday) and Musket was not on her usual perch. This concerned me a little as she’s usually on her perch half asleep at that time in the morning. Musket was sitting below her perch, looking possessive. Well, I took a short video of what I discovered. Apparently, a little toad had wandered into her cage and even with the dim light, she saw it and caught it! I don’t know if a frog counts as a first wild kill or not, but I was still pretty happy about it. But her hunting in the mew hinders my attempts to take her weight down; she was scheduled for NO FOOD today. Oh well, it was funny.

On another note, all “bunnies which are too cute to kill” have found new homes. In fact, more people were interested than I had rabbits for. Hopefully this will be the only time I have to give away perfectly good hawk food, but I think it is for the greater good. I spent the day yesterday with one of them and she sure was sweet. I’ll have to try to hunt the other ones before they develop personalities!

Hazen is taking the Pack Test today. In order to fight fire, you know, those times where he leaves me for weeks at a time but makes a pile of money, he has to take a physical test. The test involves walking 3 miles carrying 45lbs in 45 min or less. I took it one year and passed by the skin of my teeth, but I’ve decided that Hazen can be the bread winner where that is concerned. He re-takes it every January and if he passes, he gets his Red Card that allows him to be called out on federal fire incidents. I hope he can do it this year, we need a shed!

Happy New Year

2009-01-05T09:43:00.010-05:00

Back to the normal routine after the Christmas Break in California. Hazen, for my birthday, agreed to let me purchase a video camera, so expect frequent movies on the blog!

I have decided to start making some changes in my life, call it my new-year's resolution. After careful thought, I have decided that I need to cut back on my hobbies, I just have too many and not enough time to dedicate to them. Falconry and Dressage (horse-back riding) both take up a lot of my time and one needs to go, and Falconry has won the battle. I will be selling my beautiful Andalusian/Thoroughbred cross Zabra to a new happy home, as soon as I find one. It was not an easy decision, but it is the right decision.

So that gives me more time to dedicate to Falconry and the Blog!! Though, I have decided that this blog will include non-falcory events, just to keep things interesting.

Musket will be spending the next several weeks loosing the 5 ounces she gained as a result of getting a nice fat meal every day without having to work for it. I'm sure she is not happy about returing to the "will work for food" routine, but I hope to have her back in shape in a few weeks so we can get that first kill!

Baby Rabbits for Sale? I have two baby rabbits that are just too cute to be hawk chow. When my sweet Mother-in-Law, Marthanne, threatened to break momma rabbit's neck if she hurt those babies when I told her I put mom back in with them, I knew I had to do something. She has developed a fondness for dark-colored baby rabbits, so Boo Bunny and Mittens need a home! If anyone has any ideas, please let me know.

That's it for updates, I think. My last post was pretty bland as far as the pictures were concerned, so I thought I'd make up for it today. Presenting, pictures of things I love part 1. (Love you all by the way, thanks for looking!)

TTFN!

Lures and Baggies

2008-12-15T10:50:00.001-05:00

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

2008-12-06T21:14:00.003-05:00

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

2008-12-05T10:38:00.002-05:00

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.

2008-11-24T11:03:00.002-05:00

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.

2008-11-16T16:06:00.005-05:00

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!

2008-11-10T10:07:00.004-05:00

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

2008-11-07T09:59:00.003-05:00

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.

2008-11-05T17:55:00.002-05:00

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

2008-11-04T10:48:00.002-05:00

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

2008-11-03T11:41:00.004-05:00

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?

2008-10-28T11:10:00.004-04:00

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

2008-10-27T08:59:00.004-04:00

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!

2008-10-24T08:35:00.003-04:00

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!

2008-10-22T08:50:00.006-04:00

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!

2008-10-21T09:38:00.002-04:00

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!

2008-10-16T11:16:00.006-04:00

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

2008-10-13T09:25:00.005-04:00

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!

2008-10-01T08:13:00.003-04:00

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!

2008-09-30T13:56:00.002-04:00

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

2008-09-23T11:46:00.003-04:00

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

2008-09-22T12:08:00.003-04:00

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

2008-09-17T10:23:00.001-04:00

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!

2008-09-11T11:08:00.006-04:00

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!

2008-09-09T12:40:00.006-04:00

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!

2008-09-02T16:16:00.006-04:00

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

2008-08-26T12:21:00.000-04:00

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

2008-08-21T10:54:00.000-04:00

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!!

Manning

2008-08-14T14:17:00.000-04:00

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.

Home, the First Day.

2008-08-13T12:54:00.000-04:00

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).

Trapping My First Hawk!

2008-07-31T10:02:00.000-04:00

It must be said that I am a good girl. One month before I received my permit and a week before the opening of the second trapping season, I received a call from my work that a hawk was stuck in a building. It had been there for 5 days, and they needed help to get it out. I went out and successfully caught the bird that had flown through a window and been stuck in a small chamber since. (They thought some kid had thrown a ball through the window). The bird was a gorgeous, huge immature female red-tail, just what I would be looking for in a month. Sigh. I let her go and tried not to think of how cool it could have been to have taken her home especially later when it was coming down to the wire and I was wondering if I'd even get a bird this season.

It was three days before the end of the trapping season. Permit freshly in hand, I begged the day off work knowing that the weather forecast for the two days after looked grim. I woke up early and met my sponsor Rudy. We drove up to a place where Rudy had trapped red-tails before. I was relying on his experience because I rarely see red-tails, and when I do, they are usually adults. It was a foggy morning and the first bird we ran across was a dead first year red-tail in the road. My sponsor laughed and said, "that was your bird!" I collected it anyhow hoping that we'd catch a live one and I'd be able to use the feathers off of this one in case we broke some in trapping the live one. More on that later

We arrived to the place where Rudy thought there would be a lot of red-tails, and he was right, I’d never seen so many in one place, and I look… believe me! The first one we saw was a big immature female, but she flushed the wrong direction and wasn't interested in our gerbils. The second bird we saw was sitting on a power pole. Rudy caught sight of her first. We got close to her and threw his trap out of the car. We headed down the road a ways while we waited and then spotted two other birds. Before we could get turned around however, the bird on the power pole came down to the trap, was that ever thrilling to watch! We pulled off and watched her foot the trap again and again for almost 5 minutes (those poor gerbils!). She just wasn't getting caught. Finally she started to jerk her foot erratically. We figured she had finally caught a loop. Thinking this was our chance we moved in and before we could reach her, she took off, knocking the trap over in the process.

Luckily, she landed nearby in a tree; she was keen on those gerbils. So, since she had fouled up (no pun intended) the other trap, I threw mine out there. I had spent about 8 hours building and setting loops on this trap, it had probably close to 150 loops on there. We drove down the road again and put Rudy's trap out on another young bird and by the time we turned around our first bird had nailed my trap! It was incredible! I grabbed a towel and ran over to her to restrain her... oh she was caught really good! She had at least 8 loops around her feet, she wasn’t going anywhere! We collected her, hooded her wrapped her in a towel and took her home!

Preparing for the Hawk

2008-07-28T10:45:00.000-04:00

To become a Falconer, one must go through a series of steps. The major and most difficult step is finding a sponsor who is willing to apprentice you for two long years as you learn to train and hunt a bird of prey. I was lucky. I found Rudy by chance. The one task that was outside of my control was behind me, now it was up to my skill and ingenuity, or so I thought.

Step 2. Take a Test.

Every state requires that would-be apprentice falconers take a written test of which they must pass with a score of 80% or better. Rudy told me that the test was not difficult, they just want to be sure you won’t kill the bird if you get one. Well, Rudy is right about most things, but that test was HARD! I pride myself on knowing by birds. I can accurately identify a hawk on the wing at 300 yards without binoculars driving in a car at 70mph thanks to my years of training. But this test required more of me than just basic knowledge of hawks and natural history. It was chalk full of questions related to disease, falconry terms, training, and identification. I passed, with an 83%. A disappointing number, and a blow to my ego for sure, but passing.

Step 3. Building the Mew.

I had passed my test (luckily), but now I had to rely on my limited carpentry skills to build an enclosure to house my future bird. I have a wonderful family who visited for the Thanksgiving holiday. They helped us demolish an old play set to convert it into a new hawk cage. We settled on an 8ft wide, 12ft long, 8ft high design that was a combination of a Mew (hawk house) and a weathering area (hawk tie-out yard). It took two long months of work, favors pulled in from friends and family, and a trip to the emergency room, but in early January, the Mew, my masterpiece, was finished. (Since this picture, we've added doors and walls to the antechamber.)

Step 4. Be Patient!

I have learned the essence of patience in waiting for my falconry permit. When trapping a hawk in Florida, there are two six week seasons that you area allowed to trap. I had missed the first (Sept-early Oct) and the second ended on January 12th. I had started the process of taking my test in early November hoping that the permit could be issued to me by the end of December so I could trap my bird after the Christmas Break. I took my test, secured my sponsor, built my mew, pulled together all the equipment I’d need, had a law enforcement officer come by and inspect my facilities, and now I had to wait… and wait… and wait. Well, it took two months of begging my own agency before they finally mailed my permit on to the Feds. The gal who issues the permits from the Feds processed my permit and faxed it to me the same day she received it. By the time I finally had my permit in hand, it was January 9th, I had 3 days to locate and trap a bird or I would be out of luck until the fall. The forecast was for rain. Sigh.

Next post… Step 5, trapping my first hawk!

How I Met Rudy

2008-07-25T08:54:00.001-04:00

I guess since I am starting this Blog about my falconry experiences and this may go beyond just what Musket and I do together, I’ll start from the beginning. Summer of 2007, I met my sponsor, a seasoned falconer named Rudy Howell. A good friend of mine, Jim Garrison, introduced us one day when we were down at the FWC regional office. Rudy was there working on painting something and he and Jim struck up a conversation. Rudy was talking about his last bird, a merlin (small falcon), that he caught from the wild and let go because frostbite had gotten to its toes and they were turning black and falling off. That instantly caught my attention. I dropped what I was doing and listened in.

For those of you who don’t know, I have been interested in Falconry since my early years of college. I took all the classes UC Davis had to offer about birds of prey, participated in road surveys, and volunteered at the campus Raptor Rehabilitation Center cleaning cages, handling sick birds, and participating in outreach events with resident birds. It was always so fun to strap this powerful amazing bird to your fist and talk to people about it. I loved it! I wanted to be a falconer to develop my own bond with one of these powerful animals, but I didn’t have the time, money, or ability to go out and actually kill things having been a vegetarian at the time.

Here I was almost 10 years later, having lived in North Florida for 3 years, working check stations, gutting deer, shooting squirrels, dealing with nuisance wildlife. I had long given up my vegetarian ways. At last I felt a full understanding of where meat came from and, having participated in hunting activities, could finally see myself actually hunting my own meat. I felt that I had the right to eat it now. (I know that doesn’t make sense to most people, but that is how I feel about it.) So, I was faced with this falconer, who seemed really friendly and knowledgeable, so I asked him if he’d be willing to take on an apprentice, and he looked at me surprised and said, “well sure!”

And that was the beginning of my relationship with Rudy Howell, my sponsor, teacher, and mentor in this endeavor.

The Woes of the Molt!

2008-07-24T15:41:00.000-04:00

Okay,

I've decided to start this blog so my family and friends can see all the fun I'm having with my red-tailed hawk Musket. After hunting three times last season (she was a late capture, but more on that later) we are in the off season. She is spending her days molting (loosing her old worn out feathers and growing new ones) and eating like a pig. She has lost her fear of me, but now has decided that she just has to sit and look pretty to get her meal, no performing necessary. I let her have a few stress-free months off without expecting much of her, except that she not attack me when I bring her her daily meal, but now I'm asking her to eat off my glove again, no pressure, just take the food off my glove and eat it. I've been doing this for a week now and she has gone from unapproachable to at least tolerating my hand near her food again. She'll make a quick grab for the food off my glove with her foot and then casually eat it at her leisure, not giving me the time of day. It's enough for now, but I can't wait to start working with her again!

We got a quota to hunt the archery season at Camp Blanding this year. She still has most of her tail to molt in and does not seem to be in any hurry to do it, so I don't know how prepared we will be for that weekend at the end of September, but the goal is to be hunting by the 25th of September, so wish me luck!

Next post I'm going to start from the beginning with this bird, for my own benefit so when I re-train her to hunt I can remember the steps we took to get there the first time, and so you all can see just how fun it is!