Peg, almost ready!

My neighbor, Tami, sent me some pictures of my introduction of Peg to a rowdy pool party, and adoring audience. Of course she was a instant success with the girls.

The only thing that she objected to Was Curly barging in front of me to go swimming with the girls.
I didn't get these pictures until last night so I though that I would include them since they were of a bit better quality than what I had been doing. In the one above you can see the problem to her right leg is in her foot joint. Its like it is a bit twisted.

Now on to today's flight:

She was as usual all fluffed up on her perch right up to the time that I put on my vest. On weighing her I found that I had only increased her weight by 5 grams. Not too bad considering the amount of food that I fed her. She weighed 772 grams today. We all trooped out to the runway for our exercise. Walking is a "manning" ( meaning to tame) exercise that has been used since the first falconer most likely. It not only gets the bird used to movement and tames it down, it is also good for the participants as well. Indy, who is 15, has a tendency to sleep a lot, and is a bit arthritic as well, forgets her age and goes off merrily on her way if you have a hawk on your fist.
Karen had to work at it to catch her back with us rather than out in front sniffing around. The walks are a bit leisurely and photo ops are permissible also.

When we got back, I tied on a longer creance, (line) so that we could stretch things out a bit as I am about ready to turn her loose. I could of course have done so today, but I wanted to make sure that the panic button (lure) had as much meaning as it should.

She did quite well and is on the verge of not waiting for me to call for her to fly to me.

As you can see from this picture she has come about 100 feet to the fist as soon as it was presented. On the next one I threw the lure for her and she did not hesitate. She does still want to drag the lure to a secluded spot to eat. That comes from having a bunch of your siblings trying to take your food away from you every time you get something good to eat. She may or may not get over that given time.

You will notice that she has grabbed the biggest part of the lure rather than the food. She lost her grip on it a couple of times and had to run back and get it, since I was standing on the line and not letting her drag it off. I began to tidbit her while she had the lure and eventually she began eating. When she was done, she jumped to the fist still holding the lure.

Unless her weight is much higher than it was today, tomorrow she will fly free.