Traps and thoughts.

Orrin weighed 103.5 this morning so I was to go over at 1130 for his flight. Before I went I decided to do something about the difficult job of keeping Starlings under control before their use. I have been jamming them into my coat pockets and keeping them there with my hand. This however has a few drawbacks- They squeeze out past your hands, they get all messed up by trying to keep them under control, and of course there is the minor ? problem of them crapping in your pocket. While eating breakfast this morning I noticed that we were out of paper towels, so I went to get a new roll, and kept the old empty roll.

You will notice that the tube is just the right size for a Starling and the velcro fasteners on each end keeps things under control.

I used dead ones for this demonstration, but you can see the birds readily slide out for use, and it will hold two Starlings ready. It would of course hold more Sparrows, but I prefer Starlings. You could of course use tape, but I have the Velcro and it is reusable, where the tape is not.

For our flight today, I loaded the tube with two live ones, but did not use them. They spent 30 to 40 minutes in the tube with no apparent adverse effect. Of course they may now be claustrophobic, not to mention have nightmares, but they appeared to be in good physical health.

Another falconer that reads the blog requested a picture of my trap, and I am happy to comply. The Starlings are coming into our Chicken pen, and eat as much or more food than the poor Chickens get, so it was imperative that I do something to control their populations. It is nice that I actually have a use for them - Hawk food. I estimate that I caught upwards of 500 Starlings last year, and they form a good part of my hawk food requirements. It is turning out to be a boon with Orrin's training as well.

The trap is made of 1x2 inch welded wire. It is 2x3x1 feet in size. There are two funnels, one in each end, with a door in the top. With this size of wire, the Sparrow sized birds can walk on through, since I am not that interested in them for Hawk food.

The idea of course is that the birds walk around the cage trying to get to the feed. When they find a funnel they walk in, but when they try to leave, they always go to the edges of the cage to try to escape. The only way for them to go out is to go to the middle of the cage and find a hole in the wire that will lead them outside.It is not unusual to get 15 to 20 Starlings a day out of this trap.

Now for Orrin. I think that he made his first kill today. Tomorrows casting will tell the tale. As I said he was at weight. Tami pulled his jesses before she turned him loose, not wanting a repeat of yesterday. He took his familar perch on the barn as we walked out into the Sage. We were waiting for him to come over us, but he flew the other direction to the Telephone wire out across the creek.

We decided at that point that he was screwing us and we were going to pick him up with as little food as possible and see if he could overcome his addiction to Mice long enough to work with us for a change. We walked back across the field into the opening by the barn and looked for him. He was nowhere to be seen. We swung the lure for 10 or 15 minutes before we spotted him on the Telephone wire. He saw the lure swinging and came to it. Tami almost knocked him out of the air with her belated toss. :-) She was appalled and I was quite amused. On the lure he was quite jumpy, which was unusual to me. She had put half of a Sparrow breast and wing on the lure, and fed him the head, which he ate not much more than the brains. (He really likes the brains.) When we weighed him at the house, he weighed 115 grams. In thinking about it, he was out of sight for a long time, and he was jumpy on the lure, as well as weighing a lot more than he should have. Tomorrows casting will tell the tale, but we are thinking that he caught one of the mice or Voles that abound in this area while we were walking across the field.

Conclusion :  I have mentioned a lot of times that he is a older bird, Haggard. That is one that has been through at least one molt. In falconry we do not use Haggards with the exception that it is permitted in Kestrels, since there is no real noticeable change in feather color to identify them. It takes a real expert to tell the difference. It can be done, but not by me. The reason that they are not used is ostensibly because they have proven to be a survivor ( not easy at all. 75 percent of young die in their first year.) and they are a valuable part of the breeding populations. Actually it is because they have already developed their hunting style and not even dynamite could get them to change it. ( my version ) Any way the only way so far that we can get Orrin to cooperate is to take him to the razors edge on his weight, and prime him, by tossing Sparrows for him. So far if given a chance, he flies to the nearest high point and starts watching for Mice. It is a known fact that "bad habits", ( as in a bird that does things that are counter productive to what you want. ) can be taught in one easy lesson, and never be eradicated by years of work. Bad habits are a lot like fat cells, they shrink, but never fully go away. We will be fighting his proclivities for the rest of the time that we have him, and will not get what we want until the spring when the new models come out. The lessons that he is teaching Tami are frustrating, but valuable as well. I like very much, that it pisses her off to have to chase him. I like the fact that she overcomes her fears of losing him enough to not do things the easy way and settle for just keeping him around allowing him to lead her on a merry chase.

This is why I require the novices that I sponsor to train at least three hawks in their two year apprenticeship. The hawk that she has now is supremely designed as a survivor. He does what he needs to do that, and as I said not all of them are up to the task. As a survivor he is rated as a 10. As a falconry bird he is perhaps a 7. It would not be this critical in a different species, but with a Kestrel it is much different. (Surviving does not depend on catching birds. It does depend on catching Mice. They have much more food value, there is little danger to the raptor, and the effort is minimal.) Her next bird will be a Kestrel that is in a family group. It will not know how to hunt, it will not know what it can or cannot catch. It will be a "blank slate" that Tami can write what ever she wants to on it. If she is sloppy or unwise, the things that she writes will haunt her through out the entire time that she has the bird. She will undoubtably make some mistakes. That is where the third bird comes in. She will then have a chance to correct the things that she did wrong.

With Orrin, I am helping her, in that I am making the decisions and asking her to carry them out. The one that she gets this spring will be hers to train. I will only comment if asked directly or if she makes a mistake and recognizes it for a mistake, and then only after the fact.

Experimenting with weight

Orrin apparently retained a little too much Starling from yesterday as he weighed 106.5 grams today. The wind is howling as well. When Tami called with his weight, I left it for her to decide if 106 was too much for him. She of course wanted to know what I thought, and I refused to tell her yes or no, but opined that while he might be pissy, I didn't think that he would go away. I also laid a bit of guilt on her, in that we should really be flying him every day to advance our program. ( What are sponsors for?) She finally decided that since she had too much to do this afternoon to wait, we would try it.

We turned him loose at the edge of the field, and he made his way to the top of the barn. We walked out into the field and he soon came over us and began hovering. I tossed a Sparrow that was not handicapped in any way and the little stinker caught it. Welllll! that made things suddenly interesting. He soon came up out of the bush and landed on a post. After a bit of tail bobbing he plucked a few feathers to confirm our fears. ( A bird at weight with a very portable item is not nearly the cause for alarm that one that is already high) We experimented with his reaction by putting a live bird on the lure and tossing it near him. Not interested! Soon he started bobbing his head, then lifted off and flew across the creek. We watched for a while, and soon I saw him sitting on the Telephone wires across the creek. I swung the lure and tossed it into the air. He came off and flew over, but did not go down to the lure. He sat around a bit, but would not go to the lure, or Tami's fist. We tried a few more things to tempt him, but he took off and started hovering over the field. Still looking for Mice. I tossed a Starling and he put it into some brush by the creek. We thought that he had caught it, but he soon flew out and started hovering again.

I again swung the lure, but out of nowhere came a Tiercel Prairie Falcon. It was pressing him pretty hard, but Orrin kept dodging his attempts to catch him. Finally they went to the ground at the end of the field, and neither came up again. We walked down there and saw the Prairie sitting on a post. When he flew he didn't have anything in his talons, but we couldn't find Orrin. We made a search through the area, and finally Grace who had come with us, saw him fly up off the ground and into the tree. Apparently he had taken refuge at the bottom of the tree.

Orrin was understandably jumpier than usual, so Grace and I walked off a ways while Tami attempted to call him out of the tree. Finally he came down to the fist, and we walked on home. Tami of course had quite a scare with the Prairie trying to catch him. I assured her that the Prairie couldn't catch him, since he was so much more maneuverable.

On the way home, I saw a really large flock of Horned Larks flying. They are a really small quick ground birds that are reputed to be part of the Prairie's normal diet. Sure enough the Prairie lifted off the ground carrying a Lark. I am not sure if Orrin could catch one of them in a fair flight. :-/

Conclusion: 106 is a bit too high. While he flies well at that weight, he is a bit too flighty. We will also start pulling his jesses before flying, as I am sure that is what attracted the Prairie.  It was also confirmed that he really only trusts Tami. Today he would not come to her until Grace and I walked about 50 yards away. On the way back he would keep bating until we gave him a 10 yard wide berth. We were apparently too close when he was sitting around after he caught the Sparrow. I had thought that he would grow used to us being there, but he has not. Most hunting hawks would prefer their handler to be alone, since most of the time they are working one on one with the hawk, but Tami has always had me with her on every trip. I am  sure that the elevated weight had a lot to do with his reactions, but the fact remains that he doesn't want anyone else near him.

Waiting on training.

We haven't been able to fly Orrin for a few days due to other commitments, town trips and bad weather. Today he was at 104 grams, so we decided to continue our pursuit of a "Waiting On" flight with a Kestrel. I grabbed two Starlings and four Sparrows, and stuffed them in various pockets of my vest. I had my little video camera fastened to my hat with one of Karen's head bands. This camera is better than the other one, but with a bird so small, it helps if you have a good imagination.

When we turned Orrin loose, the first thing that he did was to fly low over the brush pile to see if he could flush something. That is the first sign that he has shown that he actually was hunting birds. Of course from there he went to the barn to prospect for Mice. We refused to call him to the fist or do more than call to him to encourage him to come to us. We walked on an oblique out in the field trying to get him to fly out to where we were. He first saw a Mouse to chase, but luckily it got into a burrow and he was unsuccessful. He went to a fence post for a bit, then decided to come out to see what was happening. When he was close enough I tossed a Sparrow and the little stinker almost caught it. He put a couple of moves on the Sparrow that had it crashing into the ground to avoid him. Somehow he lost sight of it when he did his throw up, and the Sparrow managed to make his escape. He then flew up and circled back towards us, so I threw another Sparrow that he chased all the way across the field, losing in some Grease Wood. He tried for a bit to find it, then came back to us. I tossed the Starling at him when he was coming in. He doesn't like that at all, and flew past and circled around to get behind it. The Starling had a good head start and wasn't waiting on the Kestrel to see what his intentions were. They flew way out into the Sage and thankfully he lost it in the Cows. It was far enough that I could no longer see either of them.

Finally he came back after trying some Horned Larks and landed in one of the trees lining the field to rest. He was still a long way off, and I was trying to get a Starling out of my bag so that I would be ready. It of course managed to evade my grasp and it took off towards the trees. Orrin started as soon as he saw it fly, on an interception course. The Starling changed course, flying towards the house. Orrin was cutting the distance between them, and the Starling tried to take refuge in the Willows at the end of the barn.

When we got there, we could hear the Starling screaming, and found them at the base of one of the Willows in a small hole. Tami picked them both up and finished the Starling. We discussed the flight while Orrin ate.

I attempted to upload the video to the blog, but apparently it was too big. I trimmed almost every thing out to the bare basics and managed to get it to upload.

I have to say that the little rascal is giving me some surprises, and of course supplying a lot of enjoyment to Tami, along with a lot of valuable insight into the thought process of Raptors. He flew today a lot like his bigger counter parts. Tami remarked as to how similar the flight of a Peregrine after ducks was to what Orrin did today. It was hard to see for sure, even though the action took place not 75 feet away, but it is likely that he knocked the Sparrow out of the air and lost sight of it in his "throw up". One thing that never ceases to amaze me is his persistence in chasing quarry. He just will not give up as long as there is a chance to catch the game. The only drawback is that his size makes it hard to keep track of him. He is a pocket rocket for sure.

We may never catch wild game with this little guy, other than Mice. Primarily due to the short time that we have left to work with him. With Peregrines the process that we are following generally does not show that many rewards until the second year. We have a month. Our biggest problem is getting him to go high enough to be able to command enough ground to actually take wild quarry. With a balloon I could get that height, but it is a little too much for the short time that we have.  We will see what happens in the time that we have left. In any case, he will be a hoot on bagged Starlings, but I am not counting him out yet.

Time for a change

It is time for a change. We have been trying to shape Orrin's hunting to what would actually give him the best chance to catch something. That is direct pursuit from the fist. He does not see it that way. After quite a few successful slips while on the fist, he still wants to fly to the open fields to hunt. Since he is most likely an older bird, I can understand that he would default to what has always worked for him. I have noticed several times that he goes into these fields and hovers, looking for game. He will stay in one spot for a while and then move to another, again hovering for as long as he can stand it. I have stubbornly insisted that he conform to my ideas, and he has steadfastly resisted. I hereby give up.

Falconry is actually using the birds strong points and natural inclinations to your advantages. For instance Peregrines naturally do the things that make them the best suited for falconry, such as waiting on. Kestrels also wait on, however it is generally at 50 feet. What ever! I guess we will see what he can do.

Tami and I are both trapping birds. She is trapping Sparrows, ( also unprotected) while I am catching Starlings. We have not used many of the Sparrows since Orrin would be guaranteed to carry them, and I just don't need the hassle as yet. If Tami has him long enough we will teach him to cache, but that can be done later. ( It is merely tempting him to leave what he has for more food. He has proven that he will come to the lure with a full crop already.)

Today I had a cage full of Starlings, and I put two in my pocket as bags. I then picked up three Sparrows as incentives and put them in another pocket. We kept Orrin on the fist and started walking up the line of big trees heading towards the Barn. There were a bunch of Sparrows just in front of us, and Orrin was watching them. I released one of the Sparrows right in front of him, and as it flew off, he flinched, but did not give chase. I asked Tami to turn him loose to see what he would do. He took off, ignoring the birds and flew to the open field and started hovering. He would hold over a spot for a while and then move to another and so on until he tired. He then went to a tree to rest for a bit. Well it was time to take the hint, so we went to the field that he had been hunting Mice in. We stopped and just waited. He again came out of the tree and began his hovering hunt of the field. When he tired, he sat down on one of the fence posts that divided the field. We again waited. After a bit he started towards us and when he got close, he started flying a bit higher because Tami had not presented her fist. I flipped out a Sparrow and he chased it into the Tule patch by us. He started up again and this time got up to about 75 feet. I tossed out a Starling, and it chose to fly away from his location. He used his height and forced it into a bunch of Willows lining a irrigation ditch. He went in right after it and caught it about 50 feet into the tangle. No hesitation, he was going to catch the Starling, no matter where it went.

The interesting part is that they went into the willows about 50 feet to Tami's right, you can just barely see the open end. He would have impressed a Coopers hawk with that chase. He could not have flown, it had to be a foot race. It was just too thick for him to fly. I know he sure impressed me.

It would be easier to use a Kite or Balloon to teach him to go high, but I guess we will just toss Sparrows and reward him with a Starling when he improves his technique. We may have to establish some feeding stations for the Sparrows to give us some chances at game.

Feb 16

We were attempting to get a bit better flight for Orrin today, so I put a Starling in the bush for him to chase. We decided to get a bit further back so as to give the Starling a better chance. It is a bit of an inexact science at best, and of course I screwed it up. Orrin was a bit late in starting, and the Starling gave him a hard chase. It is hard to tell with such a small bird, but he flew it almost out of sight and it put  in one of the hay stacks two fields away. I grabbed another Starling and this time pulled three flight feathers out of one wing. We started walking towards where he had disappeared after hovering near to the hay stack. As we got within a couple of hundred yards, he left the perch where he was sitting and flew towards us. I released the other Starling and he slammed into it with gusto. As you can tell Starlings are a pretty big quarry for such a little guy.

I recorded the footage with my little camera and then had to convert it to a wmv file so it lost a bit of quality.

Much more like it.

Karen and I decided this morning that a Sunrise in the hot tub would be just the thing to start the day. Well, in fact the Sun was doing such a fine job of it that we decided to hop in the car, drive to the top of the hill to see what the Steen's looked like. So off we go in our robes and flip flops. Driving was a bit of a challenge since the temp was only 29 degrees, so it was a two person job with the windshield totally frosted over. Thank heavens for heated seats. The view of Blue Mountains were not that bad either.

The forecast for the day was highlighted by a wind advisory, of 30 MPH with gusts to 40 or 50 MPH. So I called Tami and suggested that we fly Orrin as soon as we could. I had managed to catch a few Starlings, so we were all set to further his education.

So far we have taught him to follow, and that he could catch stuff that we released for him. His last outing was also in high wind conditions on a bird released out of sight on the other side of the brush pile.

What we are now trying to teach him is that he can catch birds that do not come from the hand. The way that we are trying to accomplish that is to conceal the bird in a coffee can with a string on the top that is stretched out a long way from the brush pile. The idea was to walk him close to the brush pile and pull the string releasing the bird to fly unhampered.

His last outing he actually flew over the bird going to a far tree. We yelled and whooped, he turned around and came back, grabbing the Starling. In retrospect I believe that I screwed him up by being so close to the bush.

This time, I stretched the line back further and then had Tami walk up to 10 feet or so of the Brush pile, while I stayed back behind. When the Starling came out he only got about 5 feet and Orrin pounded into him. No hesitation at all. That is what we are looking for. We will set him up like that a few more times, each time we will be further away. It will not be long now before he will view birds in a different light altogether.

Feb 11

Orrin was down to 101 grams today and for some reason at that weight the little sucker will go hunting all on his own. At least he has, the last few times that we have had him at that weight. At 104 he seems to stick around a bit more and at 98 he does as well. However between 101 and 102, he is off on his own.

We attempted to go into a larger open field, but he took off at the first opportunity and flew to the line of trees at the edge of the field. We walked back to the brush pile, hoping that he would come back to us and act like a trained hawk. He went down out of the tree after something on the ground, so we started in that direction. The Starling that I had "secured" in my pocket, (yeah right) got out and tried to make his escape. He got into the bushes lining the field. I got around him to block him from getting into the heavier brush. We walked to where I could see Orrin in the tree and I waved a Sparrow at him to try to get him over us with the thought that I would try to flush the Starling when he was coming. Orrin started out of the tree and it soon became clear that he wasn't coming to me at all. I stopped and watched him slam into the Starling that had gotten out into the open. He was pretty torqued up and wanted to fly with it, but it was too heavy for him to be able to do so.

We let him kill it and start eating. Tami began edging his way, and finally got down on her knees to finish her approach. He was very jumpy and made it abundantly clear that he would carry anything that was small enough for him to do so. When Tami got close enough, she gave him a tidbit on the end of her finger. I had her then offer him the live Sparrow in her fist, hoping to establish the idea in his head that just killing something wasn't necessarily the end of the fun. Besides Starlings are stringy and not all that tasty, and the stuff that Tami has was better tasting.

Now I personally don't think that he will ever make that connection. I don't think that we have been able to modify his behaviour one little bit, other than to get him to tolerate Tami and take whatever food she offers him. He still wants to hunt on his own, still hates to ride the fist, preferring to fly to the tops of the trees to hunt. He will come when called, but so far the fact that we have birds for him to catch still hasn't made that much of a lasting impression, or change in his hunting style. However there was one good thing about the switch. He got to eat all the Sparrow, and it was not big enough that we will not be able to fly him tomorrow. If we had left him with the Starling, we would not be able to fly him tomorrow, it was too much food, and way too rich.

His behaviour and attitude is normal in a bird taken at the age that we trapped him. That is the main draw to taking a bird that is younger and less experienced. They don't know what they can and cannot do. They have not formed any habits concerning hunting, and are quite willing to sit the fist and fly flushed game, which is the style that we would prefer. Perhaps a waiting on style of flight would have been better in his case.

Just too damn small!

We have been having weather, particularly wind, problems. It has been howling most of all last week. Tami has been flying Orrin in the house on those types of days. Yesterday it moderated and we took Orrin out to fly. His weight should have been just right, but all it did was make him go hunting on his own. The little sucker flew down to the new barn and sat on top of the rafters. He was watching the brush (Christmas tree) pile feeding station, so I flipped out a Sparrow that we had caught, and from 80 yards away he came, but the unhindered Sparrow soon out flew him. Instead of going back to the  barn he came on and actually waited on over our heads. I threw a Starling that I had handicapped, for him. ( Not enough it turns out) It also showed more ability than he was comfortable with, so he quit chasing it. He then flew to one of the trees across the field. We tried to call him, but he paid no attention. We walked on a bit further thinking that he would come on over, but he stayed, so I tossed the lure for him. Tami picked him up with a very reduced amount and we went home. She put him to bed having only fed him some four grams. I told her that when he hit 98 grams I would come back and we would try again.

After weighing him this morning Tami and I thought that he should hit the 98 gram weight around 2 PM. I caught another Starling this afternoon, so I took it in the empty Hawk mews here at the house to flight test it. I pulled secondary feathers this time, and thought that I had just the right amount of a handicap so that the Starling would still be able to fly, just not well enough to get away from Orrin. What we want and need, is to teach him to keep pushing and he will be successful. I don't want to make it too easy, or too hard. As he develops confidence they will be handicapped less and less until he is taking wild birds.

(Pulling feathers sounds kind of bad, but it is better than cutting them. If I cut them they will not grow back until the bird completes its molt later in the spring. However by pulling them, if the bird escapes, they will grow back in a few weeks and he will be good as new.)

On arrival, Tami told me that he had stopped losing weight at 98.5 grams. Apparently that is the bottom line. He was a lot more attentive this time, and deigned to come when called. I had a pocket full of Sparrows again to see if we could duplicate the waiting flight again. He was on the barn and Tami called him again to the fist. He came when called, and then went back to a fence post on the edge of the field. I yelled at him and flashed a Sparrow at him, he started and I tossed the Sparrow. It saw him and turned out across the field. He pressed it hard and after flying it for 50 or more yards, it took refuge in a Grease Wood bush. Orrin crashed in after him, surprising both of us. He soon lost it and came back out and flew back towards us. I took out the Starling and tossed it towards him. The Starling flew straight at him. He strafed it and tried to turn to get in behind. They both flew across the field and to the far trees before we lost sight of him. There was a hump in the ground and we couldn't see the conclusion to the flight.

We walked over there hoping against hope that we could find them. We both listened as hard as we could, thinking that we might hear the Starling screaming. Orrin did not show up in any of the trees or anywhere that we could see. We started combing the Sage in the area that we had last seen him. Still no Orrin, so it was for sure that he had caught the Starling. Once Tami thought that she heard the Starling Scream, but though we looked all around, we could find no sign of them. The trees curved around to the right along the ditch, although there was only two of them and they were another couple of hundred yards along. Tami walked part of the way to them, but turned around. We walked, looking under almost every bush that we could find, and in every spot that we could possibly think of. I even went back down the ditch towards the far off trees, seeing and hearing nothing.

It had been two hours since we last saw him. Now the only question was how he was going to act with all the Starling in his crop that he could hold. Whether he would come down in the morning if she could find him before he ate his fill of Mice. Its always tough when your bird spends his first night out. The uncertainty is unrelenting. I have lived through it more times than I care to remember, it never gets easier. It would be no better for me, even though I was pretty sure that he would not leave the ranch before she had a chance to pick him up again. It was after all my fault that the chase went so long. I was the expert that was supposed to guide her through all this stuff, and I had failed miserably. It took me by surprise that he would chase so long and so hard.

I was going back over the brush again when Tami called to me. I looked up and the little turkey was sitting in the last tree way the hell from where he should have been. It turns out that Tami did hear the Starling. It had only screamed once so she couldn't get a line on the sound. Apparently like a lot of raptors he had followed the Starling until it ran out of steam and then crashed into it as it was going into cover. I had thought that should have happened back in the original search area. The actual chase had covered about a quarter of a mile.

I still had a Sparrow, so I secured it to the lure and tossed it out. Surprisingly he came and strafed the Sparrow a couple of times before going to a different tree. I picked it up and tossed it further away from us and towards him. He could not resist and bound to the Sparrow.

He however was very full and very jumpy. Not surprising since he had two hours to eat all the Starling that he could hold.

He kept trying to fly with the Sparrow, but of course, could not with the weight on the lure. Tami began to slowly creep closer, talking to him all the time. He killed the Sparrow and began to pluck at it. She reached out with her bare hand and gave him a tidbit, and soon, she had him secured and on the fist.

As you can see from the grin, Tami was quite relieved and happy that every thing worked out. It could have, or even should have, not turned out this well. I am surprised that no one heard my sigh of relief when the little sucker grabbed the Sparrow on the lure. Chump to hero in 2 minutes.

The stinker is so small, that none of my transmitters will fit on him. I don't want to put a bell on him either in case we do lose him. The loss would be no big deal. We are going to turn him loose in about a month any way. If he books now, he will only have to pull the jesses out and he is unencumbered. With a bell its a whole other story. We may bell her family group bird this summer, but not Orrin. The likely hood of keeping him after he begins taking Sparrows is too tenuous. However since he has shown that he is willing to come to a live lure after stuffing himself with Starling, one would have to say that the odds have improved.

Entered to game!

The term indicates that your hawk is given a chance to catch its intended prey species. This is ideally in such a way that it does not know that it was arranged.

Today was to be Orrin's introduction to birds. In watching him I do not believe that he had ever hunted birds before. This country is over run with Mice, Voles, and Shrews. With that kind of abundance there is no need for an agile raptor like a Kestrel to exert itself by chasing birds. Both Tami and I have been catching Starlings that have been helping the chickens with their food. Being an invasive species there are no restrictions on killing them. They are perfect in that they are heavy enough that he should not be able to carry one very far, and tough enough that he would be quite busy trying to subdue it. After catching Starlings, any thing else is a piece of cake.

The Starling was handicapped by clipping the flight feathers off of one wing. The Starling is then unbalanced enough that it cannot fly well enough to escape, but it can still fly. Tami had earlier placed her used Christmas tree out in the middle of a hay field by the house and baited it with chicken scratch.  (The intent is to lure Sparrows out to a place that Orrin could have a chance to catch them before they get to cover.)  We walked out to the tree, I kicked it and tossed the Starling out. Orrin watched it a bit and then took off with more serious intent than I had witnessed from him ever before. He caught the Starling on the edge of the ditch that runs through the field. They struggled and fell down into the ditch.

 As you can see, the boy knows which end carries the threat. I was pleased to see that he had it pretty well subdued, but he was still in a fight, and with the Starling on its back, could not kill it. Starlings use their feet to fight with as well, and being on its back he could not get past the stabbing beak to break its neck. Tami moved in to the front and grabbed the Starling, bringing them up out of the ditch.

It looks a bit awkward, but he is not about to let go of his grip on its neck, and is using his wings to help him balance.

All the time he was trying to sever the spine to kill the Starling. Tami had already broken the Starling's neck, but Orrin's system was running full of adrenaline and he wasn't taking any ones word for anything.

We spent the rest of the day letting him eat all he could hold of the first warm meal that he has had since he was caught on the trap. Tami and I discussed her observations and every other situation that she could think of while he ate.

More like it!

 Tami had a "town day" yesterday, so the day before, she gave Orrin a Starling to eat after she had flown him. ( I like to gorge my birds at least once a week, and I like to fast them once a week as well. The gorge is generally whole game, either birds or mammals, so they have a chance to clean their crop with a casting. As you probably know their crops hold or store their food until their stomach can use it. As such it needs cleaning periodically. That is accomplished by the fur and or feathers that are not digestible. Each morning or approximately 24 hours later a "casting" or pellet is regurgitated. This helps keep the crop clean and the bird healthy.) He got enough food off the Starling that he didn't really need to eat that much yesterday. She fed him enough food that she brought him up to 115 grams, hoping that he would be at our targeted weight.

At flying time, he weighed 104 grams. I am beginning to believe that is his "lean" weight where he has no more fat. To get him lower requires that we make him digest his muscle. Any way we decided to go ahead and try him to see how he would respond. Two days ago on the 31st, she flew him alone because I was stuck in town. He did quite well, and from her recount of the flight, I thought that he had made some improvement.

Prior to today, we had been very careful to not give him an opportunity to get very far away. As the saying goes, we had been flying him very close to our vest. It was time for the ball to be in his court, and to see how he would react when we didn't call him. It was time, and he had plenty of chances to know that these outing were to feed him. We got to the line of trees where we had been trying to get him to follow us. Tami gave him a tidbit and set him in the tree. We walked off and did not call him. Finally when we had gotten about 80 or more yards from the tree that he was in, I asked her to put up her fist and by using her voice to encourage him to come. What we wanted of course was for him to come to one of the trees closer to our position. Nothing that we could see, happened so we kept on, walking further and further away. The sun was setting and right in our eyes, so it was tough to tell where he was or even if he was there. Finally when we were about 150 or more yards away from the tree that he was last seen in, I asked her to whistle for him, which is his signal for food on the fist. All of a sudden he was most of the way to the fist, but from one of the trees close to us. He is so small that it is really tough to keep track of him. He had moved with us, but we had not seen him do it. This time when he flew, he flew to a tree in front of us. This is the first time that he has done so, at least when I was there. We both grinned, since that is what we have been trying to get him to do all along. We walked on past him, without pausing or calling him, and soon he flew on to the next tree in front of us. After we got past him, Tami whistled him down, and without hesitation he responded. He then flew again to a tree in front of where we were going. We were approaching the resident Red-tail, so we turned away from him and started back the way we had came. I watched him and he let us get about 80 yards before he moved up to another tree closer to us. We walked on and he started this time to come to Tami without being called, so I whipped the lure back into his path. He arrived at the lure the same time it hit the ground. We have been tying a Starling wing on the lure for him after the fiasco where the meat came off before he could get to it. When he got to the bone and feather part he was trying to drag the lure to Tami, so that he could get some more meat. Its really cute, but he is also jumpy on the lure as well, and I expect some interesting times if we get him catching Sparrows.

Tomorrow will be his introduction to Starlings as a food source. From all indications he has never hunted anything other than Mice.

One of my friends that reads the blog inquired about "Turning him loose". The purpose of the apprentice period is to teach the novice how to train hawks, not to obtain a neat pet. One does not learn very much from just one hawk. Then there is the fact that a bird from the wild is just on loan, and if it survives the first year then it should be allowed to return to the wild to pass on its genes if it is strong enough to survive and mate. I personally prefer young birds of the year taken before they know their limitations. I enjoy their enthusiasm and willingness to chase and catch anything. After Tami has completed her apprentice period, she can do as she wishes, but frankly her thirst for knowledge about different raptors and how to train them matches mine easily. She has no qualms about turning Orrin loose when the time comes.

Raptors mature quickly due to necessity and a raptor taken in late fall will always react differently to one taken out of a family group, and in Orrins case this will cause difficulty when and if he starts to take game. He has always flown to a convenient branch or telephone line to eat his prey. Our only recourse will be to teach him to cache his food and come to more. We will see.