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.