Last flight!

Well, today is the day. Orrin goes free today to whatever fate awaits him. I am quite sure he will do well, he is supremely suited for survival.

Tami brought him over for one last flight. We turned him loose and he promptly went to the top of the power pole that my electrical service is on. He sat there watching the Sparrows fly into the bush at the bottom of the pole. Shortly he became bored of that and flew off to get to the serious business of hunting  mice. We soon became bored with that and waved a Starling at him to see if that would tempt him. It did not. He kept moving down the runway, periodically flying up to hover over spots that he felt would supply him with a mouse.

Tami decided that it was time to call him back to the lure and get on with the process of releasing him. I plucked a Starling for him to eat after she picked him up from the lure.

She will take him back home, cut his jesses off and set him on a post there at the house, to finish the Starling. He will do quite well. The weather has moderated quite a bit, and there is no shortage of prey for him to eat. If he continues to stay at the ranch, she can supplement his food with the Starlings that she has. He has been fun, and he has taught her a lot.

Thank you for your time, little one.

First kill of wild game and unpleasant truths.

I asked Tami to bring Orrin over here to the house to hunt to see if we could get him to do something other than hunt mice. The short answer is no.

The area here at the house is such that the best high places to perch are right here in the yard. No tree of note, and the telephone lines are right here in the yard. Sparrows are all around moving from the front of the house to the corral, and between the two chicken houses. There are all kinds of opportunities if he chose to take them. The main thing is that there is no advantage to him to fly off from us to a better hunting area.

We released him here in the yard at 99 grams, so we know that he was hungry. He eventually flew quite high and started hovering at the edge of my runway, until he got tired. He then landed on one of the gate posts, and Tami called him to the fist for a tidbit. He flew off and went to the top of the Telephone pole at the corner of the house. Tami walked around the hanger flushing Sparrows as she went. He completely ignored them, finally putting in a crashing stoop into the Cactus patch after a mouse. He missed that and went back up to the power pole. We tried to get him to follow us to the Chicken pen where there was a congregation of Sparrows. He choose to fly the other direction, hovering over the field by the Hack Tower. We walked down to the creek and around, trying to get him to come over us. I had a Starling that I was willing to toss if he positioned himself as though he wanted it. He took off but was hovering over the Sage, eventually making another stoop into the Sage. He missed that and went back up into a hover, and again making a stoop into the Sage. That one yielded a ?Shrew? What ever it was it was small and didn't take very long to eat. He sat on one of the metal fence posts and ate it.

He took off again and into another hover. I tossed the Starling, and it flew to the top of the hack tower and landed on one of the posts. Orrin took a shot at him, the Starling managed to evade that and took off along the fence line. Orrin kept the height advantage and smashed into him, taking him down into the Sage. We decided that we would let him take care of the Starling and break in before we moved closer to him. We could hear the Starling Screaming, and soon Orrin flew up to the post, then on down the fence, as though he didn't care about the Starling any more. We found the Starling in a mouse hole, but Orrin didn't seem to be that interested anymore. He then flew up the runway and hovered briefly before sitting on a fence post. Tami called him to the lure.

After we walked back to the yard and stood by the trucks, we discussed what we had observed. It is pretty obvious that Orrin is not interested in catching birds. He had ample opportunity to do so today in a situation that he could have caught any number of Sparrows, but all the could think of was mice. Tami asked what I would do in her situation and then answered her own question, which was turn him loose. After a bit of thought and working out all his actions and reactions, she has decided to fly him again this Thursday to see if anything changes and will most likely turn him loose soon.