Pud is ready!

The first thing that I did this morning was to fly to the Alvord to check the water levels. It is hard for me to believe, but the Desert is still full of water. I looked for a way to the east side of the Lake bed, and at the moment about the only way to get there is to fly or come in off the Micky Hot Springs road. Here is the link to a video of the flight.
http://vimeo.com/27878704

Pud this morning weighed 870 grams. She has been steadily coming up in weight, but her response is better each day. This only means that it is finally sinking in what I want her to do. I am beginning to subscribe to Karen's theory that she is just a baby yet. Slow development I guess. I may go back to stupid later. :-)

She came on the creance without a bobble to twice the length of it. I called her to the fist and took her to the lawn to toss the lure for her. ( She doesn't like to have dirt and gravel in her food. ) This time when I took it out of my bag, she focused on it with recognition in her gaze. ( a bit of sarcasm there ) I tossed it out in front of us and she immediately flew to the meat this time. I let her eat it, pleased that she hadn't gotten a death grip on the lure body. Sadly it wasn't to last and as soon as she finished the meat, she grabbed it. She then had to think how to get to the fist for the rest of her meal. Actually she did quite well with the whole of the lesson. She ate the rest of her food and I tied her up in the weathering area. She is ready to fly free. She knows what the fist and the perch are for, and she will come to the lure, even if I have to toss it in front of her feet to get her attention.  It will be a relief to be able to get into the field where we can work on following and maybe even find a tasty Jack Rabbit to invite to dinner.
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Tami's flight yesterday:

I put Jasper out in the weathering area this morning while I did chores. He is still a bit restless in there and although he hopped to the edge of his bath and even in it several times, he didn't really bathe. I left him out for a while as I was around the house today and could keep an eye on him.

This evening Jasper weighed 92.5 grams. I put the creance on him and headed outside to continue where I left off yesterday. Working on getting him to come further and further to me when I call him. He is doing well with this and even though he still thinks about it with the furthest flights, he hasn't refused to come. It was a bit breezy this evening and I learned something that most experienced falconers know. I was standing down wind from Jasper and when I whistled for him to come he was very hesitant. It was contrary to how he had been behaving although he finally flew to me. When he did, he had to do a little bit of fancy flying to be able to hit my fist as the wind blew him around. Duh! I moved up wind when I called him the next time. He didn't need any coaxing to come this time and was able to fly much more directly to my fist as he was flying into the wind. As I continued to increase the distance, he took a little longer  to come so I employed your tactic and stepped a bit further away. This didn't seem to dissuade him and on he came. On his final flight I guess he flew about 35-40 feet to me. I considered this a good place to quit and finished the lesson with some lure training. I squatted down so he was a couple feet off the ground, gently swung the lure back and forth a bit and laid it out in front of him. He looked at it with great interest, but I had to wiggle it a little before he realized that there was meat on it for him to eat. Once he figured out that out he hopped off my fist and grabbed it. Then he turned his back on me and tried to haul it off. He couldn't get far dragging it and when he settled down I offered him tidbits in the hopes that he would realize that I was not interested in robbing him of his prize. I was happy to see that he turned back towards me as he ate what was on the lure, not trying to hide from me anymore. I continued to give him a tidbit now and again as he ate what was on the lure and he seemed ok with my presence. When he finished up I offered him his finishing chunk of meat and he had no trouble leaving the lure and coming to my fist. I guess I was about 3 feet away when he came to me from the lure. I feel a lot less hurried about him coming to my fist from the lure than I did with Orrin. With Orrin it seemed like it took an excruciatingly long time for him to finish what was on the lure and decide to come to my fist for the rest. I felt pretty unsettled as he ate on the lure because I really wanted him to be secured on my fist. This time around with Jasper I keep remembering what you say about "the hurrider you go the behinder you get" and I feel a little more at ease with waiting until he is ready to leave the lure. I think Jasper and I are continuing to make progress and this makes me happy.
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Any of you with a memory will remember that I said feeding tidbits behind a birds back isn't really going to do you any good. The problem with making flat statements is that there are many variations to the situations. Tami did the right thing, and the only thing, when Jasper tried to take off with the lure, and with him it worked. He is still adaptable, and if she can show him that there is more, then he will gladly stick around to get it.  The one thing that Tami is finding much to her pleasure is the differences between a young bird taken in August and one taken in Dec or January. Jasper is much more adaptable than Orrin, and really hasn't settled into just one course of action or way to do things.

Jasper is about two lessons from the spot that Pud occupies right now.

The little Bunny is still living under the Motor home and coming out on the lawn in the daylight to eat on the lawn. Karen opened the door to do something, scaring the bunny. He made a beeline for the Motor Home. There has been a family group of Shrikes learning how to hunt here in the yard and around the house. (look it up on Google) They are meat hunters and like all young of the year, do not know what they are really capable of. This one apparently thought that he was  "Henry Hawk", and chased the little Bunny right down into his pipe. Not sure what he had in mind, but he was definitely out of his class.