Still making progress.

In another day or two Puddy will be ready to fly free. It would be so much better if I could cut her loose now, but she needs at least one or two more lessons as to the value of the lure. I am sure that I could get away with it now, but I don't need to push it, nothing to be gained worth the chance, or aggravation if things go wrong. She still has a few flat spots that need to be worked out. For instance if she is brought to the ground, it is very difficult to get her to come back up on the fist.

I did weigh her today and she weighed 850 grams. Her response is still good. She shows anticipation to the things that indicate that I am going to pick her up. I have to watch her because she will fly to the hay bales from a lot further than the length of the creance. So she is capable of learning, I just need to be smart enough to show her what I want.

We called her several times to the perch, and she responded quite well, coming more than the length of the creance. She wanted to fly up to the top of the tack house, which caused some confusion on her part, but over all did quite well. I tried to pick her up off the perch so that I could give her the lure. I managed to cause her to bate and she ended up on the ground just in front of the yard. I tossed the lure a couple of times and finally she flew to the lure. It is a bit interesting in that she is not quick to recognize the lure until she can see the meat, but when she grabs it, she grabs the lure body, and holds to that like it is gold.

None of her reactions are that unusual. You first have to teach them that the lure means food, then they have to learn that once the food is eaten there is nothing more there. It is a bit amusing to see her with one foot full of the lure body trying to use that foot to hold down the piece of slippery meat in the other foot.

The lure is made of soft leather stuffed with fabric softener sheets, and is designed to be something that will give the lure enough weight to swing and get the hawks attention, yet be soft enough to not cause harm to the birds feet. The line is nylon and it has a weight on the end that will slide forward on the line so that you can throw the lure, but if the bird tries to drag or fly off with it, the weight slides to the end and hangs up on every little bump or weed.

I asked Tami to send a written recital of her new birds progress. His name is Jasper. He is a young of the year male Kestrel. We caught him out of a family group in Rome.

We actually wanted to catch a female, just to be able to compare possible differences, but that just wasn't happening. There were probably three perhaps four different family groups gathered on a series of power lines that ran beside a long string of hay fields. The males are always a bit faster to develop than the females. The males were ready to go on to bigger and better things, while the females were quite happy with Grasshoppers. We caught three Kestrels that day. One was an old Kestrel so faded that the only blue on him was on his head. The other was a gutsy little male, but he was so small that Tami's fingers wrapped all the way around him. When we caught this fella, he was much bigger and plumper, so we turned the other one loose as well.

The deal for Tami this year is that I will answer any and all her questions, but will not offer advice unless asked, or she is doing something so bad that I can't keep my mouth shut. One of the things that will help a new apprentice is to keep a journal of what you did, how the bird reacted, and the results. The better, and more accurate observer becomes the better falconer. That needs to be trained and refined during the apprentice period. This blog can be her journal, since so many inquired about Tami and her new bird.
Here is her report:


Here goes Progress Report # 1. I took Jasper outside with me this morning as I made my rounds through the garden, changing water and checking on things. He seems more than willing to just come along for the ride. He doesn't seem too inclined to bate, just kind of looks around at things with interest. He's still a bit crabby about being touched, so I spent some time tormenting him, touching him about the feet, chest and back. He still tries to bite, although it seems a little half-hearted to me. His grumpy indignation about this is actually quite amusing. I just keep chuckling at him and telling him what a mighty brave little falcon he is.

Thus far I have been keeping him inside on the perch, so this afternoon I decided to see if he would like a bath and how he would handle being outside in the weathering area. When I set him out and tied him to the perch, he just sat there and looked around for a long while. Soon he jumped down and began exploring how far the leash would let him go. I was glad to see that there wasn't any incessant bating, but just what looked to me like normal exploration. Hopping to the edge of the bath, then sitting for a while. Hopping back to the perch and sitting for a while. Flying out as far as his leash would let him go. Mostly, though, he sat on the perch. I kept him outside for an hour or so under supervision and as I had other things to do, put him back on the inside perch until it was time to fly him.

I have been monkeying with his weight, taking him down a bit because although he is flying to me pretty good in the house, outside he hasn't seemed inclined to come when I whistle. Last night when I tried, he just looked at me. I got tired of begging, so I brought him in and put him up while I went for a run. By the time I got back it was dark and I just flew him inside. He did well, but I think he was a still a little too heavy so I fed him less in the hopes that today he would do better outside. This evening he weighed 92.5 grams which is the lowest he has been. I have noticed that whenever I approach his perch lately, he gets pretty animated and hops over to the edge and onto my fist before I even have a chance to unclip him. I like to see this enthusiasm. I took him outside and set him on a fence post. I didn't put the creance on him because I wasn't sure how far we would progress being outside, even though he will fly across the room to me inside. I gave him a little tidbit when I set him down, moved my fist away about 6 inches and whistled. He came with no hesitation. I moved back about a foot and a half and he came before I could even whistle. Needless to say, I was quite pleased with this. I decided to put the creance on him and then stepped back about 6 feet, whistled and he came again. Okey-Dokey. I stepped back about 10 feet and after a little coaxing he came again. This was about as far as he has come inside and I guess I was feeling a little greedy because I then stepped back another few feet. At this point, he started to look around and then down at the ground quite intently. I whistled, but he was much too interested in something in the weeds at the base of the fence post. Just my luck there would be a mouse or a vole or a grasshopper or something lurking down there. At any rate I could see that he wasn't really interested in coming so I went and picked him up. I walked around with him a bit and decided to try again. I am not sure if this was the right decision, but luckily it worked out. I set him back on the post and stepped back to about 12 feet and whistled. I wiggled the tidbit, whistled again, and he came. I was pretty confident that the large chunk of meat that I saved for finishing the lesson would draw him so I stepped back about 15 feet or so and called him again. He took a little bit of time, more than I would of liked, but I wonder if he is still getting the hang of flying and landing on my fist from longer distances. He seems to wiggle and step around and think about it before he commits to flying. It doesn't look like he's ignoring me because he's bobbing and moving and stepping from side to side. It just looks like maybe he's not real confident about landing on my fist. What do you think? From the longer distances he sort of crash-lands into my fist. It has been interesting watching him try to figure that out. I am really liking this little fellow. And that is that. I will be interested in hearing what you think.

Take Care,
Tami


The problem with Jasper is of course the same aversion to flying to a human fist that Puddy did not seem to be able to over come. That is why I went to the Tee perch. Jasper seems to be able to overcome it however. The Kestrels are so much more agile in their flying. Actually I am quite pleased with her thoughts and actions. She is almost as far along in one week as I have been able to progress in a month. She has made no mistakes, and many intuitive guesses that keep things moving in a positive direction.