A Good Weekend

Friday I took Scarlet out after work. I was supposed to have someone go with me but it fell through so I decided to fly her by myself. I slappped a transmitter on her and loaded her up into the car. Unfortunately we mostly saw grackles. She did go out the window a few times but did not really chase. Her fist response was EXCELLENT. She came back everytime I called her. I was ecstatic. At the end of the day I was confident so I slipped her on some sparrows. She looked like she was going to chase but just flew over them to a tree. I called her to the fist and called it a day. 99 grams.
Saturday was super cold and windy. I have had a really bad weekend with my back so I decided to stay in. Kenny was over so for experiments sake I had him feed Scarlet. He called her to the lure and she came immediately. Good to know!
Today I decided to give Scarlet a baggie and work on some anti-carrying and build up her confidence. We tied the sparrow about 10 feet from the car and drove up on it. She slicked down and out the window she went. I have to admit if it had not been tied down she would have missed. I waited patiently for her to start plucking. I then put a tidbit on my finger and slowly made in. She tried to carry a little bit but took the tidbit graciously. After a few moments she continued plucking. I kept feeding her tidbit and she was soon pulling her sparrow towards me to get them. She finally calmed down enough for me to reach in and tether her. She was not eating yet so I helped her by opening the chest. She began to eat and then moved to the head. I continued to feed her tidbits and she soon quit mantling and trying to carry. She moved from the chest to the head and which gave me chance to pull the rest of the sparrow away from her. She finished the head, looked at me, and then hopped to my fist. All in all I must say it was a great experience. She is learning that I am not going to take her game from her. I have one more baggie that I will give her and I hope it will go even better than this one. 98.5 grams today and I think I will try her again at this weight and see how she does.

Splashing in Puddles

At lunchtime today Scarlet was dead on 100 grams. I loaded up the creance and to the parking lot we go. Today was another exceptional day. I had her flying the full length of the parking lot to the fist. There was no hesitation except for one flight just as another person came outside. In this case she paused to look at the person and then flew to me.
Her lure response is still waning. It took her a while to come to the lure and she is still not landing on it. Her fist response far makes up for her lack in this area but I would like to see better performance. Once on the lure she has started looking to me for tidbits. This is great, hopefully she will do the same on a kill. I will keep my fingers crossed anyway. My little girl also stopped to enjoy some fresh puddles in the parking lot today....just to play. Silly girl.
Tomorrow after work Noel and I are going to try to find Scarlet some starlings....it is hunting time!
Here are some pics from the THA Meet last weekend. Enjoy!

Best Day Ever!

Due to falconer error and being stuck in a meeting WAY longer than expected Scarlet was at 100 grams today at lunch. She has been down to 101 before, but this is the lowest she has ever been. As quickly as possible I cut up food, tied her to the creance and headed outside. I started out at about 10 feet and barely had my fist in the air before she was in bound. Excellent! I moved farther and farther back and it only got better and better. Before I knew it she was flying the full length of the parking lot with instant response. After about 10 flights I pulled the lure and she was inbound. She is still lot landing on the lure but her response was great. She usually lands a foot short and then walks to it. She is still trying to pull it away from me at first but readily accepts the tidbits as I feed them to her. We are making progress there. I am very happy with today's training....time to get out hunting again!

Swoop

We spent the rest of last week working on the creance. By Friday she was doing much better. I had gotten her weight down to 103 grams and she seemed to be doing very well at that weight. This weekend was the annual THA meet. On Saturday the weather was so beautiful and Scarlet was at 103 grams. I just could not resist taking her out. After all, I did get her to hunt with so that is what I needed to do. We drove around for a while before finding any birds. It was not the ideal time of day (before dusk) but I wanted to fly her early enough that I would have time to get her back if she took off again. I did show her a slip of grackles but she was not interested. Hopefully that will come in time as she learns the game.
We finally found a slip in the college parking lot. I rolled down the window, she slicked down and took off. Unfortunately she missed. She ended up in a tree at the edge of the parking lot so I made my way towards her. I pulled out the lure and started to call her. This is when the game began. I threw the lure, she would fly towards it and swoop it then pull up into another tree. This was usually followed by her screaming at me which I interpreted as a laugh.
I finally laid down in the grass with the lure in front of me just wiggling it a little. It took a lot of patience but she finally came in and landed on it. I had put a small bird on the lure. Once she started plucking the bird, I put a tidbit on my finger and stretched my arm out to her. I slowly pulled her towards me until the tidbit was with in reach. She reached over and took the tidbit from my finger so I repeated with the bag of tidbits I had. I finally was able to reach in and tether her. We continued the tidbitting and eating on the lure until she was done, then she hopped to my glove and we called it a day.
Although the hunt did not goes as planned, all in all it was a good day. She chased, came to the lure (eventually) and I got her back. Sometimes that is all you can ask for. We are going to do some more lure work this week so hopefully we won't have a repeat performance of Saturday.
I will post some pictures soon.

Very Jumpy

I took Scarlet outside to fly on the creance today at lunch. Her weight was dead on - 104 grams. We started out really well. A few flights at 10 and 20 feet and she was coming to me nicely. I had Scarlet perched near the front door on a small wall as it was the only place to put a perch. She first got spooked when Lisa came out to smoke. She stopped paying attention to me for the most part and kept looking at Lisa. She still came to me, just took a little longer to get there. When Lisa went back inside I threw the lure. After a few moments of contemplation she flew down and landed next to it. She never actually stood on it and was staring at me the entire time trying to pull the meat off the lure. I am assuming she was wanting to bolt with it. In the middle of this Aaron came out the door and she really spooked. She started to fly off, the creance line caught her and I picked her up. I brought her back and set her beside the lure but she wanted nothing to do with it. She sat there puffed up and mantling, her wings spread and shivering. I offered her a tidbit but she refused. I then picked her up and brought her back in. I will take her out again in an hour or so and throw the lure again.
Scarlet has obviously not forgotton the events of Sunday and I can only guess she is blaming me for taking her sparrow. She has never acted like this before and never feared me trying to take her food. This is a major set back and I will have to work on her diligently to get over this fear before I fly her free again. I will also make it a point to fly her around other people once she becomes comfortable with me again.

My Little Carrier

We had a good weekend...kinda. LOL
Friday and Saturday were EXCELLENT days for Scarlet. Her fist response was instant. Her lure response was perfect...thankfully, I never thought she was going to get the hang of that. The only thing I learned was that her attention wanes after she begins to fill...and it generally does not take much. This makes complete sense as she does not eat much. Her metabolism has sped up and she is not eating 10 grams at lunch and 16 grams in the eveing. I still worked with her twice a day for the purpose of repetition.
Sunday rolls around and I end up going car hawking with Kenny and his Harris' Hawk, Biggio. It is right around lunch time so Scarlet is at perfect weight: 104.5 grams. It is a gorgeous day, perhaps the prettiest day we have had in a while. I decide to load Scarlet into the car and take her with. If I found the perfect slip then I would go for it, but I was not going to hunt her unless that happened. As we begin driving around we relaize there are birds everywhere. Biggio takes slip after slip, one after the other. We end up by the grain elevators when I see the slip I was hoping for. There is a parking lot for a closed business that is just COVERED in starlings. This particular lot is no stranger to starlings and this is not the first time that we have found it full of them.
Kenny and I switch seats, I load up the lure and her food for the day and we head into the lot. We drive around a little and the starlings keep spooking and moving around the lot. We finally decide to just sit still and a few minutes later they all land around the car. I lower the window I lift Scarlet up so she can see the birds. It took her about 30 seconds before she bolts out the window in hot pursuit. She ends up missing and landing in the wheel well of a semi. I get out of the car and go to get her when she disappears into the the truck. I start looking inside for her when I hear the familar bird screams. She drops out under the truck, clutching a sparrow. That little bugger was chasing them around inside the wheel well! Of course, I am estatic. I am thankful that she is as gamey as I hoped. I let her start plucking, put the mouse on the lure and slowly start inching my way towards her. She is having none of that. For the next 5 minutes we play this game - she starts plucking, I try to make in, she bolts. She finally decides she has had enough and flys out of the back of the truck, across a field and into a tree. Just great. I take off running across the field until I get close to her and then slowly inch my way in closer. She is now sitting in the tree plucking away and has broken in. I have no idea what to do. I know that her response disappears when she gets full which tells me that I need to get her back before she eats too much. I decide I need to climb the tree. Kenny offers but I figured it best if I did it as she is used to me. He gives me a boost, I get up on the first branch when she bolts again. Now I am hanging, Kenny is trying to help me and I am telling him to just watch her. She flies quit some distance. My grips begins to give out and I drop straight down out of the tree. After my back surgery a few weeks ago I am now hurting pretty bad. My doctor is going to love me.
So, to make a long story short (well shorter anyway) I was pretty sure I had lost her. We chased her from tree to tree, under a train, in bushes, all over the place. Over an hour later she made it into a large bush by the main road, past 2 fields, some railroad tracks....let's just say a long way. There were a couple of times I lost sight of her and was very thankful to have Kenny in the field.
So she's in the bush right by the main road - still clutching the dreaded Sparrow, of course. She is steadily plucking and eating by the time we figure out which bush she is in. We each take a side of the bush and begin to climb in. Finally I get pretty close, Kenny distracts her and I am able to grab a jess between two fingers. I crawl a little farther, get both jesses and she is pissed. She drops the sparrow and I cast her in one hand and pull her out. I can not tell you how relieved I was to finally have her back. I knew that I would not be able to get the sparrow back as it dropped into the bottom of the large bush but there was not much left anyway. We make it back to the car and I offer her some food on the glove to thwart the fact that she probably felt robbed. She did not want it. I return her to the giant hood and call it a day.
I must say, I was very surprised that she turned out to be a carrier as she has shown no signs that she would be. I purposely chose a starling slip, just in case but I guess this is proof that nothing ever goes as planned. I am just thankful to have her back and we are going to do a little more training before going hunting again....and a little more recovering on my part.

My Little Chatterbox

High noon and Scarlet was dead on 105.5 grams. How awesome am I at weight management! LOL. But seriously. I took Scarlet out into the warehouse for some creance training over lunch. I am fortunate that we have a HUGE warehouse space so I will even be able to work her when there is inclement weather. I set her perch on the table and hooker her up to the creance. 5 ft, 10 ft, 20 ft, 20 ft, hmmmmm.....ADD!! Where am I?!?! It is at this point that Scarlet decided our warehouse shelves made a better perch than the one I provided. She made a point of telling me this promptly after landing there. Several times, in fact. It seems my little girl does know how to talk, she has just been nice and blessed me with silence until now. Ok....kinda like a tree, I'll play. It only took a few calls before I was able to get her down off the shelf and to my fist. AWESOME! I was very happy. I put her back on the table, backed up 10 feet and called her again. Nope. Again, her perch is better and that is where she headed. After yelling at me a little more I was able to call her down to the fist even quicker this time. SWEET! I put her back on the table, wash, rinse and repeat - she goes back to the shelves, this time to the very top. It took a lot more coaxing to get her back down this time as she had eaten most of her food ration so she was not as hungry. She did eventually come down tho and I called it a day. Although it did not go exactly as planned, all in all I would have to say it was a pretty successful day. Tomorrow I will go outside to creance her....away from shelves. :)

We learn together :)

I shook things up a little today and altered our routine. When thinking of Scarlet's resistance to wed to the lure I was reminded of Katana's same resistance. While everyone told me that it was weight-related I continued to disagree. I finally realized that Katana did not like being on the ground. And where does the lure land?? That's right! The ground! Taking into account my experiences with Katana, I perched Scarlet out differently when I arrived home. Conveniently enough, I have just finished staining a block perch that I would use while traveling so I set that out in the middle of the living room alongside a full bath pan. Scarlet has only been on high wall perches since I trapped her, so this was definitely new to her. Let me tell you, she did not like it. At all. After about 30 minutes of pouting she finally settled in and started becoming comfortable. I can only image how she felt...everything in the room is so much bigger than her so from down there it must be intimidating. Needless to say, at about 7pm and 105.5 grams I called Scarlet to the lure. Instead of the 10 minutes it usually took for her to jump on it, it took only 10 seconds on contemplating. By George I think she's got it! She ate her 12 grams of mouse on the lure and then returned to the block perch. She sat fat and happy there until I went to bed and moved her back to the wall perch. Time to move outside!!

Getting Better

I have been super busy and been a bad blogger over the past few days.

I have been working with Scarlet primarily on her lure response which allows me to put all of her daily food ration on the lure and make it a bigger, better reward. I have been using mice on the lure as I still have not been able to come by any sparrow yet. Kurt has the trap out, but has not had any luck as of yet. Scarlet is still figuring out what the whole lure thing is about, but she will now come down off her wall perch to the lure on the ground about 8 feet away from her. She usually stair-steps to it...taking perches closer the the lure along the way, but she eventually gets there. Her response is getting a little quicker, but is still no where near acceptable.
I have also noticed that her metabolism is quickening. Whereas 10 grams of mouse would hold her for 24 hours perviously, I am now feeding her 15. Yesterday evening I fed her 15 grams and I ended up having to supplement that at lunch today with another 4 grams to carry her until this evening when I will work with her again. I did have her come from the cubicle perch down to my desk to the lure for her food, and again her response was hesitant but there. She is also casting like clockwork mid-morning, usally around 9-10am everyday. Also, around 2 pm she entertains me by preening. She is definitely settling into a daily routine, I just wish she would let me include daily hunting!! We will get there, soon I hope.

Still Not Getting It

Today ended up being cold and windy so I decided to work with Scarlet inside. After her performance outside yesterday, I did not want to add another variable of high winds to the equation. I found a way to perch her even father away from me in the living room, allowing her a longer flight from corner to corner of the room. It is amazing how creative I can be when I have to. LOL. I had Kenny over at the house again while I was working her, so this allowed me to fly her with more distraction as she has not been worked much with others in the the room lately. That will change tomorrow when I return to work as well. Her response was excellent and she only hesitated one time. On this flight she was not rewarded with a tid bit. Her response on the subsequent flight was instant though.
Once again I introduced the lure, and she still is not quite grasping the concept. Today I put a mouse head on it so she would see fur as well as meat, hoping that this would entice her. I dropped it the same distance away as I did previous days. When she finally hopped to it she landed next to it and then tentatively leaned over to eat. She eventually stepped on to it as she needed to hold the food down to tear it apart. Kurt is going to put out his sparrow trap so hopefully I will be able to offer her a sparrow on the lure in the near future.
I think I will only work with the lure on the days the weather is undesirable, as her fist response inside is excellent and I cannot set up longer flights inside.
Other than that, she is coming along nicely and I hope to free fly her by the THA Meet on the weekend of Jan 17. I think that her flight range is best between 106 - 106.5 grams, so I am going to target keeping her in that weight range.
Keeping my fingers crossed she will be good to go soon!!

2:45pm - 107.4 grams
5:30pm - 106.1 grams....Fed 10 grams mouse

Driven to Distraction

As previously decided I took Scarlet outside to fly on the creance for the first time today. I live on a very busy street with a fairly large front yard, so that is where I set up the creance. I had a feeling that this would be interesting as she has not spent anytime outside since trapping. Unlike a Red Tail, I cannot just perch her out in the yard unless under direct supervision because of the threat of predators. I held her for a few minutes before hooking her up to the creance and she appeared calm and unaffected by being outside. I started with a short jump, which she made after some great hesitation. After that her ADD took over. I guess the newness of the cars passing, people walking by and dogs barking was just too much for her all at once. She also kept an eye on the sky, possibly concerned with unseen threats overhead. I was able to call her to the fist several more times but only after a few detours...to the roof, the car, basically any direction other than me. At this point I decided that it was too much stimulus to introduce all at once and brought her back inside. I did not want to reward her for misbehaving, so we went and flew Kenny's Harris' Hawk before coming home and working with Scarlet again inside. Tomorrow we will try the outdoor creance again, but in a quieter setting with less distractions. I will introduce all the new variables individually so as not to frustrate her (or me!!)
Once inside she performed beautifully. She only hesitated a few times....mainly to see what Kenny was doing as it has been a while since I worked her with others in the room. I flew her to the fist about 12 times, 3 without tidbits on the flights she showed hesitation. I then set her up on a small perch and dropped the lure in front of her about 2 feet away. Once again, she stared at it for a while before jumping to it. She still is not figuring out the lure and tomorrow I will put something more appealing on it...either a mouse or sparrow wing.

While unloading Kenny's bird from the car, a family stopped to see the birds. We showed them all three birds: Scarlet, Biggio (Harris' Hawk) and Abby (Red Tail) and spoke with them for about 15 minutes. Scarlet behaved beautifully. Two of their daughters, 8 and 4 years old, were facinated with the birds especially Scarlet. Needless to say, she received some great manning during this time. They were able to touch her all over, including her feet, and Scarlet handled it beautifully. I also assisted both the girls in holding Scarlet and it did not phase her at all - it did make their day though! I have heard tales of Kestrels being very bitey and tempermental but Scarlet is no where near to the rumors. She is VERY well manned and behaved and I must believe that it is her nature as well as the time I have spent with her. I think I was blessed with a wonderfully calm bird and only hope that she hunts as well as she mans. She still is not making any noise either, which is a blessing with all the time she spends at the office with me.

4:30pm - 106.8 grams....Fed 10 grams grackle.

EXCELLENT!!!

Well, the first major change I made today was to switch to weight Scarlet with a triple beam balance scale. This will give me a more accurate weight, and had been my intention to make the change as we neared the lower weights.
I decided to repeat the same drill as yesterday, after all it has been almost 2 weeks since I had worked with her due to my surgery. 10 grams of grackle is holding her weight steady for a 24-hour period, so I fed her the same amount again today. I cut 6 grams into tidbits and put the other 4 on the lure. As I raised my hand to call her for the first time (a full room flight) I could see the light bulb come on. She finally has the game down. There was no hesitation on any of the 10 flights, and she was anxiously awaiting me to raise the glove each time. I do not even have to show her the tidbit anymore and she is still inbound. We have maxed out the indoor flight range so tomorrow I will move her outside on the creance.
The other 4 grams I place on the lure. I set her on a perch and dropped the lure about 1 foot away and 1 foot below her. She does not recognize this part of the game yet, which is understandable as this is only the second time she has seen the lure. It took me dropping the lure a few times while whistling for her to finally jump onto it, but after she did she was amply rewarded. I should have introduced the lure sooner in the training, and have a feeling this will be what holds us up from hunting sooner. Ironically, it is the same hold up I had while training Katana...you would think I would have learned by now! Since I am in no rush, however it is no big deal. It will allow me more time to reinforce flying to the fist as I continue working with the lure. I don't want to free fly her before she is ready...and before I am ready! LOL. I am still in a lot of pain from the surgery, so an extra few days will not hurt anyone.
I am VERY happy with her response today, and will continue to keep her at 107 grams until she proves I need to do otherwise.

5:00pm - 107 grams....Fed 10 grams grackle

Doesn't Miss a Beat

I worked with Scarlet inside again today and it was like we had taken no time off at all. Her response was great, and her ADD is getting much better. She did 10 flights across the room and then I introduced her to the lure. I garnished the lure with 4 grams of grackle with a little feather so she would recognize it as food. I set the lure on a perch and she started at it a while before hopping onto it. She immediately began eating, so I hope she will begin to realize that the lure is a good thing. I will repeat todays activities tomorrow, and then move her outside on the creance this weekend as space is limited inside.

4:30pm - 107 grams....Fed 10 grams grackle

Here are a few shots of Scarlet's first encounter with the lure: