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: