Progress

During the Thanksgiving break I had 5 days to work with and be with the Baron. Now I'm back to work 8-5 and I have to give him a regular schedule so he can have some normalcy in his life. I've got him on a once a day feeding, giving him enough to burn through to the next feeding roughly 24 hours later. This involves calculating his weight loss per hour over the previous 24 hours and estimating his next 24 hour burn based on that number. Then I reduce that by a couple of grams since I'm still lowering his weight. So tonight he ate 15.2 grams of starling (about the size of a golf ball of meat) which should put him at about 111 grams by 6:00 pm tomorrow. With yesterday's estimated calculation for today at 6pm he was .5 a gram higher than I had estimated. Turns out his weight loss went down from his recent .84 g/hr to .77 g/hr. Of course, he spent the day in the mews instead of being handled and messing around so his metabolic rate was slower.

He was caught at 127.8 and today before feeding was at 113.5, losing roughly 2.6 grams a day. Tomorrow I'll reduce that to 1 gram a day until I reach his "hunting" weight; the weight at which he is most responsive and willing to interact with me for training and hunting.

When I feed him he has to earn his food. Each bite is earned by jumping from the perch to the glove where the food is. Tonight I started out at 4 inches, then 8, to 12, and by the time his meal was done he was going a little over 2 feet which required some wing flapping to get there. He is also a lot more tolerant of us touching him. When I came home from work I promptly took him from the mews and my wife wanted to touch him and give him some water from her fingers. I really wondered how that would go since he hadn't been around people all day. But he did great. No biting. After I feed him I can rub his belly and feel his crop and he just looks slightly nervous but doesn't bite. Eventually he'll start side stepping to get away from it but not like he's too scared. He still doesn't like being touched from behind. He'll spin around in a circle really quickly to avoid that.

It's amazing to think that only 5 days ago he was completely afraid of people and wouldn't dream of letting anyone within 30 yards of him. I'm very proud of him and his progress. It's going to be a great partnership.

Skeksis?

Maybe I'll change his name from the Baron to the Chamberlain. Durn thing gave me the heebie jeebies.

Forget the starling. Find me a gelfling!

Fluffy Jail Bird Hops to Glove

That newspaper headline sums up today's stories. Earlier today the Baron was perched on my fist while I was on the couch. He started doing a lot of head bobbing and looking around the room. Then, while looking straight at me, he inflated like a dang puffer fish! Whoa! Totally freaked me out. I thought he was going for my eyeballs for sure. Turns out he just finally had become comfortable enough while on my fist to puff out his feathers and straighten things out. Later on and through most of the evening he was fairly fluffy looking, only slicking his feathers down again when the dog went past or some other nervous distraction occurred.

He's so fluffy, I'm gonna die!!

Now that he's more comfortable he's trying like mad to escape his jesses. He'll turn around on my fist so his back is toward me and start yanking on them for all he's worth, every now and then turning around to make sure I haven't caught on to what he's doing. "Is the warden looking?" Pretty sneaky. I wonder how long til I'll need to replace them.

Lastly, I did feed him a good amount earlier in the day but wanted to work on him hopping to the glove for food and taking food like a man vs. a baby. So I set him up on his perch and showed him the first tidbit and made him lean out for it. Success. Then I placed a piece on the tip of my thumb on the glove and separated it from the index finger a little so he could hop to the finger and eat from the thumb. I backed my wrist up to the perch and let him walk across like a bridge. He got that figured out so I put my hand about 3-4 inches away and after a lot of head bobbing and looking around the room he finally hopped to the glove and ate. I replaced him on the perch and did it again and he was successful another 7-8 times, jumping about a foot at the end. We'll see how he does tomorrow, but I think he'll get the idea. I'll have to attach a longer leash and see how far we can get tomorrow. All this and his weight was only 7 grams lower than it was when I caught him just 2 days ago.

Oh, one more thing. A brief update on Killer, the demon mouse. (See last Saturday's post if you don't know his background.) Moo went to say goodnight to the Baron, the gerbil, and the mouse. I guess she decided to try and pet the mouse. Bad idea. She came in with blood dripping down her finger. That mouse has thrown cheese off the menu and added raw meat. Moo demanded to be allowed to personally, and with extreme prejudice and malice aforethought, feed said rodent alive to the Baron when the time comes. And she's an animal lover.

What's in a name?

My daughter wanted to name him Shadow Fang but I turned that one down. I chose to call him the Baron (Baron Shadow Fang if you really want to I suppose). When I saw him sitting above the field 100 yards away yesterday, he looked so big and regal, like he owned the place. And after he came to the trap a couple of times he flew off to chase another kestrel away and that second kestrel was a good 100 yards away. That imperial behavior also added to the choice of the name. And of course you can throw in hints of the Red Baron and the Bloody Baron if you're a Harry Potter fan (my son's addition).

Today was Thanksgiving so that presented the opportunity to show the Baron off to family. Some were more interested than others and yet others were rather terrified. They prefer their birds dead on the table with cranberry sauce.

Since he hadn't eaten much yesterday I hoped that the Baron would chow down on kestrel chow pretty good today. He ate a little bit in the morning, a tiny bit in the afternoon, and horked down quite a bit in the evening. BUT. He will only take the food if I feed him like his mother would. If I present the food to him straight on from even an inch away, he may smack his mouth a little but won't lean forward to take it. But if I approach from above, he'll tip his head back, open his mouth, and grab the food and eat it. Tomorrow I'll be harder on him and require that he make an effort. That show of trust and willingness to interact with me is what will help him be tamed and trained. But for now I needed him to eat something as his weight was dropping too quickly for my comfort. Now he "knows" that he'll get a good meal from me so hopefully will anticipate it, and I'll make him work for it.

I kept him up til 11:30 tonight so he'd tame down a bit. While watching a movie with the lights down I was able to stroke his feet and belly, even as high as his crop without any reaction from him. But when the lights came on he went back to being a biter.

A funny thing about this bird. When I hood him he turns into a wet noodle. He lifts his feet up and his head flops over and he just falls off the glove. I finally did get him to sit on the perch and the glove hooded but he hangs his head down like he's scheduled for execution at dawn.You'd think that hood was made of lead. I'm guessing that'll improve with time as he gets used to it all.

Hang down your head, Tom Dooley.

Picked up a bird for Thanksgiving

Today I took Jared and Alex and went trapping. We saw 3 or 4 females and one male. I was reluctant to put the trap out on the females since I can't tell if their age until they're caught. We did get the trap out on a male/female pair and they approached the trap to get a closer look. Just then a train came by blowing it's horn and shaking the world. They were far away from the train and safe, but the sound sent them off a ways and they never looked back at the trap.

We drove around a while and didn't see anything. Finally saw another male by himself and he looked big! Through the binoculars I could tell he was a passage bird. We put the trap down and he went up and down on it a few times but then flew off to chase another kestrel. We saw him land again a couple hundred yards up the road in a tree so we drove nearby and put the trap out again. He took one flight right to the trap and within 5 seconds he was caught. Luckily he was away from the trap so Killer didn't gnaw on him. He only had one noose on his ankle so was very easy to take off the trap. And owing to the wonderful help of Bill last Saturday I knew what I was doing. So I hooded him, socked him, and called my sponsor. Turns out he's at the NAFA (North American Falconer's Association) meet in Vernal all this week. Gah! I was just a few miles from Bill's house so we drove over there and called his wife and said, "I'm in your driveway. I have a bird. Got a few minutes?" She was wonderful. Showed me how to jess the bird and how to get him to ride the glove. I only got bit once and that tiny bird sure can clamp down.

Now he's home and riding the glove just fine; no more just falling off the glove. He still bates now and then when someone walks by too closely. Now he's in his mews while I eat some food and recover from the adrenaline rush. I put a bath pan in there with him and he's already perched on the edge of it drinking. Yay!

With the jesses and an empty crop he weighed 127.6g

The trap actually works...on females

This week I redesigned my trap. I cut apart the one I had and turned it into a half barrel shape. I also added many more nooses and put hot glue at the base of each noose to make them stand up straight. It looks formidable. :)

It's kinda messy looking right now. I need to reset some of them, untangle others, and replace a few we had to cut.

I went out with my brother yesterday during lunch hour and we didn't see much, only two birds. The first landed on and around the trap a few times but never got caught. The second one didn't land on it at all, just hovered a few times. Stinkers. I went back to the same spot after work was over and tried the first kestrel again. He was on the same pole. He gave me the bird, so to speak, and landed on the rain gutter of a house and plucked up a mouse. The next bird was a female. She landed on the trap too but didn't get caught. After a few tries she flew across the street and grabbed a mouse from about 30 feet up a tree. What's up with mice and high places? Weird.

This morning I took my friend Chris and his 11 year old son out with me at 8am. We got the trap under 8 birds and each one at least made approaches to the trap. 6 of them landed on the trap but none of them got more than slightly snagged. You could tell they were caught because they'd go to fly up and jerk sideways, but they always got away. When we retrieved the trap you could see that 5-6 nooses had been tripped. We spent 3 hours doing that and came home with nothing.

While we were out I called the nice biologist lady who helped me last weekend to see if I could stop by and see the trap she uses. She said she had to take off soon but to come by later and she'd send her husband Bill out with me to trap. They're both falconers. So after lunch I went to their house and they looked the trap over and approved the design and nooses, etc. That was nice to hear, but at the same time frustrating because I didn't catch 8 kestrels that morning.

Well, we went out and put the trap under 2-3 males and they did the same thing they did this morning; landed on it, danced around, flew off. Bill was scratching his head; couldn't figure out why they weren't getting caught. We continued along and set the trap out under a female. She hit the trap very quickly after we set it down and right away she was caught! Full on, going nowhere, flapping on the ground caught! We quickly drove over and I congratulate myself that I didn't squeal like a school girl, pee my pants, or even run around like a chicken with it's head cut off. I fairly methodically got my gear out of the trunk of the car and walked over and laid the towel over the bird. It immediately stopped moving. She had her right foot trapped by the nooses with one toe stuck inside the edge of the trap, gripping the wire.

Enter the demon mouse from hell...

Well I don't know if this mouse remembered that his partner was eaten by a kestrel last week or if he just went psycho, but he proceeded to gnaw off the toe that was hooked on the trap. What?! He was so aggressive, I couldn't believe it. I gathered the bird up and held its wings to its side and the one leg while Bill tried to remove the nooses from the other foot. She had a death grip on the trap and wouldn't let go. And all the while we're having to shake the trap to get the demon mouse away from the poor kestrel's toe. Finally we had to stand the trap on end so the mouse would be down low away from the bird and we got her off the trap. We checked out her toe; it was bleeding a bit, but wasn't too badly damaged.We hooded her and put a sock on her and we weren't sure if she was passage or haggard so we decided to take her back to the house and ask his wife. She looked her over and said she was pretty sure she was a haggard so we took a couple pictures and let her go.

I know this one is blurry but I at least get to show off the hood I made riding on a kestrel.

And here she is ready for flight. Happy hunting!

We decided to head out again and see if we could get one we could keep. We drove around quite a bit and didn't see much until we came back closer to his neighborhood which, in my opinion, is Kestrel central. We saw another female and put the trap out and barely had time to turn the car around and look at the trap when she was on it and caught. Maybe it's a female thing; we sure weren't catching males. We took her off the trap and she was marked the same way as the last one we released so we let her go too.

Here she is still snagged on the trap. Luckily she didn't have hold of it as you can see Killer is waiting right there to bite whatever he can get his nasty teeth into. (bottom right under the tail)

Goodbye pretty lady.

Feeding the birds, three strikes, and a good contact

I went out trapping this morning and brought Moo with me. She's a good mouse loader/launcher. :) We drove out past the greenhouses toward the mink farm and spotted a kestrel on the busy highway. I've always worried about trying to trap on that road due to the speed and frequency of the cars. Well, we didn't have to worry long about it. As soon as we made our turn around to come back and drop the trap he disappeared. But the reason I mention this bird is its coloring. Instead of the black or dark brown looking streaks on its chest and belly it was more a ginger color. Very pretty! I call those blondes. I saw a female with that coloring at the Utah Winterfest last January and hoped to see one in the wild if not trap one.

So we headed out toward West Mountain and I was blabbering on about something useless and not paying attention when Moo yells "Kestrel!" and flings her arm across my face to point. Sure enough, on top of some low pine trees there was a fat boy sitting there. So we turned around and dropped the trap with two mice in it and backed away. Within 30 seconds, fat boy comes gliding down to the trap and is all over the area; down, up, down, up. I'm wondering what the heck he's doing, when he ups and flies to the top of the tree again -- with a mouse in his claws!?!? What the~?!

I grab the binoculars and sure enough, he's got a white and black spotted mouse and he's nom-noming away on it. I yelled: "He's got our mouse!" Moo grabs the binocs and looks at it and yells: "He's eating it's head! And the tail is just flapping in the breeze!" We were laughing and yelling for a little bit wondering what the heck happened. Turns out that the bottom of the trap has been smooshed a little over time and the door flap doesn't match up with it too well anymore. So when she set the trap out, the cage bottom arced and left a gap for the mice to get out. Meanwhile, fat boy flies off with mouse #1 because here comes another kestrel trying to steal it from him. We drove up to the trap to see if the other mouse is still there and it was under the trap, outside of it. So Moo gathered it up and reloaded the trap. While we're doing that, fat boy flies back and lands maybe 25 feet from us and wants seconds. Either that or his prize was stolen from him and he knew where to find another. So we set the trap down and accommodated him, backing down the street a little ways to watch.

Right away he swooped down and landed on the trap and sat there for a little bit. Then started moving across the top of it, scratching at the mouse below. I hoped that would get him but no, he didn't get snagged. He ended up flying off the trap and landing on the fence and then started feeding on bugs. So we drove up and grabbed the trap and drove off. Strike one.

We turned the corner and there were two kestrels, a male and female. We laid down the trap and drove off to watch and the female flew down and landed near the trap to check it out. Then she hopped on top of it but didn't move around much and finally flew back to the fence. Strike two. After a few minutes she landed back near the trap, then on top of it. Danced around a little bit, but didn't get caught. Then started bug hunting again. Strike three.

Well I was done after that. I've had a nasty cold the last few days and was feeling like crawling into bed with some cold medicine. We picked up the trap and there was this big truck coming up behind us so I waited to pull into traffic and let her pass. After she passed she stopped in the road ahead of us and as I waited and then began to go around, she waved out the window to us. So we stopped and she comes over and I'm expecting some PETA speech and she says "There are some red tails that perch just down the road here." Turns out she works for the DWR and is a wildlife biologist. She helps with the air force I think she said, helping clear the flight paths of birds, so she does quite a bit of trapping of raptors. She gave me some pointers on the trap and asked if I wanted her to hold a kestrel for me next time she traps them. She traps them and releases them near her home. I don't know in how long a period of time, but she's released over 30 kestrels in her neighborhood. Turns out we has our trap down just across the street from her house. We exchanged numbers and she told me to come by next week and she'd bring home one of her traps she uses often to show how it's made.

Now the dilemma. Do I take a kestrel from her that she traps? Very tempting. Does it make me less of a falconer? I don't think so and I hear tell of it often enough. It's no different than someone slapping down $1200 for a peregrine from a breeder. Would I be missing out on the experience and knowledge gained from trapping it myself. Of course!

I think I'll try a little trap redesign and continue trapping. I really do want to see this thing unfold from start to finish. But if I still haven't gotten anything by Christmas, I may just break down and ask for a pre-trapped bird from Santa. However, I'd still keep trying to trap a bird even if I'm just going to release it so I can learn and gain experience from it for the next time I need to trap a bird.

All in all, we had a great time of it today. We fed a kestrel, got three trap hits, and made a good falconry contact.

Slow going

Life has been busy but I've gone trapping a few times in the last few weeks. No luck yet but it's a learning experience. As the snow arrives I'm hoping for better luck. I have until March 31 to trap so I'm not worried, just impatient.