Five weeks

Shadow is still on a creance outside. I've been taking him to work with me this last week and going out at lunch time to work with him outdoors in daylight. Since we're in the dark season it's about completely dark when I get home and I can't get anything much done with him. Shadow responds well in doors at a higher weight but taken outdoors at the same weight and he ignores me completely. I've been targeting his weight outdoors and I'm getting pretty close. Yesterday I took him out and he flew immediately when I raised my fist and called. I take him to a different park or a different part of a park each day. That way he doesn't get comfortable in one area and give the false impression that he's well behaved. The park we went to was one we'd never gone to before and there were cars driving by and people walking on the sidewalk so it's a pretty good indication that he's very close to being off the creance.

The one thing that's missing is the lure. I haven't done well at getting him made to the lure yet. I think I'll try to just feed him with the lure for the next week or two and see if he'll transfer his food expectation from me to the lure.

My sponsor gave up his peregrine hybrid and is trying to trap a merlin. He's gotten tired of the scarcity of quarry in this area and wants to get back to catching wild game. I went trapping with him last weekend and though we saw two merlins, a prairie falcon, two cooper's hawks, and a sharp-shinned hawk, we caught nothing. I need to check in with him and see how the trapping is going. If things work well for him with merlins I'll have a fresh resource for learning merlins in the near future if I decide to go that route.

I heard that the cooper's hawk I turned down is doing great and catching pigeons and quail left and right. I'm a little envious but I know I wasn't ready for it.

Two Week Check-in

Shadow has been with us now for two weeks so here's his two week report card.

• Cuteness A+
• Awesomeness A-
• Bonding A

Just a week ago he was failing in all but cuteness. But really, what kestrel would fail in cuteness? It's pretty much impossible. Seriously, just 2 days ago I was complaining to my sponsor about how nervous Shadow is and that he wasn't showing much progress.

This new guy is still really jumpy after 11 days. He still opens his mouth at me when I approach. I caught him at 115 and he's down to 93 and still that way. I've got him hopping 7-8 feet to the fist from a 6' perch but if he's lower to the ground he just gets all nervous and won't do much.

Another interesting difference in him is he doesn't stay on the perch in the mew but instead I find him laying on his breast on the floor each morning and night. Like he's in his nest or scrape. He won't stand and hop up to the fist either. I have to nudge and bump him toward a standing position until he just bates away and I have to reel him in upside down and flip him back upon the glove. Each bird is its own personality I guess.

The very next morning after I sent that email, Shadow proved me wrong on all counts. I went to get him and he stood up and I asked him to hop up and he didn't fly off. I held him up to transfer him from the perch leash to the glove leash and he didn't open his mouth at me. Big improvements overnight! Weird thing about his hop up. The other birds I would press my finger against the front of their legs or belly and they'd hop up. He won't do it unless I press against the back of his legs. Go figure.

I still hadn't finished up his new mews yet with carpeting, lights, and built-in perches so on the way home today I stopped at Home Depot and grabbed the last of what I needed. Turns out I should have taken him with me. He is SO into power tools. When I got home I took him out of the mews and set him on the garage floor on a perch. He watched me and followed what I was doing the whole time, not spooking when I walked over or around him. I got the carpeting cut and put it in and then set him inside with the light on while I finished up the rest of the work. He was so curious about everything I was doing it was hilarious.

Shadow Fang prefers Craftsman

Supervising the installation of his home plate

I was putting in a couple of screws from the outside of the mews and he would hop over to that side of it to see what it was. When I reappeared at the door he hopped back over to the door to watch. I had to set my drill down at one point and he was right where I wanted to put it. I put it down right in front of him and he just sat there and then hopped up on top of it. He just wanted to watch everything I was doing. I was grabbing drill bits and screws out from under him and he didn't open his mouth or fly off, just watched. He got to see close up and in action the drill, jig saw, and miter saw with all their noise. Not a flutter out of him. So now he has a  kestrel condo and he's living large. Well, at least fluffy. The dang bird has man boobs like none other after he finishes a meal.

New bed

Man boobs!

Let's talk about meals now. After all that man work in the garage he had a healthy appetite. I set him on his indoor perch and put him on a long leash and doubled the distance that he last had flown to me to about 15 feet. He came first time, no hesitation. Wow! He was solid at that distance so I tried him on the lure on the floor and he wasn't too excited about going to the floor. He would look back and forth between me and the lure and eventually he flew toward me instead and since my hand wasn't raised he aimed for my head. At the last second he veered off and flew up to a high shelf in the kitchen. So we need to work on him hitting the lure on the ground. I put the lure away and increased my distance from him to 25 feet or so and he came after some hesitation, but he really improved in his reactions tonight. Very proud of the little guy and glad he's finally able to work into his new situation. He was just so floored for so long I was getting a little worried and disappointed. But now he's got his bottle of awesome sauce and is pouring it on everything.

I dub thee ... Shadow Fang!

I know it's geeky and weird but so am I. And it was my daughter's idea anyway. He'll go by Shadow for short. I'll just pull out Shadow Fang for drama or when he's in big trouble.

So, Shadow has been a real booger about eating. I caught him Saturday afternoon and between then and now he's only eaten one small mouse. He ate that when I left it for him in the mews when I left for work. So though he got some nutrition and all, it did nothing for getting him to trust me. That was Monday and he ate nothing yesterday and nothing today on the first attempt. After leaving him in the house while we went off to a family activity we came back and I tried again. He wouldn't take food still either on the glove or in tweezers. I finally picked up the tweezers in my gloved hand and offered it to him and he took it immediately. *blink-blink* Ok. I did it again and he snarfed it. So I switched the tweezers to my bare hand and he still horked it. After a few pieces that way I tossed the tweezers and used my bare fingers and he didn't hesitate at all (nor did he mistake my fingers for food or bite them out of spite). After finishing off all the tidbits from my fingers I had the south end of a north going mouse leftover and gave him that to finish off on his own. He went to town on it and puffed up quite a bit; the most he has poofed since I caught him. Yay! It shows he's relaxing a little more. I put him to bed 11 grams heavier than this afternoon when I weighed him and I'm hoping for a repeat performance tomorrow.

A New Start

I had been trapping for a month off and on and only caught one bird a couple of weeks ago. It was a haggard tiercel kestrel so I let him go. Yesterday I took my daughter to work and as usual I brought a mouse along for the ride. My brother-in-law was with me too. He was with me when I trapped Hazel. It turns out he's something of a good luck charm. We drove for about 20 minutes only seeing 2 birds, neither in a position where we could get a trap under them. Then my bro-in-law spotted this guy. He was on a pole about 50 yards from the road and we set the trap down in an area of bare dirt. He flew down immediately after we drove off and went straight to the trap and landed on the ground. None of this fluttering fly by or perch nearby business. He walked around the trap, kicked the tires, stood and looked at the thing for a bit, and then got up on top. He was on and off it several times but was very calm about it so didn't get snagged. I was going nuts hoping he'd get his foot in a loop soon. Finally he got his foot stuck in one loop (only one!). We got lucky!

He weighed 105g this morning after casting so he's a bit smaller than my other birds but I'm optimistic about him. I think he"ll do fine. You see, earlier in the day I was in that same area and saw a male kestrel trying to catch a sparrow and was also chasing starlings and doves. So it might be the same bird.

After getting him home, jessed, and dusted for parasites I began to try and get him to sit on the glove. He caught on (no pun intended) almost immediately and within five minutes he was returning to the glove after a bate. Wow! Hazel took two hours to just stand on the glove and Baron was at least 30 minutes. Already I can touch his wings and feet without him flying off.

The Itch

Today at work we began our fall workshop which is a few days of speakers and relaxing and improving ourselves and our work relationships. Today's speaker is one of the new directors in our division and he also happens to be a fairly well-known falconer in these parts. I don't know what role he played but he was quite involved with the Utah Sky Trials this last year that I went. Anyway, his topic was on building trust, and unlike most people who use an anaolgy and relate it to their topic, he spent 70% of the time on falconry and 30% on relating it to building trust in human relationships. So of course I was grinning like a kid in a candy shop! He had 3 of his 4 birds with him. A passage caught prairie falcon, a peregrine raised from an eyas, and a gyr-peregrine hybrid he recently acquired. All beautiful birds.

Needless to say my concentration was blown for the day after that presentation. I'm really itching to get a bird now. I was hoping my sponsor or one of his pigeon buddies might happen upon a Cooper's hawk that I could trap but I may just go scratch my itch with a kestrel. I'd like to do it right and longer term this time.

Oh dear

My sponsor called me tonight and after seeing the pictures of this little guy on the blog post, he said that he should have a tail by now. I kinda thought something was funny looking about him given his apparent age and it's that he doesn't have hardly any white fluff on him. Which would mean he is older than he appears and, as my sponsor pointed out, should have a pretty good tail by now. From his experience and other falconers he has known, feathers that have been pulled may not always grow back. Some have grown in again soon after pulling, others never have. He suggested I take a closer look at the bird and see what might be going on.

I casted him in a towel and took a look at his little tail stub close up. The center is a red sore but there are no quills anywhere on the tail that I could see. So I'm guessing his tail was entirely plucked. I pulled each wing out and they're pretty scraggly, I would expect a little more growth, but looking on the inside of one wing, it's pretty bare. This cat really worked him over and played with him a bit. I think I'll keep him a little while longer to see if his tail starts any regrowth but I'll definitely call the rehabilitation center tomorrow and see what she says about him. Maybe she can take care of him and if he grows feathers back I might have him back. I don't know how all that works.

I'm sad for his set back on his early life and also sad I'll probably have to part with him. He'll be better off with the care the rehabber can give him. They say raptors suffer a 65% rate of death in their first year. This guy was close but at least he has a shot at it, thanks to some good neighbors.

An interesting opportunity

Yesterday I got a call from a co-worker saying that his wife's facebook friend's neighbor's cat caught a young kestrel and was looking for someone to take care of it (the neighbor, not the cat). I saw some cell phone pictures and it was rather raggedy looking but seemed to be in good health. I made a bunch of phone calls including the DWR and my sponsor and on approval from the wildlife officer, decided to go pick up the little guy. I met the lady in charge of the rescue (Elaine) and her friend (Jennifer) that handled the communication online and her beautiful group of girls. One wants to be a falconer and now meets the minimum age requirement so maybe they'll have some fun with kestrels in a year or so. :)

One side note here. In my excitement I may not have told the wildlife officer that I was an apprentice falconer so I called back and left him a message to that effect. We'll see if he still approves. If not, I'll take him to the raptor rehabilitation center nearby. EDIT: I just got off the phone with the officer. He said, let's call it a win-win for me and the bird and let it stand. Woot!

As far as injuries go, he doesn't have any obvious punctures or tears but he did get plucked about a quarter's worth on his chest and he seems to have two channels across his head where maybe the cat's claws pulled the feathers there but the skin doesn't look to be scratched. Otherwise he is acting "normal" from what I know and isn't favoring any limb. He's one lucky bird.

On getting him home I fed him a mouse. (Coincidentally the female mouse just had babies today. So it's baby day at our house.) I fed him this in little pieces with tweezers through a small hole in an apple box I had him in. This way he didn't associate the food with seeing me and hopefully won't become a begging screamer. My sponsor gave me instructions on how to build a baby box and how to feed him. It's basically a box with a window in it to see our family circus. He has a ledge perch to hang out on. On the top of the box is a covered hole that I can uncover to drop food in so he doesn't associate me with food. So far so good. I minced up two starlings and two mice last night and made 12 gram baggies to feed him. I'm starting on a 12g every 4 hour schedule and we'll see how much he eats. I'm guessing we'll probably reduce that to 6-8g. Actually, I gave him his first morning meal of 12g and he's only eaten half of it now in the last 20 minutes.

Female Kestrel Identification

I've been watching the Peregrine Fund's kestrel cam and have gotten a good look at the feathers and coloring of the females. I snapped some pictures of them for future reference.

Of the two bending down, Haggard on the left, Passage on the right.

Haggard tail and feathers.

Passage tail and feathers.

Which goes to show that the old rule of thumb that "if the last dark band on the female tail feathers is twice the size of the others then it's a haggard" is not a reliable reference. Comparing the two above I see that the bands on the back and secondaries seem thicker on the passage than on the haggard which gives it an overall darker appearance in color. While observing the nest in better lighting conditions I could see that the haggard was a more rust color while the passage birds were more toward brown than rust. It also seems that the trailing edge of the primaries are a more pronounced white on the passage and more tan or thinner on the haggard. Given, these birds are from the Boise, Idaho area and may not be similar to what I may see at home. I'm tempted to set up a nest box nearby and get a look for myself at the local birds.

Kestrel Web Cam

Enjoy!

http://kestrel.peregrinefund.org/webcams

A little good news

A week or two after Hazel left me I went down to see where she was hanging out and I saw a female on the tree she had been perching on. But it wasn't her. And then a male came to the tree and snuggled with her. I thought that was very strange that there were two mated pairs living in the same small territory. Much later I didn't see Hazel anymore so I assumed she was sitting on eggs somewhere. BUT... It turns out that Mr. Kestrel was two-timing on Hazel and she gave him the bird, so to speak, and went home. I came to this conclusion because my sponsor just yesterday wrote me an email telling me he had seen my bird a couple of times recently within 100 yards of where I first caught her. Hopefully I can tempt her with a couple of free mice.

Lessons Learned

Hazel has returned to the wild after splashing down in a puddle trying to grab a starling.

How do we go from first caught starling to this in 3 days? Through misjudging her weight apparently. I thought that since she had flown and caught and had good response to the lure that she was at her hunting weight. Even though she was at her lowest weight yet (96.8g), the combination of warm weather, distractions, and natural instinct weighed heavier. I still have so much to learn. *facepalm* I appear to be learning it the hard way. My sponsor said that you have to take extra weight off for warm weather and more distractions. With my next bird I need to figure out how to find that right weight by flying it on the creance in such situations. When we were at home, in the yard, etc. she responded immediately at higher the weight but only because it was her "home turf". That tricked me into thinking she was at the right weight.

I took Hazel out after work to hunt and we drove by several slips that she refused to fly at (*ding ding* fat bird warning). I thought, well, she caught a starling in this same area just 3 days ago at a higher weight than this so let's keep trying. We found one bird in a puddle bathing and she went at it. The bird saw her coming and bailed out which left Hazel splashing into the puddle for nothing. She was gone in an instant and I had no idea which way she had flown. I pulled out the lure and got no response and then pulled out the receiver and directional antenna (which is 2.5 x 2 feet) and tried to find where she had gone. She was a half block away up in a very tall evergreen, pouting I'm sure. I swung the lure and called and begged and she paid me very little attention. My sponsor showed up a little later and gave me some tips on how to call her down and he also noticed that she just wasn't interested in me at all.

After 10-15 minutes of waiting on her with the lure she started making her begging sound. I told her to just come down and get the dang food and she wouldn't have to beg for it. Well, apparently she was calling to a male kestrel she saw nearby. I guess the female courts the male by begging for food, asking him to be the supplier for her and the future nestlings. So he flew over and (cover your eyes kids) quickly mated with her and then flew off after another 5 minutes of hanging around.

My sponsor had to leave and while I was still waiting for her she switched trees for a minute and then flew back to the first tree...with a mouse in her talons. Now I ask you, what is a mouse doing 50 feet up in a pine tree?? Dang mice are everywhere! So there she was sitting in her tree eating a mouse. My chances of getting her back just went in the toilet. As she was finishing the mouse guess who showed up. The male. With another mouse for her. Now when I was managing her weight, 1/2 a mouse was enough food for her to metabolize in a 24 hour period and maintain the same weight. And now she has eaten two mice in a short time. Those chances that were in the toilet? Yeah, they just got flushed. They mated a time or two and then the male flew off for more food.

I waited some more and called and swung the lure but the only thing I succeeded in attracting was a mean dog from across the street. At this time Hazel flew off. The dog came within 15 feet and kept growling and barking and circling me while I was trying to find out where Hazel had flown to with the antenna and receiver. A teenage boy came to take the dog back to the house but she had no collar and wouldn't listen to him. The closer he got to me the more aggressive the dog became until we were playing Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush and Peekaboo around my car. I'd had enough and after him telling me "she won't bite" for the third time I replied, "Yes, well, the problem is, I'm not in a good mood, and I'M going to bite HER." At which point I offloaded the receiver and antenna into the car and picked up a rock and threw it at her. It missed and hit the street below her belly but she realized she had messed with me a little too much and ran home.

Meanwhile, Hazel was still nowhere to be found. I couldn't even get a signal on her with the receiver. The battery should have had another 18-20 hours on it but I found no signal. My wife showed up to help by watching her in the tree while I went off to get a live starling to try and lure her down. But of course when she arrived Hazel had already gone. So she headed home looking for her on the way (my wife is a gem) and I went to the starling trap 5 miles away before it got too dark to see. I got there and the owner of the trap had moved it off the property. *fail* I called him and luckily he was in Provo where he has another trap and he brought home a starling and I met him at his house later on to get it.

On my way home from getting the starling I drove through the area where Hazel disappeared, trying to get a signal on her so I would know where to find her in the morning. I still got no signal at all. I wondered if I had messed up the receiver some how. There are three numbers that determine the frequency that are changed by pushing plus or minus buttons above and below each number. The setting was 215. I thought that sounded right but I started pushing them each up and down by one to see if maybe the frequency had gotten changed. I still got nothing. I paused and thought for a moment and into my mind came the numbers 015. I changed the 2 to a 0 and immediately got a signal! Thank heaven, literally. The numbers must have gotten changed from being bumped around while I was doing the dosie-doe with the doggy. I found the tree she was roosting in and went home and my stomach made me miserable for the rest of the evening from 3.5 hours of tension and stress.

I went out this morning at dawn and found her signal 3/4 of a mile to the west of where I lost her last night. I put out the starling tethered under the tree she was in but she had no interest. She still had her pretty boy bringing her food and taking care of business. My only hope now is to trap the male and hold him temporarily and then trap her when she realizes she has no food coming. But to trap them I need mice and the pet store doesn't open for another hour still. I'm not optimistic that this plan will work. I'm guessing she'll be too full to even consider flying to the trap for quite a while and the battery on the transmitter will only last until late afternoon today. But I have to try. I'll feel better about losing the $225 transmitter attached to her if I have tried everything I can to get her back. If nothing works, I'll hope that they settle in the same general area to nest and I can possibly find and trap her after the nestlings have gone in late May or early June.

Starling #1

Hazel is now wearing her big girl pants. Today she caught her first starling!

I had taken her out yesterday morning at 9:30 at 100.2g and we saw starlings everywhere. She didn't fly at any of them. Even stopping the car next to them she wouldn't fly at them. That was very strange because she'll hit tethered starlings from the car at 102g. So I went back to work (thank goodness for a flexible employer) and then tried her again that afternoon at 99.2g. We saw no birds so didn't have a chance to test that weight.

Today I got her down to 98g since 100 was so poor and we went out at 9am. We found one in a front yard and it definitely got her attention though she didn't fly at first. We flipped around and came past it again and she flew at it but our speed was pretty low right at that point and she didn't catch it. She flew up into a pine tree and the lure brought her right down.

After running a few errands we were able to look for birds again around 10am. We saw 3 birds on the right side of the car and I put the passenger window down. That always gets her attention to that side of the car. We passed them by and she didn't fly out and immediately I saw 2 more birds on the left side so I switched windows. She heard the driver's side window go down and her head whirled back in that direction and she craned her neck to see. She had about 5 seconds to see them before we passed them. We were about 10 feet past them when she flew out my window. My daughter was with me and I yelled out for her to watch where she went while I safely turned the car around to that side of the street. Since we had passed the birds they were unconcerned and had their heads in the grass feeding so they didn't even have time to rise from the ground before one was caught. My daughter yelled out "She caught one!" Me: "Seriously?!" I jumped out and picked her up like normal and we took her home to put on her big girl pants. Yay!

For those that like photos, sorry, I was so excited and busy I didn't get any trophy pictures.

Slow Going

I've been waiting for the starlings to come down to the ground so Hazel can get at them. The weather has been in the 60s this past week and they're starting to come down. I took her out during an early lunch break on Tuesday and only found one starling in someone's fenced front yard. She wanted to fly at it but I didn't let her. The next place we saw some was at a park and there was a flock of maybe 50. She wasn't willing to fly at them though. I took several passes by them and she wouldn't go. I even just tossed her out the window and she flew over the top of them all and landed in a tree 50 yards off and 50 feet up. I called her back and she didn't come to the glove. I tossed the lure and she came right down. By then the starlings had taken off for another neighborhood and it was time to head back to work.

I got her weight down further today and took her out on a baggie out the car window. I want her to learn to look around more and see ahead of the car. It took her a few times around the block but she got it and flew out my driver side window from her perch on the passenger's seat.

I'm trying to have her ready to weight at about 99-100 by 8-9am tomorrow morning and I'll see how she does then. I'm hoping more birds will be out feeding at that time. We'll see how it goes.

While Hazel had hold of a recent starling I got a talon in my finger just before the fingernail where the bone is close to the surface. She shifted her grip from one foot to the other and when she grabbed the bird's neck, my finger happened to be right there with it. It took about 5 minutes to get her distracted from the bird in hand to go for some ready prepared food. Of course her first thought in a situation of food in hand vs. food presented to her is to take both. Which means straining and flapping toward the food offered while dragging the food in hand. Including my finger. Not a pleasant experience to have that talon twisting and pulling in my finger while she maintained a firm grip on it. I need to learn a better release strategy.

Car perch

I love impromptu solutions that don't cost anything but what's already gathering dust in your garage. I wanted to take Hazel out on Monday and find some real live starling slips but wanted to have a perch in the car that would make it easier for her to see out the windows and easier for me to drive. I found an old bike "luggage" rack that hadn't been used for almost 20 years. It works great!

We took a drive and she definitely was focusing out the windows and looking for game but we found nothing on the ground that she could fly at.

Ready, set, go!

Yesterday I got some loaned telemetry gear from my sponsor and I took Hazel out for a ride. I left a baggie on the roadside in the empty subdivision and circled around to come down the road toward it. Hazel was at 101g and pretty anxious. You see, the starling got out of the enclosure I had put it in and started flapping around. So Hazel launched at it and she was tethered to her perch. I had to pull over and stuff the starling back under cover and get Hazel into the front seat again. (You kids are driving me crazy! Don't make me turn this car around!) So anyway, she was really anxious about the starling already.

We drove up the road and she was looking for that starling; she knew it was around there somewhere. She spotted it while we were about 40 feet away and I let go her jesses and just held her on the glove inside the car at about 15 mph. When we were just passing the starling she launched out the window and went straight to it and bound to it, just like in the back yard. Atta girl! I think we're ready to find a real life easy slip to start her on.

First car hawked baggie

In other news, I attended the Utah Sky Trials yesterday with a daughter and son and brother-in-law. We were there about 2 hours and watched the first 5-6 flights and then headed home after that. My sponsor's bird flew and in my opinion was the best of the bunch we saw, at least from a spectator's viewpoint. He stayed above the crowd most of the time and was easy to see when he stooped. The official results say his bird took 5th out of the 22 entries. Yay!

While there a photographer took a couple of shots of Hazel and emailed them to me. I haven't picked up my camera very much since I've gotten a bird and it's hard to do both at the same time.

When I got back from the Sky Trials I had to take my son to soccer and would be passing by the place where I had seen a bird that looked like the Baron. So I took the trap and took a look around after dropping off the boy. I saw the bird I was after and put the trap down. He flew to it and danced on it a little bit but didn't get caught. He wasn't on it very long when a car drove by and bumped him off. He wasn't interested in it after that so I picked it up and replaced it on the other side of him. After a couple of minutes he flew down toward the trap...and grabbed a wild mouse about 20 feet away from the trap. Just my luck. Well anyway, it served its purpose. He flew to the top of a telephone pole and ate his catch and because he was standing on the mouse to hold it down while he ate, he exposed his legs from foot to bloomers and there were no anklets. So that's that.

Friday I turned the starling trap back over to its owner. I have about 200 starlings in the freezer so don't really need to store more right now and am almost out of room in the little freezer. I shouldn't need any more baggies now anyway so my days of starling trapping are over for now. Thanks to the great guy who loaned it to me for the 2 months I had it. Maybe I'll build one next season and load up on starlings that way next year. It sure was great to be able to grab a baggie whenever I needed it.

Hazel preening

My sister requested a cuteness video so here it is. Not to detract from her status as a bird of prey, a falcon terrible and mighty that will rip flesh from bone and have no mercy on her prey, but she's soooo cute when she preens. :P

Car hawking tips from Isobael

Isobael, a fellow falconer in Washington replied to my attempts at training Hazel to fly from the car. She's been doing this for a couple of years at least and her female passage kestrel is kicking butt on starlings. She's also a good story teller as her blog will show. Her Google account won't let her post comments on my blog for some reason so she emailed me a reply.

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*Usually* the distraction means she needs to drop a bit more.

What we did was set up a baggy in a greenbelt in an area where we would be hunting, or like an area we'd be hunting. When Sgian was at weight, we'd slowly drive up. We never put her out the window. We might stop and let her see the prey, let her look around first, but always from inside the car. If she didn't fly at it, we'd back up, or circle back around and try it again. After three attempts, if she didn't, we stopped and called it done for the time being. I'd drop her another half gram and try again in a couple of hours.

It didn't take more than three times before she realized she got a warm, living meal by flying out the window, and a moving vehicle actually helped her. Her first starling was without having ever been bagged on one, and from a moving vehicle. Of course, slowing and stopping near starlings on the ground meant they bumped and she watched them fly off...so I think she realized if she didn't fly at them when we were moving, we missed her chance.

When we spot them, we'll slow down and give her a chance to clue in, target them, then we'd drive up on them. More often than not, she waits until we're right beside them OR just a little past them before she launches out the window at her target. I think she knows if they don't bump when we drive by, they won't pay too much attention if she flies out at them.

But do remember that I do not drive when hunting her. I have a designated driver and she flies out the passenger window. This is so I can bail out of the vehicle to help her without having to slam on the brakes, park the car, and then run toward her - and those precious seconds could very well mean success or failure because they will struggle and tussle, or worse...unseen predators coming to investigate the ruckus. Starlings in distress calls in cats, coops, and redtails, let alone crows who will try and drive your kbird off (I SO want a male Harris or redtail to try for crow hawking because of times where they harassed and driven off my kbird!). I bail out of a still moving vehicle every time, which drives my husband crazy. He's always telling me I need to wait until the vehicle stops...but I can't. She's had prey in her talons once and my taking time (large mud puddle she was wrestling the starling in and I had to wade through to get to her) and she let go. Another reason for not waiting was reinforced just this afternoon when she caught #33 and not ten feet from her was a cat, sitting there and watching. Had I not of been there a few seconds after she bound to the starling, it could have been disastrous. With her tussling and rolling around with the starling, she wasn't seeing anything.

Training next steps

Things have been slow for training this week since I haven't taken off work early to have the light available. I did give her one baggie without the creance and she went to it almost immediately after making sure the cat wasn't nearby. She missed on the first pass but recovered quickly and got hold of it on the second try.

I took Hazel out to an empty subdivision area near the house where the roads and sidewalks have been in for over 5 years but no houses yet. It's great for teaching your kids to drive and teaching your hawk to launch at birds from a car.

I took along Mr. Frosty and set him up on the curb and drove slowly past. It was her first car ride so she was very distracted by the interior of the car and wasn't looking outside at all. Even when I just pulled up along side Mr. Frosty she would just look at all the controls on the dashboard and I'll be darned if she wasn't trying to figure out how to drive the thing. I'll have to make sure I keep the keys where she can't find them. Anyway, I finally held her out the window and she saw the bird and launched at it. I traded her off and got her back in the car and set up Mr. Frosty again. I figured she would be really anxious to look for it now that she had her claws on it once. But when I drove by she didn't see it and was distracted by everything else. She only finally launched at it when I held her out the window and pointed the car directly at it. I need to figure out how to get her to look off to the side and know that that's her exit. Hopefully the WA car hawking expert will comment on this post and give me some pointers. *nudge nudge, wink wink*

I'll try and give her more car rides to get her used to the car so the newness wears off and she can focus outside of the car.

Hazel's First Free Flight

But here's what led up to it. Four bagged starlings in 6 days got her cued in on starlings as food and slowly bringing her weight down did the trick. On Friday I gave her a baggie at 102.1g and she was pretty lazy about it. She made a couple of fly bys but didn't show that she wanted it that bad.

Yesterday she was down to 100.5g and she hit it with clear intent, no messing around. When we walked out and she first saw it she bated toward it but I wasn't ready yet. She was still on the creance and would have gotten herself tangled around a pole. So once I got to where she was safe to fly it took her several seconds before she launched. So with that performance a light bulb went off and I marked 100g as her hunting weight. We'll continue to adjust as we go after wild game and maybe she can get her weight up as we build a better relationship hunting.

So, with that, I had her at 100.1 this afternoon and took her out in the yard to feed her with tidbit flights. She did very well, immediate response, and when I tossed her from the glove she just hovered and wanted back on, even landing on my head once. I figured this meant she was ready so I unclipped her and we made several more flights from different perches in the yard. I also had her coming to the lure several times. She's still a little flighty with me coming to her on the lure but she knows the lure is her friend so that's a good start. She also hits the lure in the air now where she hadn't before today. Guessing that without the encumbrance of the creance she felt more able to maneuver to the lure. (Baron free flight at 36 days, Hazel at 33)

Oh, an update on her eye. The day after I posted about her eye she was fine again. No more lid closing. No more squinting. *whew* I closed the window that looks into the garage but with a light on she still bates at the bars of the other one that faces the wall. I'll have to close that one off too so she just can't see out and then she can have her light without hurting herself. Silly bird.

A little worried

I got Hazel out of the mews this morning to weigh her and she kept closing one eye. No, she wasn't winking at me in some strange kestrel mating ritual. She kept moving her head to the side and shrugging her wing like she was trying to wipe her eye. She also stuck her tongue out as if she wanted to lick her eye clear. The closing of the eye wasn't a blink, it was more like a slow closing almost like it was involuntary. I put her away for the day and checked on her when I got home and she was still doing the one eye thing. Not as bad as in the morning and she'd keep it open when she was actively looking at something. But when she relaxed, her eye would slowly close up again. My only guess is that she banged her eye last night while thrashing around in her mews. She still does that. I think it's because the light bulb throws light outside the mews and she can see through the bars to where it's lit up and wants to get there. So tonight I draped a dark cloth over the bars and she's much calmer than she's been before. My sponsor tends to agree with me on the cause of the eye problem. In 50 years he hasn't had a bird with an eye problem like that so we'll just watch it for a few days and hope it clears up.

It must not be too bad a problem because she grabbed another baggie today without too much trouble. Her weight was a little high but I wanted her to get used to knowing that's her food source. Hopefully Friday she'll be at a better weight and her eye will be back to normal and we'll try another baggie.

Edit:
I just checked up on Hazel. She's banging against the door bars again. I think I'm going to have to just close off the opening so she's not distracted by something to latch on to.

First Bind

Tonight Hazel bound to a starling for the first time. I had given her two others over the last couple of weeks but she wasn't ready for it yet. Tonight she just sat and looked at it for a while and then flew to it but took off as soon as the starling struggled. I brought out Mr. Frosty and set him up in the same spot to see if she'd go for it and she did, rather quickly. Given that performance and the fact that she wanted to eat what she caught I put the live starling out again. It took just a minute but she flew to it and held on with a perfect grip around the neck. Go Hazel! She was very excited even breathing a little heavy. I think next time should go as well now that I have her weight down.

Other events over the last couple of weeks:

I've just been bringing Hazel's weight down to where she'll respond well. I think we're close to a final weight.

I moved my borrowed starling trap from the dairy to a mink farm. I was tired of driving through 4 inches of manure each day in my new car and bringing it home to stink up the garage.

I went out with my sponsor to flush pheasants and on the way back we saw a kestrel just down the street from my house and it looked like the Baron. We rushed the rest of the way back to my house and I loaded up the trap and got back there but he was gone. The next day I saw one near the same spot that looked promising so I put the trap out and that bird was hungry! He flew down to the trap while I was only 30 feet away and still backing up the car. He landed right on the trap and danced a nice Irish jig while I got out my binoculars. I could see his legs very well below his kilt and alas, no anklets. So I drove forward toward the trap to scare him off of it so he wouldn't get caught. Too late. So I released him and let him fly off. The whole scenario from trap set to caught was about a minute. Was fun to get a close up look at him.

I took three of my kids to the Winterfest on Saturday. There were many different birds there and a few I hadn't seen before including: sharp-shinned hawk, peales peregrine (no hybrid), anatum peregrine, gyrfalcon (no hybrid), barbary falcon, finnish goshawk. It's always cold and a bit of a drive but it's cool to see so many birds in one spot.

A week's worth of updates

Earlier this week my wife told me she was driving on the way home and saw a male kestrel on a sign post as she passed by. She turned around and drove back to see if it was the Baron and as she pulled up, another car stopped and the driver was looking at the bird with binoculars. She thought that was an odd coincidence. It turns out she found my sponsor looking for the Baron too. What a great wife and a great sponsor!

This last Tuesday I put Hazel on her indoor wall perch and went to make dinner. I looked over at her and noticed her head was missing. Well, that's weird. I knew she had it when I put her on the perch. Moo went to look at her and figured out that Hazel was sleeping! The Baron never slept indoors in the 5 weeks we had him and here was this wild crazy thing sleeping peacefully (and might I add, deeply) in the middle of a family of 6 making dinner and doing homework and making a general ruckus. And she was only with us one week. She did the same thing again on Wednesday while I was getting her food ready. I had to wake her up to eat. Poor thing is wearing herself out during the day bouncing around her mews.

It was becoming a daily occasion that I would come home from work and find Hazel wound up tight against the side of the mews with her leash all gnarled and twisted into a ball.One day this week she was so tangled up that she bent a tail feather; the outside one on the right. It was sticking out at a 4:00 angle and I felt sick. I had done what I could to help her not get tangled. She had more swivels than you'd ever imagine yet she was so active that she just couldn't help getting tangled up. Of course I called my sponsor and he said that if a bird is that active and wired that it's best to free-loft her. He also told me how to fix her feather. The cure: Stick her tail in a glass of very hot water. Um, ok. That was a lot simpler than it sounded at first. I just sat her on my fist and stuck her tail down into the cup. Since there's no feeling in the feathers, she had no idea what was going on. I asked him how long to soak it and he said it should be immediate. Sure enough, I took the tail out after 3 seconds in the water and it was straight. Amazing! Hurray for sponsors!

About free-lofting. My family would call me and tell me my bird was going crazy in the mews. Making all sorts of noise bouncing from perch to perch and to the window bars and bath pan. I came home one day and my daughter had called me 20 minutes before to say that Hazel was giving her alarm call. She looked for the cat but he wasn't in the garage. She peeked in and Hazel just continued to scream. I got home and sure enough she was a screaming wet mess (from bouncing into the bath pan). If I thought the bent feather gave me a scare, what I saw next made my stomach drop out. Hazel was hopping around on one leg with the other at a strange angle. I also noticed that she had splashed so much water on the door that the corner had warped and I saw downy feathers on the edge. I thought for sure she had broken her leg or hurt it badly. I felt so low. I got her onto my glove and took a look at her leg. It turns out that with all her acrobatics she had managed to get her right leg caught in between her last couple of tail feathers on the right side and she couldn't get it out. What?! "Help, help, it's got me! The sky is falling!" Sometimes I truly believe that bird-brained applies both literally AND figuratively to this bird. Once I freed her from herself she roused and settled right down and we had a normal evening. We even went so far as to have her pluck her first starling.

I had stopped at the trap to water the birds as usual and brought home 8 of them. One I kept alive and let her have a go at it. It was way too noisy and disturbed so she wouldn't launch at it. So I dispatched it and then she jumped at it and we had our first post-catch bonding moment. It gave me an opportunity to learn something new about kestrels. They chitter. Like a squirrel. It was a surprising sound to hear coming out of her and very cute. Though from what I can tell from her behavior and mine while making the noise, it was more of a warning to me than anything cute and cuddly. She would make the noise whenever I moved my fingers around the carcass while she was grabbing it. So I took it as a warning that she didn't like me messing with her stuff. I tried to respect her ownership while helping her easily open it up to eat from it. I think it turned out well. I think that was Wednesday night.

Today I took Hazel outside on the creance for the first time. Well, besides once last week I took her for a walk in the fields on my glove. But today I put her on the Baron's favorite garden bean pole and she seemed to like it too. It's very much like the fence post I found her on. She responded very well at 106.9g and I fed her about 5g which is when she stopped responding quickly. That was the Baron's breaking point as well. But in that time she was able to be comfortable enough to fly back to her perch on the pole and know that was her place.

After that I checked the trap and found 4 sparrows in with the starlings. They always get killed by the starlings after a short while in the cage so I tried to get them out where they could at least be useful. I was only able to get one into the escape hatch so took him home. I set him up in the back yard with a weight and let Hazel see him. After a little bit of head bobbing and looking around she launched at it and missed into the snow. She jumped back at it and after a little chase around in circles she caught it and just sat there. I wondered what she was waiting for but since she wasn't flying off with it, I wanted to take advantage of the opportunity to teach her not to carry. I came in and offered her food which she took, but when I got down closer to the ground she did try to fly off. The weight on the sparrow kept her in place and I reassured her with more food. So for a while she just sat there with the sparrow while I fed her tidbits. She would turn now and then and bite at the sparrow but not really killing it or opening it up. I finally dispatched it and helped her break in and continued to feed her bits to strengthen her connection to me while holding prey. Once or twice she did try to bring the sparrow up to my glove but it was too awkward for her and I ended up picking the sparrow and her up together. She took forever to eat it but finished most of it and I'll let her keep the rest in the mews. I put her away VERY fat so we'll see how long that carries her into tomorrow. She has been losing 1.5g/h overnight the last couple nights. I have no idea why other than she is just an active nervous bird. Maybe ADHD? I think I'll keep her on her giant hood at night indoors and see if the complete darkness and regulated temperature helps. The Baron actually lost more weight when I put him in a dark place. Maybe he wasn't comfortable enough yet to get used to it.

Lastly, my sponsor had loaned me a jess that was made by Al Ross for merlins. I looked at the design and because I'm cheap, I figured I'd learn how to make my own (since he sells them for $15 a pair). I found the materials at a three different stores and set about making them. They weren't as hard as they looked and they look sharp and work great. The are designed so that your bird can't pull them out in the field and lose them, making it harder to recover your bird. If you fly jessless then I guess that's a non-issue, but this is what my sponsor recommended. I did have to cast Hazel to get them on her since she gave me a series of nips that ended up in bites while trying to put them on. She handled the casting fairly well and I don't think she hates me anymore than usual.

This is the one made by Al Ross and is a great design. Mine are on Hazel and I forgot to take pictures first. The head is a 1/4" brass bead for fly tying with a small and large opening. The end of the braid goes into the small opening and you tie it off and epoxy the large opening of the bead. The jess material is waxed nylon thread for leather working and is 6 strands braided together as three but the beginning is just 3 strands braided to make the loop. The leather bit is threaded and braided in place and you fold it down in line with the jess to slip it through the grommet. But once it's through, it pops back in place and can't be pulled out by an overactive kestrel. Not that I know any overactive kestrels, mind you. I'll make a tutorial with photos if people ask me for it. I probably will make one more pair to have on hand for just in cases.

Upcoming Falconry Events in Utah

If you have any interest in falconry or raptors, you don't want to miss these two events. Winterfest and Sky Trials. Winterfest is a show and tell where you'll see many different birds up close. Sky Trials is a competition where falcons attempt to catch prey that is specially trained to avoid them. See details below.

If you're interested in carpooling with me let me know.

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WINTERFEST 2012

It’s time for the 10th annual Winterfest Falconry gathering.

This year is our 10 year anniversary! Come celebrate with us!

WHEN: January 28, 2012 10:00 AM

WHERE: Lone PeakPark Pavillion
10140 South 700 East
Sandy, UT
(look it up on google maps)

Who: EVERYONE is invited. Please bring your family,
friends, scouts, interested parties, etc.
But please support the potluck and raffle as well.

History- Winterfest started 10 years ago as a FREE public/family friendly falconry event. It is not a “meet” or a “trial” by state definition. It is an opportunity to fly birds, eat food, make new friends, and share ideas. This event has grown each year and has become a fun winter tradition.

Flights- These timed flights are a competition, but meant to be light hearted and fun spirited. So PLEASE FLY YOUR BIRD! You don’t have to worry about looking silly or being jabbed for a less than stellar performance. That being said, if you fly, please make sure your bird is at weight. The flight competitions will have 3 categories. Kestrel, Red-tail, and Harris hawk. The flights are timed flights. The falconer can choose to do the flights to the fist or to the lure, whichever will solicit a faster response from his bird. Awards will be given in each category for fastest flights.
Please do not hesitate to fly your bird!!! This is all meant in good fun, and is supposed to cater to newer falconers. So don’t be shy. Fly your bird!

Potluck- Winterfest is free. And it is our hope to always keep it that way. We will be having an indoor potluck. All food is free, but everyone is expected to bring food! If you are going to eat food, please see that you bring food. This event is far more fun if the potluck is well stocked. Everybody likes to eat. So spend a few bucks, and bring some food. Crock pot items are especially welcome.

Raffle- Having a raffle is what has allowed us to keep Winterfest free. Please bring money for raffle tickets, and if you are feeling generous and community minded, please bring raffle items to put on the table. Every bit helps. The raffle started as a way that newer falconers could obtain much needed equipment, but it has come to be a fun and vital part of Winterfest. There will be art, equipment, gift packs, and many great non-falconry items as well. This year should be a fun raffle. Please support the raffle if you can. We will be set up to use credit cards if needed. The park and pavilion rental was several hundred dollars. We hope to recoup some of this from the raffle.

Bird yard- After the flights are over, an outdoor bird yard will be set up. PLEASE BRING YOUR BIRDS even if you are not flying. The bird yard is a huge part of this event. It is fun for everyone to see all the birds. Guests will be free to look at and photograph birds. This is always a fun part for everyone, especially families and newcomers. The bird yard will be roped off and manned. If you have a perch with a spike base, this year we will have a drill with a masonry bit to drill holes if the ground is frozen. Please make sure your equipment is strong and reliable. All species are welcome. There will also be a “beauty contest” done in conjunction with this that everyone gets to vote on. This too is meant all in good fun, and is done with comical categories.

Please come and help support this fun tradition. Please help by bringing food, birds, raffle items, etc. This should be a great year! We hope to see you there.

If you have any questions, please contact-

Ben Woodruff skymasterswildlife@hotmail.com

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Utah Sky Trials

The tradition continues! Join us again in Rush Valley along the Pony Express Trail in Central Utah for the Utah Sky Trials, now in its 37^th year. Come see high-flying falcons, and get up close to eagles, owls and hawks of every sort. Swap stories and check out the latest falconry gear.

February 16-18, 2012 (You'll want to be there on the 18th for the finals)
Rush Valley, UT

http://www.utahskytrials.com/

Stress!

Witch Hazel is a demon. I was actually thinking of naming her Tisiphone which is the name of one of the three furies in Greek mythology. The name means "vengeful destruction". Yeah. I'm still keeping a look out for the Baron around the area. Please come back!

I will say some good about her. She is a very quick learner and she has ninja skillz. On the second day she learned to return to my glove when she bates away. The Baron never learned that. She can jump up and turn around in mid air and land back on the glove in the opposite direction and throw you a glare that will tear a scream of fear from your throat. On the second day she flew 4-5 feet to me for food. Very quick progress compared to my slower pace with the Baron.

However...

Each morning when I go to get her out of the mews she bates away from me and gets ready to ninja my brains out. Then I have to slide my hand along the leash to her so she doesn't fly onto my head and then she spends a little time hanging upside down until she decides she wants to stand on my glove. It's like she resets each night and in the morning we start all over again. She's also very difficult to get onto the scale to weigh her. Today I tried to get her to fly a little distance to me, about like what she did the second day. She wouldn't do it that far so we had to basically start over and work up the distance. She's just so inconsistent. When I feed her she's careful enough and doesn't rip it from my fingers; she just takes it gently. But she's ready to bite you any other time. My patient animal whisperer daughter worked with Hazel a bit today to get her to let you stroke her belly. She made a little progress. I think with repeated work she'll get there. But for now she perfectly fits the description I heard of a hawk's mentality toward the falconer: feed me, fly me, or leave me alone!

I noticed that a couple of the scales on the top of her feet are white and asked my sponsor about it. He told me to put some sort of cream on it to keep it moist and clean so I used some anti-bacterial cream to make sure there was no infection starting. Of course to do this I needed to hood her so she wouldn't bite me as I touched her feet. Getting a hood on her is next to impossible without a major tantrum from either her or me. At this stage in the game I have to grab her from behind around the hips with her wings held against her back and keeping her feet below my hand. Then it's a matter of timing the bites to get the hood below her open mouth and onto her head. Mercy. I got the hood on her and expected her to be a wet noodle like the Baron was. Oh no. Not even close. She immediately transformed into the Tasmanian Devil and blindly break danced her way onto my bare hand where she clawed and bit me, drawing blood in three places. Dag, yo!

After we got through all that my sponsor came over to look at her feet. He said that the white scales were loose, probably from the constant bating and the leather I used for her anklets was too stiff and thick. He gave me a small scrap of kangaroo leather to use for her anklets. Yeah. That meant I had to hood her again AND wrap her up so she didn't go all raptor on me. I felt bad having to do it but it was for her own good so I could fix her equipment. So I wrapped her up and changed her anklets and when I was done she was shaking, the poor dear. I put her in a dark room for a bit to calm down while I finished some new jesses I had braided yesterday. These would be lighter weight and easier to slide in and out of the anklets (so I thought). Of course now there was one more drama to perform: changing out the jesses. Theoretically this should be easy, but the ones that she had on were thick leather and didn't slide through the grommet very easily and were very hard to get out. And then putting the new ones in was additional drama and all this with no hood. At the end of the day we were both worn out and stressed and just needed to chill. I fed her a good meal as recompense for the poor treatment she got at my inexperienced blundering hands and put her in her mews for the night. Hopefully we can be better friends tomorrow.

Hazel

I took the day off of work yesterday to look for the Baron. I went out a couple times in the morning and on starting my first pass I realized I was just fooling myself. It wasn't a despairing feeling but more like facing facts. I saw a few male kestrels but they were the same ones from the day before; none had anklets on. On my second round I saw the same kestrels as before but still no Baron. In one quarter-mile stretch I saw three kestrels, two males and a female, which got me thinking, "Gosh, there sure are a lot of kestrels around here. I could probably trap one pretty easily."

I had told myself that I would wait until February to trap a new bird to have ready for spring when the starlings will be on the ground. I told my sponsor of my plan and he suggested that I not wait; that it takes a while to get a bird fully trained. He also said he would loan me his telemetry equipment until I can afford to buy some.

So...

I drove out to my starling trap to fill the water and asked my iPhone to find me a pet store nearby. There was one that was due to open in thirty minutes so after checking the trap I drove to the store and waited for it to open. They had mice; little gray mice. Woot! I bought two, called my brother-in-law and invited him to come with me since he had offered to help me search for the Baron.

We drove back near my home and saw a male kestrel, not the Baron. We put the trap down and I'm not sure he saw it as he flew off shortly after. We drove further and were only two streets from my house and my brother-in-law spotted a female on a fence post near the road. It was 12:08 pm and I had to pick up my wife from work by 12:30 and it was a ten minute drive to reach her. We dropped the trap on the side of the road and backed up a little ways. She flew past the trap within ten seconds of waiting and perched on the street sign. After another short wait she flew down to the trap and tried to scare the mice out of it. When they wouldn't move she got more aggressive and jumped on top of the trap and back off and on and off and started footing the trap like crazy. She then lost her balance because she had both feet tangled and she tried to fly off but she was caught. It wasn't even 12:15 yet. We moved in quickly and got her off the trap, hooded and socked her, then drove off to pick up my wife arriving only five minutes late. Talk about drive through service! :) She weighed 126.2 without any gear. The Baron weighed 127.8 with anklets and jesses. So roughly the same size.

The Baron took 30 minutes of swinging onto the glove to get him to learn the trick. This girl took a couple of hours. She constantly bated away during those couple of hours. I finally took her into the bathroom with no window and closed the door almost all the way. Then she would stay on my fist. I would slowly open the door to get her acclimated to things and walk out but as soon as she saw light at a window she bated toward it even with the blinds closed. The Baron never bated once. Hard to believe, but it's true. Sure, he'd fly off the glove to get away from being touched, but not just cuz he wanted away from you otherwise. This girl is also a big time biter. The Baron would bite as a last defense but she leans toward you to bite as an offense. However, to her credit (or maybe to mine having gone through this already) I was able to get her to hop to my glove tonight for her food and was able to feed her with my fingers. She still wants to bite the heck out of my glove and I don't dare put my fingers near her without food, but it's progress.

If I spot the Baron in the next week or so, I'll most likely retrap him and let this one go. We'll see what opportunities arise and how this girl is doing by that time.

I first started looking at witchy names for her since she's been so nasty compared to the sweet little boy Baron, but I think she'll tame down fairly well. The family likes the name Hazel. There was a witch Hazel I remember from Bugs Bunny cartoons and the name is also descriptive of her coloring, comparing it to the hazel nut shell.

Not quite getting the concept

5 Stages of Loss

Shock/Denial

We took the Baron out to the fields again today with another seeled starling. This time he was 4g lower than the last bird and we figured he'd be on it right away. We released the starling and it flew upward and circled and the Baron did nothing. The starling headed away from us down the hill and my sponsor suggested I toss my bird into the air to get him going. That did it. He took off after the starling but that darned bird was going faster than we thought and the Baron didn't overtake him til he was about 1/2 mile from us and directly over a huge maze of scrub oak. I thought, OK, we can deal with this. (Really?) We drove around to the spot we saw them headed toward and walked through the brush, hoping the magpies would show his location with their scavenging attitude. We ended up following a couple of magpies around from tree to tree and got nowhere on finding the Baron. We finally gave that up and drove around the area to see if he didn't catch the starling and just got up on a wire or tree somewhere. No luck. I still wasn't too upset. We called it quits and I planned to go back and look around the area on the poles and such to see if I could see him after he was done eating, assuming he caught the starling.

Pain/Guilt

Now it's starting to hit me that he's not coming back and while I can go look for him over the next couple of days, I'm not hopeful of finding him. My wife took my son out with her and looked around while I showered and ate some lunch. They saw a kestrel but didn't think it had jesses on. She came back and got me and we drove around. I saw a kestrel but the sun was in my eyes and I had to step out of the road for a car coming by and when I looked back up it had disappeared. I had my wife drop me off in the field where it all started and I walked back through swinging the lure and looking around. I saw another kestrel a ways off but it disappeared before I got close enough to get binoculars on it. I'll give it another try in a couple hours and see if I can find him.

Anger/Bargaining

While looking for my bird, my sponsor was saying we shouldn't have even flown the bird without telemetry. I'm sure he wasn't chastising me more than he was himself as this is the first time he even brought it up and many people (most I've heard of) don't use telemetry with a kestrel. Of course, they're car hawking at close range, not doing long flights like we were. So now I'm giving myself the kick in the pants for being too cheap to spend the $700 on a telemetry system. (Said with sarcasm; I know it was just a bad setup and I know now I shouldn't have thrown him so late.)

Depression

Having to go back to work tomorrow and not be able to hunt for my bird is going to kill me. Our second car is in the shop right now and my daughter is coming home to take me into work so I can't even take the morning to look for him and go in late because she has to be to work by 8:00. I really don't want to hear the I'm sorrys from co-workers either. Ugh.

Acceptance

Maybe in a week or so...