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.