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.