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.