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.