In the time since I last posted, I have slowly reduced Jessie's weight downward to bare minimum. It has had no effect on her as far as hunting.
A Raptor's body is unlike ours, in that their metabolism is hundreds (depending on the species) of times faster than the human body. Most if not all have no real fat on their body and the muscle is the fuel that allows them to hunt and stay healthy. Thus a hawk that misses prey and does not eat, loses muscle until it can no longer make the pursuit necessary to obtain food. Hawks hunt according to their weight. A fat hawk is not fast enough, cannot turn fast enough and therefore does not catch prey that is healthy. Once it loses enough weight to be in peak physical condition, the prey that was too fast yesterday, does not stand a chance on the day when her weight is right. What you strive for is to have the hawk or falcon in peak physical condition. Their mind and body both needs to be at its peak.
Falcons are different in that weight does not play that big a part in their hunting success. It is attitude that is the primary influence. That is not to say that a Falcon with an empty stomach is not motivated to catch quarry. An empty stomach can be a real motivator. Pared down to basics the part that concerns falconers is that a Hawks attitude can be modified to be a better hunter by weight control. Whereas a Falcon will react favorably up to a certain point, but the peak performance depends more on the birds attitude. A Hawk with an empty stomach and at peak physical condition is intense and will hunt better. If you keep withholding food It will continue to try to catch something until it gets too weak to hunt. A Falcon that has been treated the same way will, once the peak condition has been reached, only have worse manners and will not fly as well. A falcon that is too fat will sit on poles or in Jessie's case the ground. One that is too weak will do the same thing. One that feels good and is keen to hunt will revel in flight, one that is too low will not want to fly, thus sits.
I have known this lesson for as long as I can remember. I have also known that the reason that Jessie is not catching stuff is more in her mind. The problem however is that I do not know the reason that she was refusing to close with prey that she had knocked down out of the air. Both her mother and father died at 12 and 13 years old. This is her 11th year of hunting. I have considered that she just doesn't want to fight with the Ducks on the ground. Yet her physical condition appears to be no less than it has been in years past.
Of course this post is read by some falconers as well as just interested people. The first advice that you get is that she is too fat. The guy that had the project that she came from has more experience with this particular species of Peregrine than I, and all the birds that he has had do not weigh nearly as much as does Jessie. Of course if they all had the same experience they all might have the same weight range. I however still believe that Jessie is just a bigger bird than they are, while I also believe that her experience and time with me perhaps allows her to carry more weight. As in the paragraph concerning weight and attitude, what she thinks has more influence on the outcome than her weight.
So even knowing all that I have put in print here, I began taking her weight down, by shorting her on her meal at the end of unsuccessful flights. The last time that I flew the Lake she flew at heights that I had difficulty finding her again after taking my eyes off of her. She wasn't more than 400 feet or so, but it was still hard to find her. She again knocked a Duck down but did not close with it. She only got a leg and half of a Quail breast. I next flew her at Tami's house on a bunch of mixed Ducks on the creek. She sat on the hay stack and only flew when I approached the creek. She knocked down at least two Ducks and did not get either of them. She also never got higher than 50 feet. I cut her further. Again the same behavior, same height. The third time I flew her was a repeat of the previous trips. I cut her still further. I finally decided that I was wasting my time by going over to the ranch, so I turned her loose her at the house and began walking up the creek. She flew around my head trying to get me to offer her some food. As I turned to go to the house, I jumped a Jack Rabbit. She gave chase and eventually crashed through a Sage bush trying to catch it. Peregrines just don't do that. I took her home and fed her a Quail and a Starling. Her weight was 802 grams. Her "normal" flying weight is 870 grams. The next day I fed her half of a pigeon without flying her.
Today she weighed 860 grams, she of course still thinks that she is starved. I put the kite up and raised the lure to about 375 feet. I picked her up, weighed her, hooded her, and took her out in the yard and turned her loose. She began mounting up after the kite. At about that time Karen discovered that the lure had been shaken off the down rigger snap that secures it to the stand off stick on the line. After a string of cuss words I retrieved the lure with the garnish on it. I looked up in time to see her grab the stick that normally holds the lure and then let go. The only thing I could do was yell and swing the lure. She did not see me for a bit, so I was in the process of securing it to my weighted lure, when I heard Karen say "Holy shit!" By that time Jessie had grabbed the lure off the ground. It of course popped out of her feet, and she turned and landed on it again. Apparently her stoop was pretty spectacular. I had to be content with being able to pull it all back together.
I have decided that I am going to be content with flying her on the kite until a bit later in the season if at all. If she wants to "retire", she has earned the right. I will most likely give her a chance a bit later and will probably try her again next year. I have also decided that it is time to get another falcon. I will either get a hybrid Peregrine/Gyr or perhaps get a young of the year Prairie falcon next spring. I have some experiments that I want to try any way. If Jessie wants to fly next year we will do so.
