Oops! correction

Unfortunately it appears that I  will have to face the facts and admit that my bird has come out of the closet. "SHE" has decided that she is a boy. I know, its tough to admit that I apparently have a transgender offspring. I will love him any way,   in spite of her confusion, it appears that this is a common occurrence these days. My only real problem will be the fact that I will have to change her name. Leeza will no longer do. I have considered changing it to LGBT, but I am not sure if I could pronounce it much less shout it in a moment of excitement on the side of a Duck pond. I guess I will have to be content with Leezard, Lee for short.

You may wonder at my Lizard compulsion, but his parents raised the last clutch of babies by feeding them Long Nosed Leopard Lizards among others. Besides I am running out of names.

Today is the 27th day of his life, and he has made some improvements. His ability to get around is improving daily of course. He was eating out of a dish by his third day, and prefers to make small additions to his crop, several times a day. So far he is consuming a bit less than one  Quail a day. That will change pretty soon.

It was time for him to spend a day outside. It was about 72 degrees and just right for him. He actually spent almost all of his day eating, sleeping and growing feathers.

Brick the Britt. still thinks that he is fascinating, and spends a lot of time just looking at him.

A F&W guy came down yesterday to verify that I indeed had managed to obtain a bird. He of course was not able to positively ID the bird in question as a Prairie Falcon, but he was doing his job and was willing to take my word for it. I took him around the place, showed him my mews and of course Jessie. She is my watch dog, and showed great desire to attack the poor guy. Most of the view of her that he got resembles what you see in the picture below. I thought that her behavior was a bit extreme, and I couldn't figure out why. When I put her up for the night the little shit ran around the perch and tried to foot me, drawing blood in the process. This morning I could understand why. I gave her the chance to become a Mommy, but she apparently loves only me. Sigh! Every year she has to lay a couple of eggs, and unfortunately all it does is delay her molt making her pretty ragged when I start her hunting.

If you see a Peregrine take this stance, she either loves you, or is going to kick your butt. It was the latter in this case.

This afternoon while Karen and I were in the house, I heard Jessie "Chupping". She does that when she sees another falcon. I "ran" out side, and to my surprise a tiercel adult Peregrine was making low level passes over the weathering area. He was quite light, so he should be an older bird. He made several passes and I even went in and got a lure, just in case, but he pretended ignorance and eventually circled up and departed East.

Leeza's third day

I put Leeza in a playpen that we used for falcon babies, and she is where she can see the TV and every body in the room.

Leeza cast up a pellet from what her parents have been feeding her. I was pleased to note that there did not appear to be any Lizard skins in there. I will take it apart when it dries enough to see what they are eating.

We had to go to town yesterday so we fed her all she would eat before we left. We had to feed her with forceps. Karen made the mistake of "chupping" to her in falcon mom language, and she began to quietly whine in return. Karen stopped that immediately.

When we returned I began trying to get her to eat off a plate with some success. As the evening progressed, I took her out of the pen and put her in my lap. Of course the dogs and cats are very interested in her, and both can be observed studying each other. Brick especially would like to be able to sniff her, and he will occasionally whine in frustration. While she was in my lap she took several bites of food on her own, and soon indicated her desire to sleep.

This morning it would appear as though her feathers have grown about a 1/4 or more of an inch. I put some food in front of her, and raised a bit of it up to her, and she bit at the food. I left it in front of her and it did not take very long before she was eating on her own. Today she has eaten on her own every two or three hours.

At the age that I took her it is not likely that she will imprint, but she can be made vocal if she gets used to eating from the hand. I don't remember a baby beginning to eat on their own this fast before. Even though my not remembering something is not unusual, it would appear that even so she is learning very very fast.

Each evening I will put her in my lap for as long as she seems content.

Leeza the Prairie comes to live with us.

Well I finely pulled a Prairie Falcon out of an aerie.  I have had a few eyass Prairie Falcons, but I have never had one that I was able to claim that it was any good. All of them previously were taken by someone else and I somehow ended up with them. I had one female that I trapped in a family group that was still the most impressive bird that I have ever seen. She was trapped from a family group when she was hard penned. ( feathers all fully grown) I only got to keep her for one year, but it was an impressive year. She died the following fall from a gall stone in the common duct of her liver.

Having done my share of breeding Peregrines and hybrids, I have been able to make some observations over the years of the type of bird that is better suited to falconry. Survival requires a bit different set of behavior traits that do not necessarily extend to the sport of falconry.  A bird that is suspicious, and very cautious, will survive, where a bold hunter that will kill at any cost can injure itself .

In almost any nest you will find several personality types, and the one that works the best for falconry is the one that is the calmest. The bird that first closes their beak and looks around will be the bird that will do the best in a falconry situation.

In this nest the bird that I took was the quiet, calm one. There was another that screamed from the time that we showed up until we left. Another that was so meek that it stuck its head under a rock and squatted trying to make itself as inconspicuous as possible.

This nest site was not active last year, but the year before the parents raised five young on just lizards. That is some feat, but the game situation was as tough as I have ever seen it. That is why I have named this bird Leeza, for the Lizards that she has probably eaten.

I have found that Prairies taken at about 22- 24 days of age do quite well. Their tail feathers are only about an 1/8 of an inch long, so stress marks are nonexistent. They are old enough that it is hard for them to imprint to you, and they actually become dual socialized. Prairie Falcons are one of the most difficult of all falcons to train in that if you ever lie, piss off, or in any way make one mad at you, they seem to never forgive you. However if you can actually get it trained, nothing hits game like a Prairie. I venture to say that for me, seeing a Prairie Falcon's totally devastating killing stoop ranks right up there with orgasms.

I am finely living in an area where I can "tame Hack" a falcon. I have always wanted to do so, and technology has progressed to the point that the odds are greatly improved. This blog will go through Leeza's growth and training, and we will see just how long I can go without screwing up.

I first found this nest through Dave's, (next door) observations while hunting lost cows about 5 years ago.  He described the area and I managed to find it with the help of my plane. I set the gps to the spot and went back on foot to confirm. Its about 15 miles or more back in the desert, and in an area that you would never suspect a falcon would live there. I think it takes a fairly special bird to make a living there. Prairies are a very versatile species and will hunt ground quarry as well as winged ones.

I am at the age where my grace and nimbleness has departed. While still young in the mind, I have enough sense to know my limitations- hopefully and most of the time. I have no one ( falconers) to call on to help me, so I must help my self. It is not feasible to be roping over a cliff face some where, so this nest was just the ticket as the nest was out in the open and only about 7 feet below the top. I reasoned that I would be able to take a fishing net, extend the reach a bit and scoop one out of the nest with ease. I first ( earlier blog post) visited the site to determine that they were actually using it. Found the babies just hatched on the 2nd of May. Determined that I would come back on the 22nd to claim my bird. This is what happened.
 

 https://vimeo.com/167826325  -   password - owyheeflyer