I've been going back and forth all evening concerning writing about Bud's progress. Of course I have reexamined the events of the day many times. Although there really isn't anything all that noteworthy about his training other than his tendency to throw a shit fit every time I pick him up from his perch or reach for his hood. The interesting part is that he hasn't allowed that hatred to cause him to "run away from Home". I marvel each time I see this performance. Once the hated hood is stowed away, all his animosity goes away as well. I have never seen behavior of this type in all my time with raptors. One would never believe that anything that acted like that would ever voluntarily return to the fist that caused such an outburst. Yet he does. Once the hood goes away, he is as sweet as a raptor ever gets. Today we went through the same thing, only with a bit more vocals this time. When he turned over from his fit he grabbed the tidbit off my fist on the way up. He knows that it is always there, so he looks for it. Another contradictory action on his part. He should sulk or continue to act up. He does not, he is fine through the weighing and right up to the time I reach for the hood. Then we start again.
After his "homing" episode, it occurred to me that I had missed a vital part of his preparation before exposing him to wild game. Generally it wasn't necessary with the other falcons that I have trained. They automatically hung around me when they were released, so it was back to basics.
The basics involved the balancing act of allowing him to fly, hoping that he would also gain altitude, yet stay within range of me. I want him to get up in the sky, but not so far that he can't get to the game before it has reached a point that it can go to cover, or back in the water to escape. You would think that in an area that normally has uninterrupted visibility of roughly 100 miles, it wouldn't matter. Besides cover there are other factors such as Coyotes, and especially, Golden Eagles. Lets face it, I am an old fat senior citizen, my running days are long gone. I can shuffle a bit however, just not far. Both of the mentioned critters would be quite happy to add Bud and his prey to their rather skimpy menu.
When he went home, I had expected him to come back over at some point in time, but he didn't get within a mile of me the whole time he was playing with the Red Tails and the Golden. So the next day I caught up all of my "homing" pigeons as well as a fresh Duck, and went to the pasture of the ranch next door. The first day I tossed a new Pigeon out every time he began to stray a bit. Then when he happened to blunder close to me I tossed the Duck which he caught and killed.
The day before yesterday I went with only two Pigeons, and a Duck. This time he kept his circles a bit closer to me and when he began to work his way up, ( it was too early for thermals) I tossed the Duck and he caught it. Since the Duck weighs more than him by a considerable amount, I have tried to shield him from too bad of a "wing whipping" when I can. This time for whatever reason he wasn't all that anxious for me to get in there, so he turned it loose. He quickly grabbed it again after it had gotten out of my range, so I left him to sink or swim. For the first time he broke its neck. I stayed back and let him feed, mostly he picked at it and drank some of the blood flowing from the Ducks neck wound. He really doesn't like the taste of Duck much more than I do, so he kept a close eye on what I was doing, and after a bit I tossed the lure down between us. He automatically started then stopped. I didn't move and eventually he grabbed the Duck around the neck and drug her over to his lure, apparently just in case. After he finished the quail leg on the lure, he jumped to the fist for the rest of his meal, abandoning the Duck.
The Quail that I have are pretty big and actually were getting old enough to begin egg laying, thus they are pretty fat. He will gain weight on a whole quail, so I didn't feel that I should fly him yesterday. I had to go pick him up to weigh him, and of course we went through the whole fit again, so I made him sit with me while I was cleaning up at the wood shed. Mostly I just sat with him, enjoying the unseasonably warm afternoon watching the fire of the burning wood scraps, bark and such. He studies me when we sit, I think trying to understand what I am doing, and why. He seem to be especially curious about the hat that I habitually wear. Perhaps why I wear it without jumping up and down screaming curse words, but then again perhaps I am assigning human traits to him. Apparently neither one of us understand what motivates the other.
Today he was at what I guess to be the proper weight, so I only took two Pigeons with me. I also left the dogs at home, which didn't make either of them happy. A little side story is warranted at this point. Brick, my male Brit. has begun to "register" his displeasure of being left out of the hunt, by tearing up the paper towels that I have set aside for fire starting. I come home from one of these trips to find that (most assuredly Brick, rather than the much smarter female, Josie) the paper towels that might have a bit of former food smears, torn to little pieces scattered around the dining room. I have only to stop and hold his gaze and he slinks off to his bed to hide. I have stuffed his mouth full of the paper and scolded him a couple of times to little avail. Four days ago I set a mouse trap with peanut butter on top of the full paper garbage basket. The paper and the trap has been untouched. Today when I returned one little piece of paper was on the floor, but the trap is still unsprung. He isn't dumb by any measure.
There is a little pool of water in one of the lots where they keep the horse herd some times. The lot is full of Greasewood. The Ducks like to rest in it through the middle of the day when they are not feeding. This was my destination today. I turned Bud loose, and this time he looked around to see just where he was before he took off.
One of the problems at this point is that it is easy to fix a low height as the desired goal at this stage of his training. One of my friends is disappointed if his falcon can be seen without the aid of binoculars while it is waiting on. I tend to feel that it is some sort of "compensation" :-), I want to have the bird high enough that it can catch the prey before it gets to cover and I like to see the entire flight, not just the last few seconds of it. So for me 300 feet is enough with the desired height of no more than 500 feet. If I serve him too soon, then, I might fix him to 150 feet.
Today he stayed around when I turned him loose. I had two Pigeons that can and have out flown him before, just in case. He began to get a bit of altitude, and the next time he came over me, I flushed the pond. There were 6 Mallards and a couple of diver Ducks, which are smaller. I watched the Mallards and he apparently chased one of the other ones. One of the smaller ones came back to the pond, rather than share the sky with him. I did get to see him dive at a Duck at the Barn puddle. He then came back towards me. I waited until the Duck that came back abandoned the pond and started into the heavy Sage around the pond. I threw a rock at him, and he flew with Bud right on his tail. He again dived into the Sage with Bud "throwing up" enough to clear the Sage. Bud then came around and went on foot looking through the Sage for him. He didn't find him, so I tossed out the lure. He came right to it, and eventually to the fist after he finished the leg tied to the lure.
I have to admit that Bud excites me- a lot! Today was the first day that Bud has found out that bagged Ducks and wild ones are a lot different. He is tenacious and tough. He has the ability to out fly anything other than a Gyrfalcon, and they are very scarce here. I have only seen one other falcon that was bold enough to crawl through Sage and briers looking to kill a bird bigger than she was, that was Jessie. So once he learns the game, he will be formidable.
We will see what tomorrow brings.
