Day 68

I finally got a bit of video of him flying, although I missed all the good stuff, this is better than nothing.

When I turned him loose this morning I saw a young Red Tail fly out into the open field below the house and do a "throw up", then land on the ground. I burned about 10 minutes of video waiting for it to do something. I believed at the time that it thought that it could catch one of the Quail who were down there by the creek. We later found a dead Jack there, so I don't know for sure what it was intending. I just know that it takes the patience of Job to train a Red Tail. In case you are wondering, while I have had a couple of them for a short time, I have never trained one. Finally a young Jack started down to the creek, stopping when it saw the RT. The Red Tail thought about it for a couple of minutes and then decided to see if it would volunteer to die for it. The Rabbit declined.

I took the dogs for my walk this morning, which of course pleased them to no end. I looked for Lee when I started, but could not find him. As I got to the top of the hill, I could see him down by the windsock stooping both of the dogs in turn. He seems to prefer Josie however, and I was holding my breath as he was stooping awfully darn close to the fence. He never had any problem, so I tried to tell myself that he knows what a fence is and is much better for that knowledge. He made dozens of stoops at Josie and finally went to the garbage pile to rest, while the dogs ran further down the runway.

At about 9 or 10 AM he started hanging around the house again, so taking the hint, I got a small bird for him to eat. I tied it to the lure and tossed it out for him in the yard. He is still looking for red meat rather than just the lure, so I had to pluck it a bit to show him that it had feathers on it. He then came down and had his breakfast. I didn't see him again until about 5 PM. This time he came well to the lure.

He is developing his flying skills by the day, although the next segment of his life will be a lot more exciting, I am not sure how much of it I will be able to witness. My camera is a piece of crap, in that I cannot tell half the time what the camera is seeing. It has a little flip window, and is so small that it is impossible to hold still. I am in the process of making a shoulder stock that I might be able to hold a bit better. Time will tell.

https://vimeo.com/173986348    password    owyheeflyer