Update Day 61

It appears that Lee is developing a bit of a following, so while nothing of real reportable significance has occurred, neither has anything bad. He is beginning to venture out a bit more, and as far as I can tell he is staying on the property. One of the difficulties in pinpointing his location is the location of his transmitter. Since it is on his neck, when he lays down, he lays on the antenna wire. If it happens to be on something metal the signal is almost gone. Yesterday I was convinced that the transmitter had stopped since I could not get a signal in any direction. That particular transmitter is good for about 39 miles. (Checked while on my plane. ) Just in case, I walked around the place to make sure that he wasn't here. I got a very faint signal on the other side of the hangar. I could just barely hear a beep over the static. I checked in a circle to pinpoint the direction. As I turned around I could see him lying on a metal oil barrel. Once he stood up the signal came booming in. The clutter of Barrels on the West side of the Hangar has now become his go to spot.

When I get up in the morning he is ready to get picked up and go outside. Jumping up and down as a matter of fact. I had been feeding him a bit in the mornings, but he never seemed to eat much of anything, so I have stopped that. He wants to go out and explore and will come in after an hour or to to get a snack.

Yesterday I picked him up and walked out to see how the day was developing. He stayed with me for quite a while. After a bit he started indicating that he had some place to go. Not wanting him to get the idea that he could just fly off my fist, I put him down on the Hot Tub, and started to walk away. He made a straffing run on a Jack by one of the Rock Jacks. The Jack had been looking the other way. When Lee flew over him at a height of about 2 inches, the Jack jumped straight up in the air doing a flip and landing on his feet, then off like a very very "scared Rabbit".

His flights are getting a bit longer every day. I noticed him flying out to the Hack tower yesterday. There are interesting little flights and chases, but being able to record them is almost impossible except by the luckiest of circumstances.

He still has no real appetite, at least what I would prefer anyway. Food is the key to raptor training. The problem is that when he gets hot, he comes to the porch so that we will let him in the house where it is cool. He will lay on the inside window ledge and sleep until evening. How can you call something that comes in before you can call him? As the day moves into evening he starts coming in closer. I have found it quite surprising that he is not more difficult to pick up in the evenings.

I have been giving him a lure in the evenings with a leg of Quail on it. He nibbles on that, perhaps eating the thigh, then walking off. What I want him to do is eat the leg, then look to me for the rest of his food. Normally a raptor would be looking for more food, he doesn't seem to care. If I offer him my fist with the rest of his Quail on it, he will pull on it, but not step up on the fist. I have tried for three days or more to pick him up with more food. Finally last night I kept the food in my pocket and just watched him. He decided that my foot might have interest, and walked over to that. I let him alone for a bit, then wiggled a finger of the glove at him. He walked over and jumped on the fist. Then I gave him the rest of it. As I have said over and over the lesson given to me by my old Grandmother, " the more you chase, the faster they run". Of course the subject was girls rather than hawks, but it appears to hold true there as well.

He just plain likes the glove, and has more attachment to it than I would have ever thought. He likes to sit there, and of course I spend each evening after feeding him, holding him on the fist and watching the evening turn to night.

Today was Chicken day, and I spent the entire morning killing and plucking Chickens. I finally finished about noon. My back was complaining, so I went inside to rest my eyes a bit. I went outside to see where he was, and found him sitting on the pop can in the shade under the porch. I set him on the ledge and opened the window for him. I gave him a bit of Quail to snack on.

He generally then takes a nap on the ledge until about 5 PM, then go back out for the rest of the afternoon.

https://vimeo.com/173132773  password  owyheeflyer

Day 58

Lee this morning was pretty anxious to get outside and did not eat very much of his breakfast. I don't blame him, with the temps getting into the high 99 to 100 degrees, its best to do what you need to do early, then take a siesta during the heat of the day.

I went out to do my morning chores, and found a Pack Rat had tried to take up residence in the Duck Pen. Unfortunately he had a weakness for Peanut butter, so his residence was pretty short. I introduced him to my little friend Josie who was very happy to see him. Tiger and Lee gathered to watch the action.

Karen and I then went for our walk with me keeping a wary eye on my back trail to make sure that no attempts were to be made for misguided fly by's.

We had just finished breakfast and was watching the news when we heard a bang on the back door. Lee wanted in to get a bit more to eat. He has done this the last two days, rather than land on his window ledge, he wants in the door. Karen let him in and picked him up while I was thawing more Quail. He finished the half of a Quail that I had given him earlier. He then made himself comfortable on his perch and is still sleeping and resting through the main heat of the day. It is now one PM and he wisely is staying right there where it is cool.

I had some questions about how I intended to use a drone for my training. Here is a video of the basics of it.

https://vimeo.com/172611594  password    owyheeflyer

The drone is capable of setting limits on how high, and how wide the drone is allowed to go. There is a computer program that you can set those limits. The drone is difficult to know if it is 2oo feet or 400 feet. The computer program takes care of that, so all I have to do is set the limits, give it power and it goes to that height and will stay there until I either bring it back or just flick a switch and it will return and land from the spot that it started from. I don't even need to hold the transmitter.

The lure has a 24 inch parachute attached to the weed eater line secured to the drone. The falcon can go anywhere unhindered except by the parachute. The parachute merely keeps a raptor from flying off somewhere with the food.

Goals and preliminary plans to achieve them.

I primarily want him to be a high flying game Hawk, steady on the wing to what I am trying to flush for him.

To do that I intend at the right time to introduce him to the Drone or a kite to build muscle and form the habit in him to remain focused on the lure and me.

Once he has reached the height that I want him to "wait on", I will introduce bagged quarry for him to kill.

All sounds simple, but its deceptive. One of the advantages of Drones and Kites is that you can have a real reason for the bird to climb up in the sky. Food is there, and once a pattern is established the entire thing is achievable.

In the past the only way that you could teach a raptor to go up, was with thermals and pigeons. The idea was to not reward a raptor with a pigeon to chase until it had gone up high over you. If the bird was too low, you threw a Pigeon that could out fly it. If its height was what you wanted or an improvement then you threw one that it could catch. Somehow I have never been smart enough to make this plan work. The first thing that happens is that the falcon soon realizes that if he flies away, you will soon be spouting Pigeons like a hippie wedding.

The thermal idea is actually one that will work, most of the time. Its a bit of a juggling act in that the bird needs to be independent enough of food, that it is not a driving force, but still would like to eat if it is easy. When its hot, birds know that cooler air lies just above them. The higher they go the cooler it is and the further they can see. Their eyes are such they can see a long way, There could be a Pheasant just along the next valley. Temptation is a mighty driving force. Just ask any 50 year old man in the throes of Manopause.

The short story is that it is easier teach a  raptor to wander than it is to teach them to "wait on."

With a Drone, kite or balloon, the food is right there, 50 feet under it. There is no reason for it to wander, or trying to figure out what you are trying to get it to do. So they build muscle striving to gain enough altitude that they can reach the lure. You start out low and over a period of several weeks build enough muscle, that the bird can climb 600 feet in a couple of minutes. Once altitude is reached they can hang there with little or no effort. The next is when the bird reaches an altitude that you are satisfied with you can then toss the bagged game for a reward. The raptor soon learns that it gets rewarded when it reaches that altitude.

Quite a few falconers want their birds to fly out of sight or at the limit of vision. I do not. I want the bird to be high enough to command the field and quarry. I agree that it is pleasing to watch and listen to a falcon tear up the sky. They can achieve tremendous velocity, but they dare not hit something at that speed lest they kill themselves. I find that I only manage to see the last hundred feet of such a flight any way. Where as at 4-500 feet I can flick back and forth between the two adversaries and see the whole thing. Its a matter of choice. The higher a bird flies the more opportunities are visible. So there is little reason for a bird to hang around waiting for you, if there is a tempting quarry just over the hill.

The key to any animal training is to be smart enough to show the animal what it is that you want it to do in a way that it can understand what you want. You have to be able to understand how the bird reasons, and it rarely is the same way that you think. Raptors survive by being able to read the body language of the things that they interact with. You and I go through life looking at billboards, seeing nothing.

About the only quarry that I can produce in a regular manner for a falcon, is Ducks. There is generally a mixture of Ducks too big for Lee to kill and those who weigh about he same as he does. So the goal is achievable. It will depend on how he learns to handle them.

Prairies are not normally associated with Ducks, but if one does learn to hunt them, they generally excel at it. Prairies generally hit things hard enough to kill it in midair.

The reason that Prairies are not generally flown here in the states is that they are one of the more difficult birds to train, and there are lots of "Designer birds" available. Every one wants bigger, flasher and easier birds to work with. Getting along with a Prairie is a bit like getting along with your mother in law. Once lied to or cheated you will be an asshole for the rest of your relationship.

Much of that is not in play with Lee, simply because he does not know that there is anything other than us. Ignorance is bliss, they say.

These goals are close within my reach, and things look good at the moment. So far, we are on a good path. Time and patience will tell. If he is not what I want, and I do turn him back to the wild, I have still learned and gained much. I will make sure that he as well, benefits by getting him through that difficult period of adjustment from fledgling to young adult.

There are many nuances to training and understanding raptors. Most of which after 52 years I do not even consider any more. If you need further thoughts concerning Lee and raptors feel free to ask.

Questions and ?answers?

I wrote the earlier post about midday. Since then I have gotten a few questions and rather than reply individually, it might be easier to just tell all of you at the same time as I am sure that you are either thinking the same thing now or will soon.

I do want to clear up one misconception concerning him and imprinting. Imprinting is when the animal thinks that you are its mother. It will occur in Raptors up to about 19 days, but you have to really work at it to be able to imprint one at that age.

There are two ways to imprint a hawk and the first and quickest is to take it so young that it actually cannot remember any thing else but you. The second factor is feeding it from above by hand. It is natural for a baby bird to respond to fingers dangling a chunk of meat over its head. The head goes back, the beak falls open. In no time at all it will respond with an open beak and begging cries.

Imprints were used in Raptor propagation simply because the most difficult factor in such an endeavor is getting the much smaller male, in an enclosure too small for him to escape if the female gets mad at him, to actually climb up on her back and copulate. The females will lay eggs with no problem, but getting semen is the hangup. Males were imprinted so that they could be trained to copulate on a hat worn by you. It is then picked up with a capillary tube for fertilization of the female either through voluntary presentation, or everting and exposing the cervix. Imprints are an unnatural hawk for hunting, in that they basically remain babies for almost the rest of their lives. They are spoiled brats that scream all the time. They forget why they scream, it becomes a habit. An imprint can never be released into the wild, because it could never rejoin the wild population, because it will never be as the wild species.

The attempt to avoid imprinting is why I took Lee at 23 days of age. If I pay close attention he will not imprint. That is why he was fed from a bowl, and never on the fist until he was outside hopping around. I took him at that age for two reasons. One is that he was young enough that he could bond with us a bit, without being totally dependent. The other is his feathers. If raptors, when growing feathers, come under a lot of stress or suffer a reduction in diet, will develop stress marks in the feathers. That will cause a weak spot and the first time it rocks back on its tail while fighting game will break those feathers at that weak spot. By taking him at that age I bypass that problem completely.

I have explained all this in such detail so that you can better understand the terminology and the reasons that I am doing what I have done with him. Lee, because of his species availability is free, costing no more than my time. He is also the subject of an experiment. Certain raptors are only available through breeding projects or you might be able to take a eyass Peregrine if you can find one that the state will allow you to take. ( don't get me started) The cost of one of these from a breeding project has gone way up due to the increased cost to raise and feed one. The bigger birds will go through as many as three quail a day at the peak of their growing cycle. The cost of a Quail is about $1.65 or more. They will go through about 70 of them from hatching to fully grown. If Lee is not capable of taking the only game that I have available to me, then I will let him go back to the wild. He can fit in to the wild population and it will not take him long to forget he ever lived here or lived with a human.

If you picture the "Ladies lap dog" that quivers and screeches at any other dog that comes close to his mistress. You will be experiencing the dog world version of imprint. Dogs generally imprint when taken from their mother at less than 6 weeks.  What I have attempted to do with Lee was to dual socialize him. He knows he is a Prairie Falcon, but he kinda thinks that I might have my uses at times.

Now I am sure that every one who is not a falconer did not expect such a lengthy explanation of the word Imprint. I am also pretty sure that I still did not fully explain the ramifications of an imprinted Raptor. Tomorrow I will go through what I am going to try to accomplish with Lee, and my plans for him.
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This afternoon around 2 PM I attempted to call him to the lure to feed him, as he was giving signs that he was hungry. He chose to ignore it, as I had changed the lure that I am using to a smaller less obvious one. Toby, a friend pilot and his wife, came to visit, so I went on about my business. Pretty soon I hear him peeping at the door, so I let him walk into the house and eventually on the fist where he was able to eat his meal on his perch. I carried him for about 2 hours later in the evening.

Day 56

Lee- Zard is at the stage where every day brings something new and different. His attitude is changing, he is becoming more and more independent. He is also beginning to chase stuff. No where near serious, but it fun to see, He needs us and our interaction now only first thing in the morning and the last thing at night. That of course is his feeding times. I don't believe that he has left the immediate area yet, but several times I haven't been able to find him. The battery died in the transmitter that I have on him, so that doesn't help. I have a new one with a range of about 50 miles that I am going to try to put on him tonight. Not sure how he is going to react, well, let me retract that. I am not sure how the longer antenna is going to last when I put the new one on him.

I let him out this morning after he ate a bit, and did a few things, both here and over at Tami's place. I had to go over to check the progress of Jasper, ( Tami's old Kestrel) and see how old they were. It appears as though they brought off 4 babies that are about the same stage as Lee.

When I got back it was time for the dogs to take me for a walk down the runway.  We started out heading up the runway and Lee was sitting on the hangar. He had been talking to me a bit, but I ignored him and went on my way. I got to the turn to go up the hill, and the little #$%#@* smacked me right in the right ear. He wobbled off a bit shaky with all my invective causing some turbulence I am sure, but he maintained flight and went back to the hangar. I think he misjudged a bit and crashed into me rather than the sizzling fly by that he intended. I say that because I wasn't bleeding anywhere, but I still have a stiff neck. If he had struck me as they do, then I would have had some cuts somewhere on my neck and ears. Still a pound of bird at about 35 MPH can make an impression.