Bud

 He is now 41 days old. I am not totally sure that I made the right choice of the timing of taking him. The decision can go either way at this point. At 31 days old he is sure that he is a falcon and I may be a monster that makes him do things that he would not ordinarily do. He does have as sweet a disposition as I have ever seen in a falcon, but the influence of a Gyrfalcon daddy is very noticeable in his disposition when I do something contrary to what he wants to do. Such as put jesses on him, or hold his jesses to stop him from maintaining his perch on the air conditioner in the living room. If pressed he will fight back, rather than get scared. So far I think that will be a good thing- if I don't screw it up.

He made his first flight yesterday without me noticing. I found him by Hope's weathering area, and he was less than pleased that I wanted him to get on my fist. I probably should have left him there, but I didn't. Once on the fist and realizing that I had his jesses in a firm grip, he quit fighting and rode quite well, back to the window ledge. 

Refer back to the post prior to this one and notice how many of those cute downey tufts he was wearing in that post. Guess where they all went! The house looked like someone had put a firecracker in a pillow and placed it in the living room. I think I got most of them vacuumed up.

He has just started eating on his own. He is quite delicate so far eating from my fingers, which is a pleasant surprise. Now I am trying to get him to pull some of his own food so that I can make some headway using a lure. A lure will be what I use to call him back. I am sure that I am feeding him too much, since he seems to be rather nonchalant about eating.

He normally stays in the window in the dining room. I put the play pen up against the wall, with his perch on it, and have so far been successful in containing his mutes (crap) and off the floor. He had been exploring some of the rest of the house, mainly the kitchen table in the mornings, so for some reason I thought it was a good idea to pull the curtains on his window so that he wouldn't be trying to get outside one evening. When I got up the next morning he was on the air conditioner in the living room. I had a merry time convincing him that this was not his window. Fortunately the lamp shade is flexible.

 Now that we "understand each other", I leave his view opened, and he stays on his window ledge.

I didn't give him all that much to eat this morning, so he decided to eat a little off of a Quail that I had exposed one side of.

All that eating and exercise called for a nap or two. He is still sleeping quite a lot. It is apparently hard work growing up.

I took him for a walk with me down the runway this morning and he did quite well, with no fuss or fright. I had rather expected him to jump down from the ledge again today, but he did not. Perhaps he got blown off the ledge the day before. 

We had a brief desert shower this afternoon, and he took a bath while sitting on is perch. He had a good time, but it too required a nap.