You have heard of Murphy's law?

 Stated simply Murphy's Law is- "Whatever can go wrong will do so and at the worst possible time." Every falconer is intimately familiar with this phenomenon. It is just one of the factors that you have to live with.

I was given a couple of 1st generation drones that were just perfect for training and exercising falcons by a very dear friend. He is unfortunately no longer alive, and God I miss him! At the time, the falcon that I had was already trained and a skilled Duck Hunter. She is gone as well. So this year I decided that I wanted to train a "hybrid" falcon using the innovations that drones enabled. These birds are on "steroids" so if it goes wrong, it can be spectacular. 

When I started falconry in 1964 the method to train falcons to hunt, was to turn the bird loose and hope that she would take a pitch above you. High enough that she could catch prey that was flushed when she was overhead.

All too often what happened was that the bird learned to wander all over the place and was rarely in position to do much more than tail chase the quarry either into cover or away. If your dog was on point, and the falcon (that the Pheasant- Duck can see) veers off, the game will either be gone, or impossible to find again in time. Some falconers employed Pigeons in their training, by tossing Pigeons that they were not able to catch, and when the falcon returned, if they did at a higher pitch, toss one,  that they could catch. Thus teaching them that height was the key to catching game. Unfortunately I was never smart enough to manage that, and ended up with birds wedded to pigeons that still flew low.

The next innovation was helium balloons and then Delta Kites when it was too windy for balloons. Helium became scarce, so it was only kites.

These were a giant step forward as the bird was engaged immediately. Eliminating the wandering. The method was to start the bird at 15 or more feet, getting it used to grabbing the lure in the air. As the birds conditioning improved the lure was raised higher, and higher until you reached the height that you needed. 6 to 800 feet is not uncommon. Jessie, my last falcon, when in her prime, could stand on her tail and fly straight up to grab the lure at 4 or 500 feet. The lure was generally secured to the kite line, so the bird would not be able to fly off with the lure. Recently a small parachute has been used to accomplish the same thing.

There is only one problem for me. The wind generally dies in early September, when most falcons are needing to be trained. The helium balloon took care of that problem, but the last bottle that I priced was about $200.

Of course the rest of the year the wind is generally around 18 MPH in the evening. Which brings me to my latest run in with Ole Murphy.

This summer my drones were operating fine, I even demonstrated the one I had for a friend. I went on vacation for a week, and when I returned it would not operate- at all. I exhausted my limited knowledge in a very few minutes and decided that I would go with the kite. 

Well that caused problems as well. The wind is either too strong, or not blowing enough to keep the kite in the air. Two days ago, I ran the kite up about 200 feet, went in to get Bud. He was of course a pain to get the hood on his head, and got back out only to find that the lure was lying on the ground. The wind had died. Then I get it up again and it is blowing so hard that it is whipping the kite back and forth. When I got back out the lure had come loose from the "down rigger clamp" that I was using and was again lying on the ground.

After that I went onto E bay and bought a used drone called a Phantom 2 visual. It was due to arrive Tuesday. UPS doesn't arrive before 7 PM and I knew that I would not be able to get it in the air on the same day, so again with the kite.

When I was starting out with the kite.The lure was only up about 10 to 20 feet. When he grabbed it, he would be pulled down the line near the quad, which he didn't like at all. So I decided to modify my set up using a parachute which is also red. There was a 10 foot line down to the lure, and he didn't like that either. He refused to grab it. So I add a 50 foot line between the lure and the parachute. Once again thinking that I now had an operating system. The wind was blowing so hard that I had to use a fiberglass rod to keep the delta wings open enough to fly.

I ran the kite up about 200 feet, leaving the lure at 150 and go back in the house to get Bud ready. I get him hooded (which he hates) and start back out. I look up to make sure that every thing was OK. It wasn't, the wind whipping the kite back and forth had dislodged the parachute and it was in the tumble weeds by the fifth wheel. I go back in, set Bud down, go back out, pull the kite back down and decide to clip the line to the string eliminating the parachute. Let it back up to the same place, go back to get Bud, then I remember that the line wasn't actually clipped to the line. Do it all again!

This time I am ready. Bud looks up, sees the lure and off he goes. It took him several passes to figure out how to get to where the lure was. The wind was blowing so hard that he was only able to close on the lure in a direct flight at less than walking speed. For a bit I wasn't sure he would make it. He kept at it and eventually he was able to grab the lure. He started flying towards the ground trying to get down, but the clip was stuck and wouldn't release. He was flying back and forth trying to get down to the ground and I had my hand on the line running towards him to pull it down. We both pulled it down far enough that the line stuck in the little Elm tree in the back yard. ( 20 feet high)  ( Murphy again) The kite is still struggling to get back up in the air, Bud on the other end is about 4 feet off the ground pumping as hard as he can. I finally got enough slack that he can get his feet on the ground. He was panting for quite a long time before he could get his breath enough to eat his prize. I have got to hand it to him, he didn't give up. I told you earlier he was stubborn.

This is the lure with the remains of a Quail leg

I spent the evening putting the drone together. Instructions were a mess, but with you tube video's I eventually got it together. This morning I went outside to see if it was going to work. It would not! I tried this and that, and eventually found that there was a hidden little button that would pair the drone to the controller. Son of a gun, it actually worked. I flew it a couple of time to familiarize myself with it. Then waited for feeding time. 

The wind was supposed to die about 7 pm. Its still blowing at 8:45. I decided that it was now or never, so I ran the drone up to about 150 feet again. Bud had never had any experience with a drone, but I was hoping that with the 50 distance from the lure, he would go ahead and grab it. The parachute was stuffed in a pvc fitting out of sight.

Bud is getting used to looking up for his food, so when I took the hood off, he wasted no time in launching after it. He is learning how to climb for altitude. He tends to attempt to fly directly up to the lure. He doesn't have the strength as of yet, but he will soon.

He doesn't want to grab the lure, just the quail leg. His first attempt he is hanging there in the breeze and he missed his grab. He had to go around and build a bit more altitude before he was able to grab the quail leg. The chute popped out and he landed just in front of the hangar. I shut off the controller on the drone, and it began to land back where it took off from. ( That is a real plus, you can just shut off the controller and when it registers that there is no signal it lands back where it took off from.leaving you to tend to business,)

I watched Bud to see his reaction to the drone. He is new to one, and I wasn't sure if he was going to be spooky about it or not. It would be landing about 50 feet from where we were. He just watched, and when the motors shut off he began to eat his treat. Today he got an entire Quail, rather than the half that keeps him trim and slim. So we will both get a day off tomorrow and we will see what further adventures are in store for us on Saturday. 

full meal deal for a "good boy"!