My Latest Endeavor...

sibi

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Love the colors of Toothless! My fascination with hawks started way back in the movie, "Lady Hawk." The falcon used in that movie had a great relationship with the lead actor. Years later, I was at Disney land and saw the bird in person. I sure loved that bird!! I envy your endeavors into falconry. It must give you a fuller appreciation for the wild and in knowing you're making life for these birds better. Kudos for you. I'll be looking forward to your progress.
 

Prairie Mom

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Its taken a long time to jump through all the government hoops and other obstacles, but I am finally realizing my dream of becoming a licensed Falconer. I'm only just beginning my journey, after 20 years of dabbling, but here I go...

I will post lots of pics and keep this thread ongoing, and I invite all discussion about keeping wild animals, hunting, and of course the awesomeness of raptors in general. I find that many people (myself included) are ignorant of what is really going on, and how beneficial to the species falconry is. For example, the Peregrine Falcon was saved from extinction by falconers and falconry, in spite of the dismal failure on the part of government programs to save it. Falconry is VERY different than pet keeping, and it has great benefit for the birds involved who hatch wild and are eventually returned to the wild healthier and better skilled at hunting.

I am now a licensed Apprentice Falconer. I will spend a minimum of two full years as an apprentice working closely under the direct supervision of my sponsor who is a Master Falconer and has been for 10 years. After 2 years, if all goes well, and my sponsor is willing to sign off on my abilities, I will become a General Falconer and be allowed to "fly solo" so to speak.

Enough with the boring words: Here is "Toothless" at our first formal meeting.
View attachment 163624
I almost named him "Phoenix" after I saw this picture. Its kind of a big deal to not stare them in the face at close range at first, so I did not know he was looking at me like that. I'm sure if he could have shot fire from his mouth at me, he would have. My sponsor is not 100% sure if this one is male or female. You can usually tell by the weight. This is either a big boy or a small girl as the weight is right in the middle. We will get some behavioral clues as time passes, but we are leaning male at this point. Toothless is a "passage" (meaning this years baby, or worded another way, he hatched this last spring) red-tailed hawk. Buteo jamaicensis.


Here he is on the drive home:
View attachment 163626
The hood blocks all the visual stimulation and keeps them a lot calmer and safer during this stressful time. Understand that this 9 month old bird was flying wild minutes before this picture and has never had any previous human contact.

Here he is on his weathering perch on day one, while I prepared the scale for his first weighing and got his mew (hawk house) all ready for him.
View attachment 163628


Here we are on day 2 when the old finally came off. This is what I was greeted with.
View attachment 163629


We are now on day 5. He began taking food from me on day 2 and I "man" him (handle him on my glove) for several hours a day as part of the desensitization process. I weigh him at least once a day and I am even more fascinated that I imagined I would be. My sponsor assures me he will be free flying and hunting with me in a month or so.

Lots more pics to come. Please ask any questions you might have about falconry or raptors in general. I'm no expert yet, but I know a few things, and I know lots of guys that can answer any questions I don't know the answers to.
I think the forum just became a little cooler :D
 

Tom

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So, this means you can choose to release your bird the next year but you don't have to? You can opt to keep and use him year after year?

From my "no knowledge of the subject" perspective, I'd think it's better to stick with the same bird year after year, right?
You establish a relationship that can continue verses starting all over each year with a new bird, right?
Or, is that wrong and you want to use new bird each year to create a stronger wild population?

All birds are different. Some are better than others. There are also so many things that can go right or wrong with the training, that influence the outcome. This is definitely a case of "nature" AND "nurture". A new falconer that ends up with the Michael Jordan of rabbit hunting hawks, might decide to keep the same bird for many years. A trainer who got a less than stellar bird and made some trainer mistakes, might appreciate the opportunity to do better during the next hunting season. On the other hand, either trainer might decide the want the experience of a new and different bird regardless of the outcome with their first bird. I'm leaning toward this latter way of thinking. My sponsor is very knowledgeable and experienced and I'd like to learn from his expertise as much as possible. Starting a new bird will bring new and different challenges, and that will bring me new and different learning opportunities.
 

Tom

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What type of injuries are associated with this type of work?

Their feet are very dangerous weapons. If they get a hold of your skin, its a bad deal. You will bleed. A lot. Just ask their prey…

Also, to do these activities requires us to walk around out in the wilderness and get into all sorts of strange predicaments. The usual injuries associated with miles of hiking in rough terrain are common too.
 

DutchieAmanda

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They are beautiful creatures!
How is the bird kept while at home? Do you have a huge cage for him to fly around in?
 

Tom

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They are beautiful creatures!
How is the bird kept while at home? Do you have a huge cage for him to fly around in?

How you house them evolves as they tame down. They always live in a mew. You can do an internet search for info on mews, but its basically a square with flat smooth walls to protect them from the elements and prevent them from damaging their feathers. The main premise is to keep them contained and safe, but also keep them from hurting themselves. They don't need flying space at home as they fly daily as part of their training and when you hunt with them.
 

sibi

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Their feet are very dangerous weapons. If they get a hold of your skin, its a bad deal. You will bleed. A lot. Just ask their prey…

Also, to do these activities requires us to walk around out in the wilderness and get into all sorts of strange predicaments. The usual injuries associated with miles of hiking in rough terrain are common too.

What about your eyes? Will the bird try to peck at your eye? The pic you provided was awesome; however, I would have felt he was eyeing your eye, yikes!!
 

kathyth

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This is extremely cool, Tom!! He/ she is gorgeous! I will be following this thread and am happy your dream is coming true.
Fun!!
 

hingeback

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This post will now give me hours of fun researching the raptors of Malaysia. Thanks!
Another day we went bird watching and we spotted these three:
Crested goshawk, brahminy kite, black-tighed falconet.
 

Tom

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What about your eyes? Will the bird try to peck at your eye? The pic you provided was awesome; however, I would have felt he was eyeing your eye, yikes!!

Anything is possible, but that is not what they normally do. Like ostriches, everybody is concerned about the mouth, when its the feet that will get ya'.
 

Tom

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Another day we went bird watching and we spotted these three:
Crested goshawk, brahminy kite, black-tighed falconet.

I wonder how similar the tropical goshawks are to the temperate ones. My sponsor has a Goshawk, and that is one serious hunter.
 

Tom

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Its been over a month and I haven't updated this thread…

Today was a monumental day. Toothless and I got our first rabbit today. But let me fill you in on the last month…

The first big step is to get them to eat from your glove. We did that on day two, well ahead of schedule for a late season bird. My sponsor had already built in a contingency plan for if the bird wouldn't take food from me after four or five days, but we didn't need plan "B".

The next big step is to get them to hop from their perch to your glove for food. You begin a gradual progression of weight loss until they are hungry enough to overcome their fear of the giant hairless ape, and fly to you for food. You feed them every day, but just not so much that they get fat or put on weight. You have to get them down to "flying weight". There is no way to "make" these birds do what you want, so you have to have something they want. Inducement. If they are hungry, they want the food in your hand. When they bravely jump to your fist, they get a big juicy food reward.

Concurrent to dropping the weight and trying to get them to jump to your fist, you do what is called "manning". I am still wondering if lady falconers call it "womanning", but I don't know and lady falconers. Basically you pick up the bird on your gloved hand and either sit, stand or walk for hours and hours. Your hand is the bird's perch and this process desensitizes them to you and your mannerisms. At first you take it really easy and don't move around too much. You don't want to jostle them around, overly stress them or cause them to bate (Bate: when a leashed bird flies off of the fist or perch…). Too much bating is not good. Some birds do it more than others, and for a variety of reasons. After a few hours or days and the bird seems calm, you can do more and more stuff with them on your fist. You get really good at planning ahead and doing things one handed. The more hours they spend on your hand in these first few days and weeks the better. I would go around the 5 acre ranch in the mornings and open the tortoise doors, water the greens and refill the tortoise waters with toothless on my fist, then in the afternoons, I would go around and shut the tortoises doors. In between I just went about my business with a big bird on my hand. He desensitized VERY quickly and hardly ever baited, which I thought was a bit strange…

So manning was going very well, weight was slowly dropping, and it should only take a few days to get them to jump to your hand. At day 12, he still had not jumped to my hand, but he was very eager to come to me and take food if I let him scoot along a big perch or block wall. He just wouldn't fly to me. I suspected something was wrong, but didn't know what. Being an animal trainer, I started thinking of new ways to get him to jump to my hand. In his mew, I had seen him on the ground and off his perch and he readily hops back up there when I come around. Most birds feel vulnerable on the ground. My thought was to put him on the ground and cover the perch with my glove and a food reward. There was nowhere else to go BUT onto my glove if he didn't want to be on the ground, and there was a tasty food tidbit for even more incentive. I set him down on the ground right in front of the perch, he thought about it for a minute, and then hopped up onto my glove and ate. SUCCESS! I backed him up a little more for the next one thinking he would either walk toward me and then hop, or he would fly from farther away. That's when I saw the limp. My heart sank and tears welled up in my eyes. My bird was limping on his left leg. I did it again just to be sure, and there was no doubt. What could have happened? My sponsor came over right away and we examined him. The dude knows EVERYTHING about these birds and ran down a long check list in his head as he examined every part of the bird. He was pretty sure it wasn't broken. Probably a sprain. If it didn't get better in a few days, then I was to take Toothless to my avian vet friend for an x-ray. I had not previously noticed the limp because the bird was ALWAYS standing still, either on my fist, on his bow perch in the mew, on the scale, or on the perch in his transport box. There was never anytime when we was loose and walking during those early days. I only saw this because of my unusual idea to get him to jump to my glove. This would also explain why he almost never baited.

I fed him up good for a few days, and left him completely alone. No more manning or trying to get him to fly. Just lots of perch rest, good food and water. It got better after a few days, but we left him alone for a solid two weeks, just to make sure. A re-check confirmed that he had recovered and was fine.

Thinking back we figured out where the problem likely occurred. On day one we hooded him and put on his custom fitted, handmade bracelets. The bracelets go around his legs and are held on with grommets and the jesses pass through the grommets, which is what the swivel attaches to, and finally the leash goes through the other end of the swivel. (Do an internet search for pics and diagrams of all this equipment. It sounds complicated, but its really very simple and sensible.) He slept his first night hooded in his hawk box. On day two I weighed him and manned him for a while with the hood on. Then I went into his mew with him still on the fist and took the hood off. I calmly and quietly stood in the mew with him for a while until he calmed down. Around noon I tied him off to his bow perch, set him on it and quietly slid away and shut the door. I planned to come back and do some more that evening. Around 4pm my friend looked in to check on my bird for me and called to tell me that Toothless had slipped out of one bracelet. "Impossible", I thought. I rushed over and sure enough one leg was loose and the other was almost loose. The grommets that held the bracelet ends together had not held for some reason. My sponsor has made and fitted bracelets 100s of times over the last 20 years. He had no explanation for this. I put the temporary bracelets on and put him back in the mew thinking everything was fine. The next day we re-fitted the bracelets and used a different "hammer and anvil" type tool to properly set the grommets. This time we got it right and they are still holding strong to this day. Sometime during the time he had one leg loose, he must have been bating inside the mew and all of that force was hitting the end of the leash that was only attached to one leg. We are guessing that this is what caused the injury way back on day two, but because I never saw him walking, I had no idea. He didn't hold that leg funny. He still gripped my glove fine and stepped on and off the glove, the scale and his perch for me. I felt horrible knowing I'd caused an injury, but at least this explained why he wouldn't jump to me. He knew the landing would hurt his leg. Time healed this wound, and we began again…

The third major step is to get them to fly to you for their food. Flight training. This is really just a natural progression from the hop and the manning. During this phase we use a "creance" (Basically a long line attached to the swivel…) In case the bird were to get spooked and try to fly away, or if it just decides to do something different. I started session one with a hop. It was an awkward attempt. One foot on the perch and one foot on the glove, tail haphazardly pushing against the perch… The next one was the biggest step of all. He had to jump about 2-3 feet to me. He couldn't reach the food unless he took to the wing, ever so briefly. He did so confidently and eagerly. Next one was four feet, then 5, 6 and I ended day one at about 7 feet. Words cannot describe the elation I felt. Here was this wild animal CHOOSING to come to me for its food. It could have just tried to fly away. It wanted to come to me. Repeatedly. Day two started at 4 feet and quickly stretched to about 12 feet. We weren't hopping now. We were FLYING!!! Day three started at 10 feet and quickly progressed to about 35 feet. I was astonished, and still am. No mistakes. No misses. Not even a wayward glance. He immediately flew straight to my fist at every call without hesitation. Nothing distracted him or put him off. Day four started at 40 feet and I went as far as I could to the wall of the property at about 80 feet. I report to my sponsor daily. After day four's report he told me that I needed to drive up there so he could see it. Day five was in my sponsor's large backyard. I started with a 30 foot flight just to make sure he was tuned in to me in this new place and because we had a good breeze blowing up there. Perfect. I backed up to about 60 feet for the second flight and he had his very first "mistake". He flew to the top of an awning that was pretty close to being in-line with me, but just a little off to my right. No problem. I called him down from about 40 feet away and he came straight away without hesitation. For flight three I backed up to about 80 feet and he flew straight to me. I ended the day with three more perfect flights all to about 100 feet until I ran out of food and yard.

My sponsor looks at me and says, "He's ready. Its time to go hunting." I was incredulous. Already? Yep. Already.

The first step for hunting is to get them off your glove and up to a high perch like a tree or telephone pole. They use gravity to accelerate up to striking speed. Well my baby boy wouldn't get off my hand. We put on the telemetry device and reward tag, took off the leash and tried to set him free. He wouldn't go. We had to "trick" him. My sponsor took him on his own glove and backed up about 60 feet. I was directly between Toothless and the pole we wanted him to fly up to. At my sponsor's direction, I called Toothless to my glove and as soon as he was airborne, I turned my back to him and hid the glove low in front of me. The bird was supposed to pass me and fly up to the obvious high perch. Nope. He landed on my unprotected shoulder. Nothing but a t-shirt between those talons and my skin. Luckily he didn't clamp down and my sponsor quickly came and picked him up. We tried a second time and this time it worked perfectly. We flew him up there into the wind. Now I quickly walked ahead and called him to my glove, still into the wind. He was totally loose. He could have headed for the hills anytime he wanted. What did he do? He flew straight to my hand on cue. I wanted to jump up and down like a child and scream with joy, but my bird was on my hand swallowing his tidbit… We did this a couple of times and then we proceeded to try and scare up a rabbit. We got one rabbit to bolt that day and toothless watched it with interest as it ran away and hid. He was not interested enough to try and catch it though. I called him down to me, hooked up the swivel and leash and we called it a day. He needed to be hungrier. That was Monday. Two days ago.

Today was day two of actual hunt training. (We are really training me, more than the bird…) New location. As on day one, he would not leave my fist. I placed him on a low curb and then got between him and a big dead tree and did the fake-out call again. It worked like a charm. Looking up at him in that tree was awe inspiring. He looked so majestic. No wild bird would ever let you get that close, but here I was looking up at him. When hunting with a red tail, the usual strategy is to get them to follow along from tree to tree as you hike along and try to scare up game for the bird to chase. To get him from tree to tree, I did the fake call thing, occasionally interspersing the fake calls with a reward on the fist. We managed to scare up a rabbit and Toothless watched and did the head bobbing thing, but did not go after it. We got the rabbit to run again and still no action from the bird. One more bolt and he finally jumped down and grabbed it. The catch was pretty uneventful. The rabbit just gave up as soon as he grabbed it. It would take too long to explain all the details, but basically you let them eat on their kill for a bit, and then "trade" them for a big chunk of food on the fist. You have to proceed very carefully so that you don't make them distrust you and want to carry the food off somewhere to eat without you trying to "steal" it from them. Toothless took to all of this exceptionally well and we encountered no problems. I leashed him up, my sponsor put our rabbit in my bag, and we headed home. Toothless was quite content. He had a big full crop and I weighed him to see how much he'd eaten. 80 grams of freshly killed rabbit. The rest of the rabbit is in the freezer for him to eat after the hunting season is over.

I cannot believe how quickly we have progressed through all these steps. He was a wild 10 month old bird just over a month ago. Now he's totally tame, comes when called, and is in the process of learning how to use his human to have fun and catch game. We still have a ways to go, and I still have a lot to learn, but I am thrilled beyond words at our progress. I knew that I would enjoy this and learn a lot, but there is just no way I could have imagined how amazing the whole thing would be.

Please ask all your questions. I'm eager to share and would love to have conversation about all of this.
 

G-stars

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Awesome stuff Tom. I have a neighbor that has been doing this for a decade now. He is supposed to take me under his wing next year, pun intended. But I'm going to start practicing free flying this summer with my green winged macaw. I know two different things but still.
 

Tom

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Awesome stuff Tom. I have a neighbor that has been doing this for a decade now. He is supposed to take me under his wing next year, pun intended. But I'm going to start practicing free flying this summer with my green winged macaw. I know two different things but still.

That is awesome! I've been flying parrots and other birds for 30 years, but this is so much different. Do it all! Some things that you learn with your greening will translate over, but you will be amazed at what you learn with a hawk.

Good luck and I hope you'll do your own thread so we can follow along.
 
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