Day 7

Things are going slow, She refuses to jump to my glove, She will stretch but wont jump, Her manning is coming along. She bates but not that often, she sits on the perch and after bating from the perch will return to it. She currently weighs 1225 grams coming down slowly hopefully tomorrow she will make that big step, she is almost there but not quite, I'm being impatient but its all about trust and right now i still haven't got her trust but we are getting there... even if it is slower than i want.

Day 4

She is feeding of the fist quite happily, been stretching her reach out and think tonight she may just hop to the glove for the first time. Introduced her to the Bow Perch for the first time this morning, surprisingly batted very little. Tonight will be interesting to say the least...

Day 3

There is little more satisfying than a wild animal trusting you to be fed for the first time. This hawk has some serious attitude but tonight we seemed to crack it and a major hurdle was over come.

On another note i bought a Tallon stopper glove from western sporting Falconry a year ago. This glove has given me nothing but pain , the leather was to stiff and i would end up with hand cramps. I purchased another ( i like the idea of Teflon in the glove) and found they changed the martial to a softer leather, the difference is amazing and not a bad price for $45 + shipping. The old glove will be a spare

Willow 2010

Caught a Female weighing in at 46.5 ounces just north of McAlester on highway 69/75. I am done with trapping, Ihave been trapping most days for since August the 1st ( 3 months ) now this will do for this seasons. Started manning down, the usual dead chicken routine went on for 3 hours and i put her away after 8 hours of manning, you forget how tired your arm muscles get ! She is very different from Zoie alot lighter in the chest and face and willows tail feathers are darker. Not the male i wanted but shes a very impressive bird and now we have extended trapping season i can keep looking but at my own leasure.

Time flies

It's been three weeks since my last post and i really cant believe how fast the time has gone. I've been out trapping pretty much every night and weekend. I have pretty much caught 99.9 percent of all the Hag(adult birds) in southern Oklahoma. I did catch one passage that weighed in at 1200 grams (40oz) however it turned out to have avian pox. Everything had to be disinfected after releaseing the passage redtail back to the wild. for those that don't know Avian pox can be deadly and is highly contagious. Birds can survive it but really i don't need the vet bills or another season of a sick and hawk.

The difference between male , female, kinders, harlins and dark morph light morph has been interesting to see and its been worth trapping every bird we have seen just to see the differences.

I am also in the middle of reading "Training the Short-Winged Hawk" so between reading various books and trapping its been a busy time.

I was hoping to go to the OFA field meet this weekend but life had other things planed and it sucks that i cant go, i was really hoping to catch up with some other very experienced falconers.

I have still have 4 days off work with a house photo shoot on Saturday morning but hopefully come Tuesday we will have one passage male redtail hawk.

Sparrow Hawks in Turkey

I love sparrow hawks they are my favorite hawk. Unfortunately even if i could have one i couldn't afford one in the USA.

I watched these videos about a year ago from another site but they recently came up on a listserv i subscribe to and are worth reposting.