Season Wrap-up and Big Changes

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Imani, Leif, and Azula together for the last time. Photo by Roxana Hegeman.

I cut my falconry season a bit short this year. The big reason is that at the beginning of March, I moved to Seattle, Washington. The day before starting the drive, I released Azula where I had originally trapped her, just a half mile from my parent’s house. We put up a nest box for her and my dad put up a second box for her a couple weeks later. It’s really for the best that Azula is back in the wild. I failed pretty badly with her, but she sure taught me a lot in the process. I hope to fly another kestrel this fall and attempt to do some urban hawking here in Seattle.

Removing Azula's equipment. Photo by Jed Carty.

Right now, I’m working on transferring my license and finding a Washington sponsor with experience flying kestrels. I’ve already joined the Washington Falconers’ Association and I’ll probably start meeting up with them during the summer picnic.

Azula is very touchy and must be cast to remove her equipment. Photo by Jed Carty.

The most recent news is that I heard from Dad today that he saw Azula with a little male as she flew out of the new nest box. He’s going to try to get a picture of her sitting at the box and with a lot of luck, she’ll bring off a nest there and he can track them through the summer. I helped the Kansas Hawking Club build 17 nest boxes for The Peregrine Fund’s American Kestrel project in the months before I left, so her nesting data will be going into their database.

One very unfortunate side effect of my move is that I had to leave Leif, my beloved puppy, behind in Kansas. My parents are taking good care of him, but I miss him a lot and I’m sorely disappointed that I won’t be hunting pheasant over him this fall. I had hoped to fly another Red-tail over him, but that’s not going to be possible as I no longer have access to facilities that can house a ‘Tail. These are the trade-offs I’ve accepted for a greater chance at finding gainful employment, though, so I can’t complain too hard. Until I do have space for a large dog and a ‘Tail, I’ll just have to be content with pictures of Leif exploding in size (he’s already the size of his mom) and a small falcon that can be housed in an apartment.

Which brings us to…NESTING SEASON! Once I shrug off some of the lazy, I’ll get a post up with links to some of the nestcams that are running this year. I know The P-Fund is running a kestrel one that is linked to from the Kestrel Project page I linked earlier, so that’ll get you started until then. Meantime, keep an eye out for birds in your own neighborhood. I promise they’re there!

Azula sits on a power line minutes after her release. Photo by Jed Carty.

More birdy love

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The resident Red-tailed Hawk by the closest cell tower to my house (about 3/4 of a mile away) has found a new friend. Dad and I saw him sitting by another ‘Tail today and we hope he’ll pull off a nest that we can spy on this summer.

More weight management

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I fed Azula for a while on whole mice and small birds (sparrow traps are awesome) and she gained a considerable amount of weight. She had a lot of nice castings, her mutes looked healthy, and so on. So now I’m going to drop her weight again. I feel that I’m starting over with her, which is not necessarily a bad thing. She’s definitely taught me a lot, though I doubt I’ll ever trust her enough to hunt her. I intend to release her at the end of this month, but in the meantime, I’m hoping to get some actual falconry done. Once I bring her weight back down, I’m going to try to fly her to the lure. That will be completely new to me and the worst thing that can happen is that I completely screw it up. Wish me luck.

Progress!

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So Azula and I have definitely had a slow start, but we’ve recently started making pretty darn good progress. Unfortunately, I think we’ve been making this progress because I’ve dropped 30% off of her weight and she’s goddamn hungry. Now with a Red-tail, 30% would be absurd, and I’ll admit it seems ridiculous to me, but she’s still bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, so to speak. She flies strong, reacts well, and doesn’t act in any way weak. Mullenix’s book even subscribes to a weight drop as severe as this. Nevertheless, I can’t help but hear Dr. Moore’s advice ringing in my ears from when he saw Zuko back in November. He said that most falconers keep their birds too light and you can often have good results by bringing them back up after the initial drop. Dr. Moore said that a bird so thin as this simply doesn’t have the reserves to find any bug or recover from an injury. Seeing as I’d far rather have a bird fly away from me than have it die in my care, I’m going to bring Azula’s weight back up. It won’t be all the way and I’ll be watching her reactions the whole time, but I think this is the best course. While I remain confident that we’ll be out and hunting soon, it just might take a little longer.

A little trip to the rehabber.

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Freshly trapped juvenile Red-tailed Hawks.

Dad, Tommy, and I were out trapping Red-tails the other day, looking for the perfect bird for a very discerning falconer (Tommy). We trapped two juvenile ‘Tails, both of which were very small males. One of them was only 840gms and had shock marks and a couple broken tail feathers. I suspect that he suffered some malnutrition in the nest and I’d be surprised if he lasted the winter. The other one we trapped was about 920gms and clearly sick. He had lesions in his mouth, so we packed him up and took him to the rehabber. On the way there, we also observed that he had watery green mutes with no fecal center. Eagle Valley Raptor Center took him in and after observing Ken Lockwood’s operation there, I know he’s in very good hands. I’ve had a link to his operation here for a long time, but after finally getting the chance to visit, I feel really good about that link. The whole facility was very well taken care of, his permanent resident birds were clearly well-trained and healthy, and he took a lot of care for his rehab birds, as well. We were very impressed and I encourage all of you to donate to keep Eagle Valley running and visit when you can. Tours are by appointment.