Looking for Fenoglio

     Up before dawn, out just after first light. I'd spent the previous night tying tiny monofilament nooses. My fingers are now tuned to feel the tiny ticks and slips of thin strands. Two hours, and I'd hardly gotten fifteen nooses on the trap. Which is probably enough, but I feel the need to add more. This new line I got is fantastic and I'm convinced that it will snag any kestrel toes that touch it.
    I am wrong.
    The wind is blowing too hard and the weather progressively gets worse until leaving the car means getting a face full of stinging hail. The kestrels are all hiding from the wind, close to the ground. We find five males and two females that we can set up on, but none of them are prepared to leave their spots. The ones that do quickly lose interest in the trap and take off.
     The nooses I've tied are too large. They blow in the wind and deter the kestrels. The only thing we catch after two hours is a snag on a rock. The wind is bad and the Bal-Chatri needs work. The mice are freezing and huddle together instead of running around. All-in-all, it's time to go home.
    Fenoglio will live free for a few more days. I will clean the perches again and finish finals week.
    Then we will meet.
    Happy Hawking.

Looking Forward Without Moving On

It's been a month and a half since I found out Petrie was dead. It feels like longer. Nevertheless, I have my apprenticeship to finish, so I've been keeping my eyes open for passage birds in the area.

I wasn't legal to trap until now (nor did I want to), because I'd trapped my 2 birds in 2015. But now it's 2016 and I can trap again.

Here are my options:

1) Misty. She roosts in my neighbors porch and is just the most beautiful female I have ever laid eyes on. The coloration on her chest isn't just brown on white, but black on brown on white which makes for a very beautiful muddled hot cocoa and marshmallows look. I think she's a haggard, but I find that I really like the gusto haggards have.

2) Luke. He lives in the local park and he is a butt. He is the reason I can't train my birds in the local park, or really anywhere near my house because he's claimed such a freaking huge territory. Really, I'm not too enthusiastic about him, but hunting with him would mean that I might finally be able to train in the park. Up until I let him go.

3) Fenoglio. The wild passage I have yet to meet. Really, I only have a few months left of the season to fly a bird, and a passage would mean less training time and more hunting time. This is probably the best choice for my situation, but Misty might have just captured my heart.

I don't really know what I'll do. What I do know is that I need to order some BioThane for making anklets. Luckily, this teenager finally found a suitable job.

And, while I've got your attention, I might as well tell you my plans for next season, because they're one of the few things that help me look forward to life after Petrie. The Cooper's hawk is not an option because my parents are not comfortable with an accipiter in the house. But, I will be moving up to a merlin. I'm planning on trapping a female Columbarius (the ones here are black as black comes) and hunting her on doves by waiting on. Maybe at some starling flocks too, depending on the season and what she takes to.

And I've finally got my telemetry, so things will go better now. No more losing birds.

I'm Back, But Petrie Isn't

This is about to get personal, dramatic, and a little religious, so there's your warning.

This whole season, I've had what I would describe as "a rock in my stomach" about falconry. I love falconry. You should know this by now. I can't fully describe the love that I have for this sport. I am in this for life. But I've had this feeling, like God was letting me know that falconry wasn't a good idea this year.

Now, I'm only a second year apprentice. I can't just skip a year. That's skipping half of my apprenticeship. And even if I could skip a year, there is not a single thing on the earth that would have convinced me to do so.

So, I got my bird; Bellatrix.

Then I lost my bird.

Then I got another bird; Petrie. I worked with Petrie. He was the most perfect bird I could ever hope for, but I couldn't provide enough game for him. That's the reason I let him go at the end of the season. I didn't want him to become dependent on me and end up unreleasable. But letting him spend a summer as a wild bird was exactly what he needed, and he was going to be perfect this season.

We started free flying and he was ready for hunting, but I had things going on that week, so we couldn't hunt quite yet.

On Tuesday, I started getting ready for our outing. We were going to go for a walk through the subdivision so he could get a lesson on following. This is where the bird is released completely and expected to move from perch to perch or in a soar and follow the falconer. Petrie was very good at this last year.

But I had a bad feeling.

So I took my time getting out of the house. I found my good boots. I did my hair. I put on my makeup. I did all the stupid little things I could to postpone our outing that day.

Then we went out, and Petrie was being perfect. He followed me like he hadn't gone anywhere over the summer. He hopped from rooftop to rooftop with little prompting.

Then a wild female came in. I didn't scream at her because I didn't want to freak out the neighbors on their porches, mistake number one.

Petrie ran from her and hid in a tree; her tree. She knocked him right out of it and the two tumbled to the ground. One stood on top of the other, but I couldn't tell which. There was a fence between us, that I should have just vaulted, but I didn't because I spent too many extra seconds worried about my bird and trespassing, mistake number two.

Finally, the two untangled themselves and Petrie took flight over my head. I frantically threw the lure out, even though there was nothing on it, mistake number three. He went for it, then skyed-up at the last moment. She chased him into another kestrel's territory and he chased him into another's until they were too far away for me to even know what to do. I can't drive and no one was home to drive me.

So I went home and cried. And as soon as people got home, they took me to a rehearsal I had for a play I didn't enjoy, that took up all my time. Mistake number four was going to rehearsals. I should have just dropped out. I knew I wasn't going to enjoy it and I knew that it was going to take up my time. And I let it.

Mistake number five was letting other things take up my search time.

Mistake number six was flying him in those oversized jesses.

Mistake number seven was not telling anyone but my sponsor.

Mistake number eight was thinking he would be okay.

A week later I had a borderline panic attack at 10 pm. I vowed to myself that I would go searching for him the next morning and only come back when I had him.

Mistake number nine was letting my mom convince me that she needed my help Christmas shopping. Even if I didn't go with her, though, I wouldn't be able to search half as well without the car. So mistake number nine was also letting myself wait till the next day.

That morning, someone found him dead in their pool.

That afternoon I picked up his body at their house.

That night I buried him.

I can't describe the rest of that week deeply enough. Petrie was dead and it's because I couldn't accept that I wasn't supposed to do falconry this season. I just wasn't.

Fecal Test

     Petrie was getting better for a while. There was less blood in his mutes and he was still acting like he was just fine. But this morning he started losing weight so freaking fast I though I must've messed up on his wight or something. He's losing twice as fast as he normally is. He nearly quit responding to me in the middle of training today, too. He was flying to my fist at 40 feet, dead on immediate. Then he just froze.
     I'm starting to get really, really worried. He was getting better, then he just tanked. I took a mute sample to the vet this afternoon, but there was barely any fecal matter to it. I don't think it's going to work. I don't think they'll be able to draw any conclusions from it at all. But it's already off, because the secretaries seemed confident enough that I couldn't talk myself out of it. I paid $40 for the test, but if it's inconclusive I don't get a refund. Doing this off of babysitting money means that wasting $40 is a huge deal.
     I'm starting to think it's Coccidiosis, but there are a billion other things it could be. It may be a bone shard in his guts, or a parasite, or I may have taken his weight reduction too far. I just really hope these results come back with some sort of conclusion. Preforably, a conclusion that will be quick and easy to deal with.
     Wish us luck!

Day 7

     We did indoor ten foot flight to the fist today. He was really paying attention and nearly immediate with his responses. I started hiding the tidbit in the glove, then handing it to him when he landed. This should cement the reward system with the glove and teach him to look forward to my approaching hand. It's already working. His response time didn't slow at all the first time I asked him to come without showing him a tidbit.
     He sits all puffed out all the time now, rouses, and preens. He'll sit with a foot tucked sometimes too, even on the fist. In fact, on the fist was the first time that he stood like that. He sleeps headless, too. He keeps at biting his jesses and bating, though. It's just because Petrie's a really high energy bird. I assume he will calm down once we really start flying. If not, walks in the morning and flights in the afternoon should keep him calm at home.
     He lets me touch his feet and tarsi now, and doesn't mind too much when I touch his sides. He looks for tidbits when he sees my bare hand coming.
     He doesn't take the hood really well yet, but I can get it on him. I may use his meal tomorrow to tidbit him during hood training. If not we will move outside. It depends on the weather tomorrow, because it's been rainy a bit lately.
     On a slightly unrelated note, I started drivers ed and will finally get my license in June next year. This will make falconry so much easier and up my chances of getting a cooper's hawk next July.
     Wish me luck, and happy hunting!

New Old Bird

     Petrie's back!
     I trapped him yesterday. It was amazing to watch. He's developed this serious stooping style of hunting. I watched him attack a magpie a couple of weeks ago and he repeatedly dive-bombed it with vertical stoops, then a sharp throw-up and a vertical climb, then he'd flip himself over and stoop again. He used this same tactic on the sparrow in the Bal-Chatri.
     He was on a powerline a ways up a loooong driveway. I dropped the BC about 15 feet up the driveway and he was probably another 45 feet from that. I (on my bike) pulled out of the driveway and around some bushes. He noticed the trap quickly, but waited for a couple of minutes to go for it. He swept in with a smooth glide from his spot on the line, then angled downward and made his first stoop. He stooped at it a few times, making U shapes in the air. Then he hovered about a foot over it, before bailing and going back to the line. He landed closer to the trap than he was at first, and after a couple of minutes he did the whole routine again. Stoop, climb, stoop, climb, stoop, climb, hover, bail. He landed just a few feet away on a fence post. There he waited for several minutes. He made one more try, only to land on another post after a short hover. Then quickly, he turned around and hit the trap. I watched until I saw his angry wings flapping around, then sped my bike over to collect him. It was fantastic.
     I got him to my house, where I weighed him and called my sponsor. He weighed 112.5 at trapping. The first time I trapped Petrie he weighed 100 on the dot. I have my doubts that this is Petrie, because anything could have happened since I released him last spring. But this bird looks about the right age, and I've never seen another kestrel in that field in all the time I've lived here. Still unsure, I refer to him as "Little King".
     I keep him hooded an socked until my sponsor gets to my house. We start to jess him up, but realize that she's forgotten her grommet setters at her house, and I don't have any. So we take Little King back to her house, where she's got her imprint male kestrel, Anakin. He churrups for food as soon as he sees us and Little King squirms in my hand.
     Anakin goes outside to weather and Monica and I get the anklets and jesses on this new bird. I unhood him there. He flaps and flails and bates, but tames down quickly and I soon realize that it is, in fact, Petrie. In the while that he's been a wild bird, he's learned to bite and not let go. He catches my finger and I have to pull his beak out, ripping my skin. Oh, well.
     Two hours later, he is standing fairly calmly on the fist and just starting to regain the glove after a bate. Monica has somewhere to be, so I hood him, which is no simple affair (like it used to be). He's convinced he's dead now, and won't stand upright, so he rides home laying on his back in my lap.
     We spend the rest of the day manning and hood training. He eats some sparrow from off the fist. I still refer to him as Little King, although I know that, yes, this is Petrie.
     I don't know if I'll let him go again.

Trapping

Today was the most problematic trapping experience I have ever had. I went out with my sponsor, Monica, early in the morning (though not as early as I would have liked). We drive out into the middle of nowhere and set out the trap for, what turns out to be, a haggard male kestrel. I pull him off the trap and he is banded, TWICE! We call in the bands, then turn him lose. Hop back in the car and, Guess what? The car won't start; the battery's got a problem. We call my dad and comes with jumper cables and gets us back on the road. But then we realize that neither one of us has out licensing on us. So we go back to my house to get my license. While we're there, dad takes a moment to fix up Monica's battery, just scraping some baking soda mess out of the connection. We head back out, but right as we turn the first corner from my house, the sparrow in the trap gets its head through a noose on the bal-chatri. I cut the line on the noose, but it's still around her neck. So I stupidly try to pull her out and get it off her neck. Then she slips out of the trap and is free in the car. We spend fifteen minutes trying to get her, but we can't. So we head to a local Zamzows and get a mouse. By now, we have less than an hour left to trap, and within that hour we get nothing. This is the first time that I've gone out trapping and not come home with my bird. We're headed out again Monday.
     On another note, I went to a dance tonight. I got out of the car and one of my friends points out a mouse running across the sidewalk. Guess what this little falconer girl does? Of course I catch it. It takes me a while, and I'm worried about the plague that's been out and about. I manage to step on it's tail, though, then thoracic compression it with my feet. So now I'm at a dance, with a dead vole, ten miles from my house and no ride. So I stick the mouse in the freezer that's conveniently in the building and go to the dance. I managed to smuggle it into my mom's car in a fast-food box. Oh, the crazy things us falconers do.

Trapping

     I'm going trapping on Friday; Bellatrix is gone. Yesterday I trapped a pretty female kestrel while I was out looking for Bellatrix. She was an interesting thing. The coloration on her head looked like a male, but the coloration on her tail and chest looked like a female. Her wings had blue and red in them. I knew she was a female, though, because she was hanging out with a male and she weighed in at 122g.

     I'm planning on retrapping Petrie, from last season. He's stuck around where I released him. But I don't always see him, and he's really good an feeding himself early in the mornings, so I don't know how likely it is that I'll get him. I won't stress it too much; retrapping him is just an idea. 

     If I don't get Petrie, I'm going after a passage. I just don't have the resources to keep a haggard. I can't get bag them enough to break the carrying habit, and I can't hunt them on starlings, because I can't drive. Also, I'm losing the season here, so I want to get hunting as soon as possible. 

     Wish me luck.

Lost (continued)

     I go out looking for Bellatrix again this morning. There Isn't much area to look in. I've already heavily checked the most likely places and found resident kestrels everywhere else. Still, I bike around for a few hours with my trap, mouse, lure, and hawking bag. Tomorrow, I vow, I will bring extra jesses. She's probably lost her's by now. But she's no where to be seen, so I don't need them today.
     Finally, I don't know where else to look. I sit on the side of the street for ten minutes trying to decide where to go looking for her. I've checked everywhere, some places multiple times. I can't station myself somewhere and whistle for her; she's not that responsive. If I get her back, it will be because I happened to end up within 50 feet of her and she happened to be hungry. But I have four square miles - which she's not even guaranteed to be in. If I do happen to find her, she's probably wild enough now to ignore me completely.
     I suppose that's why I have the trap, though. Hopefully she won't mind watching me set it out.
     It all suddenly seems hopeless.
     So I bike in the opposite direction from where she's likely to be. Petrie's there in his field, hunting. I watch him, try to call him down to the lure - he was rather fantastic at chasing it. But he's been wild for months now so he pays no attention.
     Seagulls chase him off, but he comes back out a minute later. He hovers over the field, stoops, rises again. I watch him antagonize a magpie, trying to decide if he wants it dead or gone. He swings over to the power line in the property owner's long driveway and I speed my way to him. I try to lay out the Bal-Chatri below him, but he pays no attention. I go to move it closer to him, but he's having none of it and my next peak at his spot shows an empty wire.
     I put my trap back in the basket on my bike, then take a moment with the horse that lives in Petrie's field. He's a gorgeous black Clydesdale that's taken a liking to me. I've heard his name is Jack, but I've never spoken to his owners, so I'm not completely sure.
     I bike out of the driveway and back to the side of the road. Petrie is still hunting. I watch his stoops and almost walk out into the field to set my trap, but there is construction going on to the side of the field and they'd call the police on my trespassing.
     Petrie catches a mouse. He flies up to my stretch of power line to eat it. I set out my bal-chatri, but I know it's useless. Petrie spooks and flies off to an island of trees standing out in the flat acreage to finish his meal in peace.
     I sit with Jack for a while longer, but eventually I realize that it's 11:45 and I promised myself I'd be back home by noon to do my schoolwork. So I leave.

Lost

     I walk with Bellatrix to the park today for our training session, in hopes that she will learn to be responsive in places other than my backyard, even though I know there is a wild male kestrel that lives in the park. He doesn't normally have the guts to get close enough to cause problems so I ignore his presence (mistake 1). We start with a couple of flights to the fist on the creance so that I can see how responsive she is. She hesitates a bit, but I free fly her anyway (mistake 2). I tell myself that I'm doing so because she's more responsive to the lure than the glove, but really it's because free flying her is so exhilarating. She takes her spot in a nearby tree and I call her to the lure. I drag it a little, but the movement spooks her and she swoops over to a fence. 

     The wild male calls overhead and takes his spot in the tree. 

     I swing, then drop the lure again, whistling for Bellatrix. She comes quicker than I expected, but that is a very good thing. She bates with it immediately, and I completely understand why. I make in to her as soon as I can to ease her discomfort. She eats her reward, the back half of a mouse, while I tid-bit her occasionally. I trade her off and set her loose again, completely forgetting the wild male (mistake 3). 

     She swings up into the tree and is immediately taken after by the wild male. He takes the style of a gyrfalcon, repeated swooping passes from one direction then the other. Bellatrix screams at him and dives from the tree, making a low-altitude escape. But the wild male comes in and grabs her. She screeches and dashes over the rooftops; he lands on the nearest house to watch her leave. I mistake him for her and pause for a moment before chasing after my bird. She's quite some distance away now, but I see where she's going. 

     I sprint in the same direction, pausing in any open areas I can to throw the lure around a few times. A car pulls up to the edge of the empty lot I'm in and watches me. I try to decide if I should stay or go; they probably think I'm a nutcase (not an entirely false accusation). They pull away and I decide to go home and get the car. 

     Mom drives me around to a few different fields where she might have gone. I look for any stand of trees in the direction Bellatrix took that she may have hidden in. No luck, she won't be found. 

     I decide to go home. I have work to do and Bellatrix is not going to move in the circumstances. She's stressed, not super hungry, and possibly injured.

     I beat myself up for all the mistakes. She has no bells on because she chipped her beak biting them and I took them off. She has no transmitter on because I won't be getting it in the mail for another few weeks. She's not wed to the lure or even remotely fond of me. 

     I go out again on my bike later that day, when she will be hungrier. I check the most highly suspect areas. The locals are very accommodating and I'm allowed onto three promising properties. I check every tree, swinging the lure and laying the trap, but she it not there. I cross the rather large portion of land off my mental map. 

     Dad comes to collect me; we're going to my grandma's for dinner. 

     Bellatrix is staying out overnight.  

   

First Wild Kill!

     I was working on a photography project for school and had Bellatrix weathering. I turned around to peek at her and saw her eating something on the ground. Then she hopped back up to her block with it and finished it off. And - stupid me - I had a really nice camera hanging around my neck and didn't even thing to take a picture of her. I did manage to get a picture of a beetle leg dangling off her lower mandible. But I took her inside, since I was finished with my project, and set her on her screen perch in the dining room. She immediately fluffed herself out and started preening, she was so proud of her freaking beetle. The good news is, she hunts in captivity now and I think that means that training is almost over. I have a couple more quail to bag her on, then probably a few sparrows or starlings so she gets used to hunting what I intend to hunt her on. Not that I don't like her killing Coturnix quail, but I live in Idaho, not Japan.

You can see the beetle leg hanging off her lower mandible.

Here it is again.

The Difference Between Dreams and Goals

I've been chipping away slowly at my parents on a particular subject. That subject is me working with something other than a kestrel while I live under their roof. Anyone reading this whom doesn't have much of a connection to falconry needs to know that I stick out like a sore thumb in the falconry community. If you were to walk into an Idaho Falconer's Association meeting, you would see a bunch of 40+ year old men, three women falconers, and me: a fifteen-year-old girl. Yup, I am a peculiar child. Anyway, my sponsor- at twenty-two she is the next most peculiar person in the IFA -  set the terms of my apprenticeship as me working with american kestrels both years of my apprenticeship. I completely agree with her that this is the best way to complete my apprenticeship and become acquainted with falconry. So this fall I will be trapping another kestrel. I'm not sure if I want a male or female, but I am going to be a bit pickier when we are trapping this one. I want a more experienced bird; specifically, I want it to just nail the trap. I don't want to wait for it to find the trap, look from a distance, look a little closer, hover over it a bit, peer inside, wander around it a little, get scared away by a passing car, then have the process repeat a few hundred times before it's actually on the trap and stuck. I want a kestrel that just wants to destroy the sparrow inside the trap. Whether it's male or female, I don't care. It's name will be Fenoglio, from the Inkheart trilogy by Cornelia Funke.   To get a bird like this, I will likely have to wait until November to trap. But I'm going crazy without a bird and I may not make it that long.
But back to the story about chipping away at my parents. After the kestrel this season, I want to get a family group Cooper's Hawk. The thing about getting a Cooper's hawk is they are basically one of the hardest birds to maintain in captivity for falconry. They are high-strung and hard-wired to kill things, because they are an accipiter. They are also a lot bigger than kestrels, therefore by falconry facilities need to be completely replaced to accomodate this bird. And a Cooper's hawk would need a lot more of my time. All-in-all this is a big step, a step that my parents think should wait until I am out of the house. But I am chipping away at them ever so slowly, and I think they may just be worn down by the time next July rolls around and I am looking to trap a Cooper's hawk. Everybody cross your fingers...

Photo Cred: Walter Kitundu 

I'm Mad

I just found out that I do have to be 14 to apprentice.
5 months till my birthday.

Time for a Story

I'm gonna tell you about how I got interested in falconry.
   When I was around 6 I heard my brothers talking about falconry. My brother talked about becoming a falconer and getting a peregrine falcon. The thought of owning a falcon so entirely captured me that I have not forgotten since then.
    My brother, Braden, was the kind of person who says things that aren't true if they'll make him sound smarter. My dad call it BS: Braden Says. Point being: he gave me plenty of false information.
     I thought that I had to be 14 to apprentice, so i started studying at 12 thinking that I would spend 2 years memorizing every measurement of every raptor and all their behaviors and I would memorize everything in the falconry packet from the fish and game.
     Then I learned that I could apprentice at 12.
     I dumped previous plans and saved up enough money to buy the California Hawking Club Apprentice Study Guide and Apprenticeship Manual and buy into the Idaho Falconer's Association. About a week before school ended I promised myself that I would have a falcon by the time school started again. Then I learned about trapping seasons and money and apprenticeship and reality, and I promised myself that I would be apprenticing by the time school started again.
     And I'm almost there.

The IFA

The IFA is the Idaho Falconers Association. I am now a member. I signed up a few weeks ago. yesterday I opened this e-mail:

Dear Anna,

Your application to join Idaho Falconers Association has been accepted. Welcome!

Please log into the wab site with the username and password you specified when you completed you membership application. (It you don't remmember this information, go to the Login page and click the "Forgot My Username/Password lind; a new username and temporary password will be emailed to you.) Once you log in, the system will see that you have a Pending Payment and will take you to this page to pay by credit card and/or check. You must pay the indicated amout to become an active member.

Your membership number is        If you have any questions about the application process or your account,
click Reply or contact the :


Phone:
mailto:

Sincerely,
Dave (01/01/16) Smith
President




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I AM SO HAPPY!!!

So, you probably read that I must pay my dues through credit and/or check, niether of which a 13-year-old generally has.

Hadn't crossed my mind.

So, I started begging my dad to use his credit card to pay for me, after which, I would pay him with the cash that I saved up. He finally did.

NEWEST MEMBER OF THE IFA!!!

The Worst Thing for a Falconry Struck Girl to Hear from Her Dad

"The mews is too big for the backyard."

Well where else am I gonna put it?

Intro, Intro, Intro

I created this site more for me than for you. It's great if you can get something from this, but it's main purpose is to be a place where I can keep track of my progress and record thoughts and experiences. Don't take this as an "I'm booting you off my site" I'm just saying that if you read some weird stuff on here, that's because it made sense to me and at that moment I wasn't really concerned about being Follower Friendly.

Falconry is the art of hunting in cooperation with a trained raptor. That means that when I'm finally licensed you will be reading about me hunting with my hawk. Probably a Red-Tail. So far I'm just studying for the apprentice falconer exams.

Now that you've met the site and the sport, I guess you'll have to meet me. I'm 13 years old and I LOVE FALCONRY!! I also love art, writing, and the antique typewriter that I got for my 13th Christmas. I have five brothers, three older ones and two younger ones, and a dog. He's a cross between a Chihuahua, Dachshund, and Italian Greyhound. I have tons of self confidence so don't think that this person you're reading about is just the cover-up of the real person. It's all me, all the way.

Just to catch you up...

I heard my brothers talking about falconry when I was about 7, give or take. I heard him talking about owning a falcon and fell in love with falconry. At the age of 12 I started studying thinking that I would study for 2 years and then begin apprenticing. I hit a few bumps. Then I read some more, made some footnotes, studied some more and more and more, and now I'm set on falconry.