My Latest Endeavor...

[Tom]

Sorry, Tom...pictures or it didn't happen.

Okay. Here is my man in his mew sitting on his bow perch.


Not a great pic, but this was me sitting at work waiting for them to need me. We were filming on location at a residence and I brought Toothless along so I could man him with all the down time.

 

[hingeback]

Okay. Here is my man in his mew sitting on his bow perch.
View attachment 166721

Is that his home?

 

[Tom]

Is that his home?

That is where he stays when we aren't traveling or working. Its designed with his safety and well-being in mind.

 

[hingeback]

I'm not sure if I missed it, but how did you come about naming him Toothless?

 

[Tom]

I'm not sure if I missed it, but how did you come about naming him Toothless?

My daughter names most of my animals anymore. She liked the movie and given the physical traits and habits of a hawk, she thought Toothless suited our new friend very well.

Who am I to argue?

 

[DutchieAmanda]

How is your bird doing Tom?

 

[Tidgy's Dad]

Wonderful thread!
Update, please, Tom.
I heard once that some of these birds (was it peregrines?) have dodgy hearts and will suddenly just keel over and die.
is that true, do you know?
We have dozens of birds of prey in Morocco, from falcons to eagles, buzzards to vultures, there's something hovering over my house nearly every day.
So we are very vigilant with Tidgy.
I've had several encounters with these animals back in the UK and it's a marvelous feeling to have one sat on your arm.
The guy next door to me in one of my homes had a collection of owls.
Having a huge eagle owl on ones arm is just awesome and yet they weigh so much less than you'd think. (obviously).
Good luck with all this.

 

[Moozillion]

Wish I'd seen this earlier! This is SOOOO cool! And his name TOTALLY cracks me up!!!!!!
For some reason I had thought you were going to work with owls...

 

[Moozillion]

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.

Tom, THIS IS INCREDIBLE!!!!! What a THRILL it must be!!!!!!

 

[Moozillion]

Is Toothless going to be for hunting or a movie star or both?

 

[wellington]

Yes Tom, we need an update please.

 

[wellington]

Yes Tom, we need an update please.

With pictures too

 

[tortoise5643]

Didn't see this thread until now. Just spent a long time reading every post on it. Toothless is awesome! Can't believe how "easy" (I know you worked a lot for it) it is to train a wild bird. I would never have expected you caught them and trained them.

 

[MichaelaW]

I second the update request!!!

 

[Tom]

Yes Tom, we need an update please.

Toothless died of aspergillosis. Everything was going great for a while and then I just found him dead. A good friend of mine is a Board Certified Avian vet and he performed the necropsy for me himself. My falconry sponsor felt awful about it. He said that many of them carry it and sometimes it just gets them. He said its not anything we did or anything that I could have prevented. He said that once you see symptoms its too late, and that there isn't much that can be done. I was very upset about it for a long time. Still am. When you do everything "right", bad things aren't supposed to happen, but sometimes they just do.

The new season starts October 1st, and the lessons that Toothless taught me will carry over for the next bird and I'll do an even better job.

 

[Tom]

Is Toothless going to be for hunting or a movie star or both?

Its illegal to use native raptors for any sort of commercial purpose, so none of my falconry birds can ever work in my industry. I could go get restricted species permits and buy non-native birds for move use, and someday I probably will.

 

[DutchieAmanda]

That's so sad, I'm sorry to hear this Tom

 

[wellington]

Toothless died of aspergillosis. Everything was going great for a while and then I just found him dead. A good friend of mine is a Board Certified Avian vet and he performed the necropsy for me himself. My falconry sponsor felt awful about it. He said that many of them carry it and sometimes it just gets them. He said its not anything we did or anything that I could have prevented. He said that once you see symptoms its too late, and that there isn't much that can be done. I was very upset about it for a long time. Still am. When you do everything "right", bad things aren't supposed to happen, but sometimes they just do.

The new season starts October 1st, and the lessons that Toothless taught me will carry over for the next bird and I'll do an even better job.

Tom, I am so sorry. I know the love, care and hard work you put into your animals. That's a hard pill to swallow, losing an animal, when you put the best out there for them.
Is there any testing that can be done next time to see if one carries it?
Again very sorry.

 

[Tom]

Is there any testing that can be done next time to see if one carries it?

I should learn a bit more, but the impression that I'm getting is that they are exposed to it in the wild, and some carry it around with no symptoms while others just get hit by it. My avian vet and my falconry sponsor are both making it sound like this is just something that happens and there is nothing that can be done about it. I asked about prophylactic treatment, and both seemed to think that was not the way to go. I'll be asking more questions as time goes by.

The new season starts October 1st, so I'll be starting again soon.

 

[Moozillion]

Toothless died of aspergillosis. Everything was going great for a while and then I just found him dead. A good friend of mine is a Board Certified Avian vet and he performed the necropsy for me himself. My falconry sponsor felt awful about it. He said that many of them carry it and sometimes it just gets them. He said its not anything we did or anything that I could have prevented. He said that once you see symptoms its too late, and that there isn't much that can be done. I was very upset about it for a long time. Still am. When you do everything "right", bad things aren't supposed to happen, but sometimes they just do.

The new season starts October 1st, and the lessons that Toothless taught me will carry over for the next bird and I'll do an even better job.

Oh, Tom!!! I'm so sorry to hear this.