Baggie #1

I had to be at a conference all day yesterday so I gave her a quick mouse head to hold her until I got home in the evening. She weighed in at 96g at 8:00, the lowest I've had her. I picked up some sparrows on my way home and wasn't intending to use them until the weekend but thought, "Meh, might as well give it a go."

Kino shigoto no kaeri ni tomodachi kara suzume wo te ni iremashita. Shumatsu made tsukawanai to omotta kedo, kaette taijyu hakatte kara 96g deshita. Ima made ichiban hikui taijyu dakara "Ma, yatte miyo ka?" to omotte yuwaku ni makemashita.

The experience gave me some great insight as to where I am in training. She's definitely too high as she took about 30 seconds or so before deciding to grab the sparrow. A couple things may have factored in to the hesitation, first time "hunting" with me, my wife shuffling papers in the next room, etc. but a truely on weight and manned bird would not have taken 30 seconds. I know I need to bring her down some more. On a positive note, she didn't try to go anywhere with the sparrow once she caught it. She screamed at me as I approached but she does that all the time anyway. I let her pluck a bit and eat the head before slowly reaching in and scooping her and the sparrow onto my fist. I removed the legs as she kept working on the neck and then pulled a wing off to let her work on that as I seperated her rations in another room. She did grab the wing and run to a corner but when I approached with the heart, lungs, and breast meat she left the wing and jumped back on my fist.

Iroiro manabimashita. Mazu taijyu wa mada herasanakyucha. 30byo gurai kakatte suzume wo yatto kogeki shimashita. Taijyu wa atte ittara sugu kogeki suru hazu desu. Taijyu dake jyanai kamoshirenai kedo are wa ichiban. Hitotsu no ii nowa suzume wo doko ka ni motte ikou to shinakatta desu. Atama wo tabette kara boku ga hizamazuite te wo dashitara naita kedo ugokanakatta. Suzume no ashi ya katapo no tsubasa wo hanashite suzume no karada wo betsu no heya de wakeyo to omote, amechyo wa hanashita suzume no tsubasa wo heya no kado made motte ichatta kedo, shinzo ya mune niku wo misetara tsubasa wo sutete te ni tonde kimashita.

Things will definitely be different when I head outside with her, more distractions and a greater temptation to carry I'd imagine, so again, her weight needs to come down but I think we're headed in the right direction. Fun times ahead!

Soto ni dettara iroiro muzukashikunaru to omoimasu. Shuchuryoku ga tamesareru shi, suzume wo doko ka ni motte iku yuwaku ga 10bai gurai tsuyokunarimasu. Dakara taijyu wo herasanakyucha kedo kari made wa sou nani toukunai to omoimasu. Saiko 2shukan gurai kana.

Lure Introduction

At 98g she flew several times across the room before being offered the back half of a mouse on the lure. While she ate on the lure I walked away to get a tidbit and when I walked back she had finished with the mouse so I held out my hand and she jumped right up. Can't ask for a better lure introduction than that!

98g de sukai te ni tonde kimashita. Sono ato lure wo shokai shite nezumi no hanbun wo tsukemashita. Sugu tabete kuremashita. Tabenagara betsu no heya ni itte modottara nezumi wo tabeowatta tokoro dakara te wo dashite sugu ni te ni tonde kimashita. Ii kanji desu!

Week One

Not a whole lot to report. Dulcinea and I have been working on getting acquainted and she's decided I'm not such a bad guy. She's coming about 10 feet to the fist on an indoor creance:

Hokoku suru koto wa sounani nai desu. Naka yoku suru youni douyroku shite imasu. Ima no tokoro 3 meteru gurai tondekite imasu.

It's not an instant response though and any little thing will distract her. Below 100g she starts to be more responsive, I just need to take some more weight off. Hopefully I can get her taking baggies on the creance by next weekend sometime.

Mada sugu niwa konai node mou sukoshi taijyu wo herasanakyucha. Ganbarimasu.

Dulcinea

October 4th:
First set of the day was on a bird of unidentifiable sex, just saw it was a kestrel and tossed the trap. I pull into a dirt turn around to watch and after a couple minutes the bird makes a pass at the trap. It doesn't hit the trap though and the flare up showed me clearly that it was a male. "Meh," I think, "It's early, the bird is interested anyway, I'll let it sit for a few more minutes." I keep the binocs trained on the male as it does a few more passes and then suddenly a truck driving by slams on it's breaks and backs up right next to my trap. The male is out of there and the lady in the truck gets out of her truck. I rush over there and to my surprise, there's a female kestrel stuck on the trap! What the...?! I have no idea when it got there, I'd been there about ten minutes but I guess while I was watching the male the female snuck in! Hey, I'll take what I can get!

10/4:
Hijimete mita amechyo wa osu ka mesu ka mirenakutte toriaezu wana wo dashimashita. Mamonaku amechyo wa wana ni kogeki suru kedo ataranakatta. Tonde kara sugu osu to wakatta kedo kyoumi ga atta kara wana wo sono manna ni shyo to omotte machimashita. Sore kara nankai ka wana ni mukatta kedo naze ka ataranakutte komarimashita. Kyu ni kuruma ga wana no tonari ni tomatte jyosei ga demashita. Osu ga nigette, "Ma, shyo ga nai ka?" to omotte wana made hashirimashita. Nan to iu odoroki ni mesu ga kakatte imashita! Doko kara kita ka, itsu tsukamatta ka wakaranai kedo YOKATTA!

Now kestrel age is difficult to determine but from everything I've read for females the story is in the tail. If the last bar on the tail is more than twice the width of the other bands on the tail it's more than likely older than one year. Judging by this birds tail I determined pretty quickly that the bird is a hag (2nd year or older bird).

Shikashi, ichinenme no amechyo ga hoshikutte shippo wo mittara kono amechyo wa chotto toshi wo totte iru no ga wakatta. Ichinenme no mesu nara shippo no saigo no shima wa hoka no shima to onaji gurai no okisa. Kono amechyo no shippo no saigo on shima wa futoi:

Anyway, since it's the only female I've caught all season I figured she could at least keep me company while I look for a passage (first year) bird. I pop the hood on and she goes absolutely comatose. She wasn't moving a muscle so I laid her on the seat next to me and kept trapping.

Toriaezu mesu dakara hoka no amechyo wo minakereba kore ni suru to omotte hood wo tsukemashita. Mo shinda furi ni natta! Tonari ni oitte trapping wo tsuzukemashita.

Not more than 20 minutes later I see a bird sitting on top of a pole. Out goes the trap and before I can even turn around the bird is on the trap. As I get out the bird's tail is highlighted by the early morning sun and by golly if it doesn't fit the description of a passage bird exactly; Last band on the tail being the same width as the rest of the bands.

20pun mo tatte nai uchi ni hoka no amechyo wo mite wana wo dashimashita. Sugu wana ni mukatte tsukamarimashita. Shippo wo mitara yatto ichinenme no mesu da! Oyorokobi!!!

Having the first bird right there to compare helped a bunch too. Wahoo! I popped the hood off the first bird, thanked her for her time and off she went.

Saisho no amechyo to kurabetara zettai ichinenme dakara sugu ni saisho no tori kara hood wo totte hanashimashita.

I expected the same comatose state when I popped the hood on the passage bird but boy was I wrong!! She fought the whole way home, wriggled out of the sock I put her in, despite the tape job, and threw the hood. I had to drive with one hand wrapped around her and the other on the steering wheel! She's got attitude, that's for sure!

Hood wo tsukettara onaji youni shinda youni narunjyanai ka to omotta kedo CHIGATTA! Zutto abaretta! Kaeri wa taihen deshita! Koitsu wa yanchan kamo!

But we made it home safe, and she weighed in at a petite 114.5g with the jesses on. She got a good deal of manning over the weekend with my 20 month old running around and she ate about 8 grams of sparrow from my finger tips the first evening. There were times where it seemed like she was actually taking the tidbits from my fingers and others where it seemed like the tidbit just happened to fall in to her open mouth...but it's a start anyway.

Buji ni kaette kara jess wo tsukette hajimete no taijyu wo hakarimashita. 114.5 gram deshita. Mesu ni shite mo chiisai! Sugu ni kunren wo hajimemashita. Saisho no yoru ni suzume no 8 gram gurai wo yubi kara tabemashita. Naka naka ii kanji desu!

I'm over the top excited about getting a passage bird and finally getting my season started. Ladies and gentleman I present to you my starling killer for the season, Dulcinea:

Yatto kotoshi no takagari ga dekiru youni narimashita. Namae wa Dulcinea desu: "Yoroshiku!"

More males!!

"If you want a female, why waste your time trapping males?!" you may wonder...Well, there's a couple good reasons:
"Mesu ga hoshii nara naze osu bakkari tsukamatte iru kana?" to omowareru kamoshirenai kedo ikutsuka no riyu ga arimasu:

a) Now that I want to keep one to train a memo has been sent out and the females have gone in to hiding. I'm just not seeing females!

Yappari majime ni trapping shite mesu wo te ni ireyo to omottara osu bakkari wo mite imasu. Mesu wa naka naka mitsukaranai!

b) I wanted to see if my new sparrow harness design worked (problems with sparrows getting out of the harness last time) so I threw it out for the first bird of the day which, surprise surprise, happen to be a male:
Tsukutta suzume no jaketto wa amecho wo tsukamaru kadouka tameshite mitakatta. Hajimete mita amecho wa osu deshita. Sugu ni tsukamatta! Yokatta!

It works!

c) Since I had some friends with me who were experiencing trapping for the first time I still wanted to throw the trap for any kestrel we saw...and we saw a LOT of males!
Hajimete trapping shi ni itta tomodachi wo tsurette ikimashita node nan no amecho demo ii to omotte mita amecho no subete ni wana wo dashimashita. Hotondo osu bakkari deshita.

I discovered that the sparrow isn't likely to survive an attack in the harness though and since my sparrow supply is limited at the moment I decided to use the BC for the rest of the day. I suppose if I had seen exactly what I wanted I would've sacrificed another sparrow but meh, there's still lots of time to trap.
Jaketto wo tsukau to suzume ga shinde shimau node mesu jyanakattara futsu no wana wo tsukaimashita.

I'm a happy trapper but I'm out for keeps now, hopefully sometime this week...

Tanoshikatta kedo kore kara mesu wo neraimasu. Konshu tsukamaru kana...

Kestrels

Another falconer hooked me up with some sparrows over the weekend so I spent a couple hours trapping Sunday afternoon. I wanted to test out the sparrow harnesses that I made but discovered that I need to adjust the design a bit after loosing two of my sparrows when they were able to slip out of the harness! Luckily I had a BC as backup and we had some success:

Suzume wo te ni irete futatabi amecho wo neratte trapping shi ni itte kimashita. 2jikan gurai de osu wo 2 wa torimashita. Mesu ga hoshii node ryouhou tomo hanashimashita. Tanoshikatta desu!!

Four pictures may be a bit misleading as we only caught two males but they're so darn pretty I took lots of pictures. Since I'm after a female, these were released right after posing for the pics. I did find out though that the male kestrel hood I made fits!

Jibun de tsukutta hood wa pittari aimasu!

And while trapping the kestrels was a blast, one thing that made the short trip even better was my wife's willingness to come along and even drive!. She's not a bird person and I know there were probably other things she would have rather done but she was a trooper and drove great (as evidenced by our success!). It's a blessing to be able to share the activities you love with the ones that you love and by the end I even think she was having fun...Thanks Toe!

Trapping season has arrived!

Had a great day trapping today, only caught the one RT pictured below but saw TONS of birds! Not just kestrels and RT's either, golden eagles, feruginous (sp?) hawks, swainson's hawks, turkey vultures, a coopers hawk and praire falcons were in the mix as well. At one point we were stopped on a dirt road with a praire falcon two telephone poles behind us, a ferug 5 poles in front of us, a RT 100 yards down the fence line to the west, and a golden eagle soaring on the horizon. Awesome stuff. Can't wait to get out and do it again!!

Atarashii pasacon wo katta kara ima no tokoro nihongo wa kakenai. Moshi wakenai kedo shibaraku no aida romanji ni narimasu. Kyou trapping no jiki ga hajimarimashita. Ichinichi jyu ganbarimashita. Yama hodo no taka ya hayabusa ya washi wo mimashita ga kekkyoku shita no ichinenme no red-tail dake wo te ni iremashita. Kotoshi wa amechou ni suru node kono red-tail wo shashin wo totte kara sugu ni hanashimashita. Sugoku tanoshikatta! Kongetsu no manaka gurai made asobi no trapping wo shite, soshite amecho wo jibun no mono ni shite kunren wo hajimarimasu. Tsukamaeru taka no shahsin wo nosemasu ne. Tanoshimi!

I won't keep a bird until around the middle of the month (unless I get exactly what I want...) so until then check back often for pics of all the birds I catch!