Day Two -- Success!!

Sunday I wasn't able to get out trapping, but Monday being a holiday, I loaded up the traps, picked up Rick and headed out at first light. We started seeing kestrels immediately.

Our first bird came down to a mouse:

A male with another one of those funky mid-moult tails:

Definitely an older bird so a quick photo and release:

The second bird we found on a lonely, dusty back road eating a grasshopper. He was way up at the top of a tall telephone pole but we made the drop anyway. He buzzed the trap once but landed right above the trap on the telephone wire. It wasn't more than a minute before he dropped straight down and we had him:

Another one with a funky tail! I guess it's just so early in the year that kestrels are usually still moulting at this time? We saw another male that we weren't able to trap whose tail was literally just a stub. I had my doubts as to whether or not he was even a kestrel when we first saw. I kept telling Rick, "It's tail just doesn't look right to be a kestrel." I thought maybe we'd mistaken a meadowlark or starling for a kestrel but as we drove up to get a better look he bumped and sure enough it was just a tail-less kestrel! Crazy.

This boy was TINY!! Another quick photo and a release:

We hit a slow patch for an hour or so but finally hit the jackpot. 3 birds all hanging out together, so we figured it must be a group of young siblings still palling around after fledging. They were pretty jumpy and we had to chase them around for awhile before we finally got a good set. The male came right down to our mouse:

We looked him over and sure enough, he appeared to be a passage (first year) bird. A full tail, streaked breast, barring all the way up between his shoulders, exactly what I wanted! We rushed back to Rick's house and put equipment on him, 111g with jesses and a hood. He cast later in the day and after several mutes ended up right around 98g. He's a tiny little guy but I think he'll do well.

Introducing Hayduke:

Looking forward to a great season with him!

Day One

Neither were passage birds but we did catch two. A good way to start trapping season, especially since its still so warm and the kestrels are keeping pretty full on grasshoppers.

This first one came down to a sparrow. It was tempting to keep her, look at those monster starling killing feet! (Click to englarge picture)

The second bird was an interesting catch for a couple reasons. We had thrown the BC with the sparrow in it in between two kestrels and backed off a hundred yards. We then noticed a third kestrel sitting right above us! I had brought some mice and was keeping them in an additional BC that I hadn't finished covering with nooses the night before, only one side of it was covered. We figured we couldn't pass up the opportunity though and decided to toss the mice out under this third kestrel. She hopped around on the trap for awhile but eventually got caught! As we were looking her over we noticed that she was till growing in her tail and it was the most interesting moulting pattern I've ever seen!

You can see the central tail feathers are fully grown in but the rest of the feathers are at varying stages the further out you go with the outter most feathers being the shortest. I was amazed at the uniformity of such a late moult!

Anyway, here was a victory shot we took shortly before both birds were released:

IT'S HERE!!!

From the Colorado Division of Wildlife falconry regulations:

ARTICLE III - CAPTURING, ACQUISITION, REPORTING AND MARKING RAPTORS
#609 - CAPTURING RAPTORS - The following restrictions shall apply to the capturing of raptors and
reporting:...

4. First year (passage) raptors capable of flight, may be captured and removed from the wild only from September 4 through October 16 and November 1 through January 15.

I'll be spending the weekend looking for my new hunting partner. I'm like a little kid at Christmas!!

Trapping Sparrowhawks in Turkey

Trapping season is just over a week away! We do it a little differently here but this is an interesting video nontheless! I flew a little sparrowhawk in Japan as my "re-introduction" to the sport after a 6 year hiatus. She was a blast but I didn't do her justice.

I'm gonna train my kestrel for that dart method right from the beginning this time. Looks like a blast! Can't wait.

Unexpected Visitor

I made a few fancy sparrow traps this past week in anticipation of the season beginning (in just a few short weeks!!) and set them out to see how they work.

Well, I caught something...just not what I expected!! I found this little guy chillin with a full belly when I checked last night:

That's only half inch hardware cloth he's on so he wasn't a big one (we've seen some 5~6 footers on, or next to, the trail by our house), in fact I think he just slithered his way right through one of the squares to gain entry, but he must've eaten something in there as his middle is quite a bit thicker than the rest of him. I suspect a mouse more than a sparrow, but it must've made his day.

I wanted to take him back to the house to show my son but I would've been sleeping on the couch as per my wife's explicit instructions on ever bringing snakes home. He wasn't real keen on me sticking my hand in there to let him go, and I didn't fancy being bitten, so I just opened the top of the trap and dumped him out. He slithered his way merrily into the undergrowth.

I need a better place to put my trap!

Apologia

I'm reading "A Merlin for Me" by John Loft right now, a book chronicling Mr. Loft's training of a young merlin in the UK and interspersed with some wonderful poetry. This particular poem stood out as I read it this morning:

APOLOGIA

Hawking is useless,

Brings no advancement,

Is economically negligible, ecologically neutral,

Ethically irrelevant, and thoroughly anti-social.

That's what makes it so attractive.

Accomplishing the death of a lark is

Too insignificant to register on the Richter Scale

Of human endeavour

Yet is the Enterprise that transports me to the platform

Where I become myself.

Falconry News Site

A new website focusing on falconry and raptor related news in the U.S. and U.K.:

http://www.falconrytoday.net/

I'll have to add it to my links list!

(Oh, and the "less than a month til trapping season" countdown has begun. I'm getting my sparrow traps ready and my BC's covered in new nooses. Sept. 4th ~ 7th is going to be a trapping bonanza! My falconry buddies and I will probably trap what we want on day one and then spend the rest of the weekend trapping for fun and pictures. Can't wait!!!)