Mielikki

[ikcus]

Another busy week. No major set backs since my last post. Mielikki's weight has been hovering around 1190g. Lots of socialization, and riding in the truck tethered on her bow perch. We had a nice drive to the vinyard early this morning on rough gravel roads to check and feed\water the starlings in the starling trap. She handled the rough roads well. Giant hood will be finished tonight or tomorrow, so that will be our next event on our list. 3 weeks from now we will be on our way to a 8 day camping trip. I planned this right about the time she hard pens. Hopefully we hold it together til then and most importantly after the camping trip.

53days

56days

[FredFogg]

She is looking great Joe! Keep up the great work. Can't wait till you have her chasing game.

[ikcus]

To tell you the true Fred, ME TOO!

[ikcus]

Mielikki update: 61 days, 1255g this morning and she is starting to slow down on eating. One to one and a half quail a day. I did run into a territorial food issue with the family room she has been raised in. There is definitely an aggression issue with this area. I have already prepped another spare room, and the carpet remnant comes early tomorrow afternoon to cover the slippery hardwood floor. Currently she is perched on her GH in the front yard. At dusk I will bring her into the garage as usual, and keep her out here with me until bedtime. Mielikki will spend her last night in the family room tonight, and then be transferred to the front yard tomorrow at first light. Once the carpet remnant comes in, she will sleep and spend the morning to early afternoon in the new room.
The plan for the next step, is to keep her calm and my friend for the next 4-5 weeks and then slowly bring her down. I really wish this was different and I could hack her, but........I don't think my situation or my juevos could justify doing it.
Currently, we are sitting out in the front yard with the neighbors dog that got out, and watching the police helicopter hover at 300 feet above us. Also, I am enjoying an ice cold beer in the 100 degree heat.

61 days out in the heat.

[ikcus]

A good day for both of us. The new room is complete with the new carpet remnant for Mielikki, and she was as calm as a butterfly when I picked her up this morning. No aggression, no sound. Just a perfect girl. New surrounding and no old stress.
We worked on the GH for the morning and mid day small feeding with good success. The heat held off and only got up to 94 degrees today. Before our evening feeding, we walked to the park and encountered plenty of new people. Before arriving home, the neighbor was having his car towed to the shop on a flatbed. There were eight to nine little kids around, petting Mielikki, and asking questions. Mielikki could care less about all the noise and distractions. She handled it very well. We ended the session, with her eating a starling next to the busy street in the neighbor's yard, and the police helicopter over head.
I hope to continue this tread until we end our camping trip and she hard pens . Once this is completed, I will have to plan our slow weight drop, and nice walks in the fields.

[ikcus]

Things are going well. Mielikki is 68days old now. I got her weight figured out which has been helpful. 1215-1225g she is super mellow. 1230g and above she is cranky. 1200g-1210g she comes to the lure within 10 seconds. Anything under 1200g she is noisy. Feathers are still in blood, so I have just been keeping her happy, exposing her to lots of situations watching out for stress. Our evening feed consists of a 1\8 of a mile walk to then find the lure in some new location\situation. She does really good riding the fist and seems to really like the walks. Still working on the GH.

68 days old, and keeping quiet in the heat.

[ikcus]

Mielikki is starting to hard pen. I can see it in her eyes, feather shafts and general attitude. I plan on getting her into the field very soon. I will not be cutting weight, but want her to start chasing game and building some muscle.

71 days sunning in the front yard.

[ikcus]

Mielikki continues to move forward in her progress. Everything is going as planned. We did not go on our camping trip this year, and I have been in the field working with her once or twice a day for the last 10 days and spending a lot of time with her. We still have a lot of weight to melt, but that has been going down in 5-7g increments a week. She is currently at 1187g. I am hoping to get her to chase game in the next week or two, but I am not rushing anything. Like I really want to hunt in the heat!

[raptrlvr]

Looks great Joe. I agree with you about being out in the heat. I have had Zeva out 2 times already and am planning on taking her out again tomorrow in the heat. Even the rabbits don't want to come out.

[ikcus]

Not much to update. Mielikki is down in the 1150's now, and we have a ways to go. We are down to one feeding a day which has been real nice. She is only noisy on approach to her perch and even then it is very minimal. Today she was very quiet. Mielikki did un-tie herself yesterday while I was at work and was sleeping on her old nest bean bag when my daughter arrived home. She then proceeded to follow my daughter around until I got home. My daughter was on the computer doing her homework with a Goshawk standing next to the keyboard watching the screen.

[ikcus]

Mielikki and I went out on our first official hunt this evening. Needless to say I am smiling. She weighed in at 1139g before we went out. Is she a tad noisy? Yes, but nothing that is insane. She does talk, but is not a true screamer. She does like to express herself. Being the wife does not complain or the neighbors, she is just where I think she needs to be.
The first foot slip we got on a jack this evening was perfect. Mielikki grabbed fur, got bucked, and still got right back up and chased. Needless to say I was thrilled. Was she pissed after the miss? Yes. She half assed attacked my feet. I laughed and had a wonderful grin on my face.
The hunt ended with the final count of: In total, 5 chases on jacks with one grab, two chases on pheasants with a near connection and one chase on a CT.
The only bag I have given her is a quail. This was only to test the emergency recall if necessary and she smoked it.
I have to say, the best result of the day was seeing her in the house tonight after our hunt, completely quiet and begging me to turn off the lights so she could sleep. I just checked on her and she is out like a light.
The season has begun, and it felt real good. It is time for me to push her and put as much game in front of her as I can. I really hope she scores soon. She deserves it.

[Ross]

Sounds like a great first outing. She keeps doing that and it won't be long until she connects.

[jfseaman]

Goog going Joe

[ikcus]

Nothing as of yet. We have had some good days and yes, we have had some bad. The bad being Mielikki did spend a whole night out camping by herself. I got her down at first light and I got my first sleepless Gos night. She was pouting like a pro that night from not connecting and being high in weight. We have since had some very good days with some minimal weight reduction 1120g. Mielikki is still grabbing jacks but has not been able to hold on. She is still butt grabbing. We came close on Sunday, and she has been crashing well, and her immature wing overs are looking fine as she crashes through six feet of brush. As for her vocals she is still a tad noisy, but from what I have seen, a Gos needs to work for each and everything it needs. Tire them out and they stay happy and quiet. Give them the easy route and they will exploit you in a heartbeat. No bags as of yet, and I think we have a good weight to execute a nice jack. Next week the weather will subside from the 100's and dip down to the 80's. We are close.

[ikcus]

The butt grabbin ended tonight. Mielikki got her first jack of the season!
We started flying at 1080g and she nabbed her jack tonight at 1155g. Imprints can be some work, but tonight the work paid off. I do have to thank the nice cool weather though....Thanks mamma nature.
No bags needed.

[Ross]

Way to go!

[Chad L.]

BANGO! Your on your way. Awesome job Joe!

[jnelly32]

Excellent! I've been anxiously awaiting this post. Great work.

[Dirthawking]

Now if that ain't an Easter bunny picture! Way to go!

[Hawkingcolorado]

NICE!!!!!!!!

[ikcus]

Quick update: Sorry for the shitty cell phone pic.


I still have both of my eyes and no holes in my face. Since the hot weather has left us, Mielikki and myself have made some really good progress within the last two weeks. So far, I am pleased. 1174g

[Ross]

Good to hear Joe. I have wondered how much tougher falconry would be in areas where you don't have cold temps. I guess cooler helps enough. Do you have gamebirds or waterfowl to hawk locally? Not that jacks aren't cool enough.

[ikcus]

Yes, the cooler weather has been a real help for both of us. Ross, we do have pheasants and ducks to fly, but the jacks are most plentiful. Yesterday before she took the jack she had a nice long pheasant flight. I will be bagging her real soon on a pheasant to let her know they are worth the long flights. The ducks are coming in, but we need some more rain to make duck hawking easier and closer to home.

[FredFogg]

She is looking great Joe! Congrats!

[tumble]

Congrats, Joe. Glad to see the weather is turning for you and your bird is doing some culling. We're back up in the 50's and 60's at the moment. Good for the heat bill, I guess.

[ikcus]

Long time no update. Mielikki and myself are still truckin along with positive results. The jack population has really taken a dive here, but we are still trying to focus on feather instead of fur to end the season. We have taken enough jacks this season and will let them try to re-populate next year but even this looks grim. I think the jack population will crash pretty hard the next couple of years. Starting on jacks has really taught me plenty with my first Gos. I really wanted to take some pheasants this year with her but we have not been successful. I think the jacks played big a part in these results. To expand let me say that Mielikki learned very quickly that jacks in my area are very easy to catch. In my area, I mean open fields with perfect straight line of sight flights that ended in success. Ducks close to home have been a challenge being we have only had 4.11in of rain this year. If I had time with work being so damn busy, maybe we would have got a few with travel, but I also feel ducks would have been like hunting jack rabbits and not got us to the point of pursuing a pheasant for a half mile to a mile. The opportunistic hunter of Mielikki needs to be addressed. If you start from the beginning of this thread I was not for the pursuit of bagged game, but I will revert and say, we need to do some if we want to have a good pheasant season next year. Live and learn, and choose wisely. We plan to end the season ambushing crows from foot being we cannot car hawk and then enter the moult with plenty of handling and fitness flights on the rope. Once pheasant seasons opens next year we will be giving the poults hell and let the jacks recover in my area. Mielikki and myself had a pretty good year. For my first imprint Finn, I give myself a C-. I did not flunk out, but I definitely have a better plan for the future. The good thing is I can't see myself without a Gos for a long time. Thanks to everyone that has helped and listened to our progress. We could not have done it without you.

[allredone]

Sounds like a great season to me. It'll be really interesting to see what she's like next year. I always feel like hawks study last years notes somehow while in the molt and come out of it better like they had been thinking about next season the whole time just like we are. I'll be anxious to see some molt pics!

Congratulations Joe.

[Ross]

Good to hear an update. Doing well on jacks even "easy" ones is still an accomplishment. I believe with a couple bags to get her going pheasants will also prove easy for her. If you can find some pheasant carcasses to feed during the molt that will help make her more interested next fall.

[Ally]

Not much to update. Mielikki is down in the 1150's now, and we have a ways to go. We are down to one feeding a day which has been real nice. She is only noisy on approach to her perch and even then it is very minimal. Today she was very quiet. Mielikki did un-tie herself yesterday while I was at work and was sleeping on her old nest bean bag when my daughter arrived home. She then proceeded to follow my daughter around until I got home. My daughter was on the computer doing her homework with a Goshawk standing next to the keyboard watching the screen.

That is awesome.

Just read through the thread, and congratulations She seems like she's wonderful.
Good luck on both your future endeavors!

[raptrlvr]

Great season Joe.

[lewsouder]

Hey Joe...planning an "End of Season" hunt here the first weekend of March. Sal, Dave H.,and Erland coming down so far. Give me a call.

[ikcus]

Mielikki made it through the moult, but her name was changed. Mamma, and the daughter have changed her name to Pippa. Pippa had a nice moult with a big scare of WN about six weeks ago. She was closing one eye for three weeks, but seems to be doing very well as I write this. Today was the first time I had handled her since I put her up. I let her grow up and mature free lofted in her condominium for the last few months, and only fed her through the food chute with a remote watering system. She acted like a b@tch the entire time through the moult (as I was outside of her chamber), but as I took her down in weight the last week, she was completely scared of me inside the chamber until tonight. She hoped to the fist tonight like a perfect lady, and has been sitting on the pole perch in the garage for the last two hours (not one bate and a foot tucked). I have waited for this day since I got her. I knew the journey would be long if I took my time with her. I never pushed her last year, and now I have a completely silent, well mannered gal, with no aggression that I know will be hell on wheels this year. I am all smiles tonight.

First shot after being put on the pole perch just five minutes from picking her up


After a couple of hours taking in the scenery

[FredFogg]

Joe, she is beautiful! But man, cope that beak, she looks like a parrot! LOL

[ikcus]

Today was the first time I had handled her since I put her up.

She should look like a snail eater. I have not touched her in months.

[allredone]

Cool Thanks for posting. i've been curious how she looks now since we talked a couple weeks back. She does kinda look like a snail kite.

What is the daisy chain thing on the perch?