-Jeff"You live more for five minutes going fast on a bike like that, than other people do in all of their life." --Marco Simoncelli
The Imprint into Accipiter article was developed while he was working with Prairie falcons. He also usually has a flock of apprentices that he is teaching, and during the time he wrote that article he was guiding them to try his ideas on redtails.
He has specialized in goshawks for the last 13 years, and that is exclusively what he has flown for falconry with the exception of one coopers hawk.
But he has flown almost everything available for falconry, and trained many that are not used for falconry for others.
Geoff Hirschi - "It is better to have lightning in the fist than thunder in the mouth"
Custom made Tail Saver Perches - http://www.myrthwood.com/TieEmHigh/
I also ment to mention that when Layman was coming up with these ideas, he was unsure if an accipiter could even be "switched" to imprint like behavior. Since that time, they have proven to work on accipiters although no one has yet taken a passage tiercel and gotten it be a volontary semen donor yet.
Geoff Hirschi - "It is better to have lightning in the fist than thunder in the mouth"
Custom made Tail Saver Perches - http://www.myrthwood.com/TieEmHigh/
Yes, I understand he has experience with most species. I did not mean to imply in anyway that he only has experience with goshawks or accipiters. The point I was trying to make was that RTs allow you to get away with a lot more than many other species of birds. Just because Layman's techniques may seem like overkill with a RT (to some) doesn't mean you won't see benefits of using them with a RT (which I do).
Thanks!
Jeremy
Jeremy
I know this is quite the old thread, but I had a thought while reading: when taking steps to avoid undesirable trauma learning (hiding face, etc.), would it also be a good idea to trap a bird using an atypical prey item or a prey item you don't intend to hunt? For example, if trapping a kessie to hunt sparrows and starlings, using rodents or insects to do the trapping. I would think a bird trapped on sparrows would develop an aversion to them.
Taking the idea another step forward ,would it be a good idea to trap with something you don't want the bird to hunt? Again, using a kessie as an example, would trapping on a pile of grasshoppers create an aversion to them, and therefore increase the odds that the bird would focus on other prey items?
Has anyone experimented with this?
Steve S.
I know this topic is about birds of prey and associating a bad experience with the falconer, but let me chime in here with an off topic example to confirm the belief that it helps to avoid associating a bad experience with the animal's new handler.
When taming mink I have often had the internal battle of how to put a harness on a mink with out holding them down. With a falcon you can avoid the negative association by not letting them see you when you cast them to put on their equipment. With a mink, however, they see more with their nose than they do their eyes,and there is nothing you can do to block their sense of sell. So throughout the years I've struggled to find a way to put a harness on a mink in the least stressful way possible to avoid that negative first impression. Years later when I finally found a way to do it (I created a little device they run through and it basically puts the harness on for me) I found that the mink did tame down MUCH sooner than the ones that had to be stressed out to put the harness on.
Avoiding that negative association could save me a week or two in the training/taming process with a new mink, and save me a few unexpected bites when I decided to take the glove off.
Joseph Carter-
.
I don't want to belabor a non topic tangent, so will be very brief, but if you think there is nothing you can do to block the sense of smell your just not being creative.
As an example, horses being prey animals themselves, are very sensitive to the smell of blood and raw meat and dead things. An old cowboy trick that is extremely effective to get a deer or elk carcass loaded onto a pack horse is to quickly and gently smear a lot of fresh blood just outside their nostril. Then all the horse can smell is blood, they calm down quickly, and you can load them up. By the time the smell in their nose disappates they are fine with whats on their back.
I have pulled similar tricks with wild (as in barely tame) ferrets when starting to work with them. Not using blood of course. It is pretty difficult to shut downt he sense of smell through something like a hood, but its a cinch to overload it and make it irrelevant.
Geoff Hirschi - "It is better to have lightning in the fist than thunder in the mouth"
Custom made Tail Saver Perches - http://www.myrthwood.com/TieEmHigh/
I totaly agree. They turn out fine either way. It's like having a whisle on your car bumper to scare off elephants on the road. The people who have them have never hit an elephant. They really work well. The people who mask up and hide their face have birds that work out most of the time and so do the ones who don't. To each his own.
Doug
Inside every cynical.person is a disappointed idealist.
The way I see it is that it's worth my effort to cover my face or hands (if I remember to do it). The rewards could be great. Maybe it doesn't do anything but it doesn't take much effort to take the precaution. It's like using pine needles to help ward of asper or help cure it. Has it been proven to work? Maybe not but it is an anti fungal and you bet it's worth the effort to find some pine and use it on my birds. Smells good to!
Isaac
Isaac, the pine needles have been scientifically proven to kill asper spores.
Toby Butterworth
I actually have a trapping disguise...it's a orange yellow blue dreadlock winter cap and a black stocking head mask....an orange/yellow tye dye shirt and bright yellow gloves !
I keep it in a bag in the closet and never take it out unless I am out trapping.
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