Phoenix (nickname Finn the Shin)

[echotadog]

That is fantastic!

[Breeze]

Awesome pics of your bird, Wes! Enjoyed watching the changes - that's truly a lovely bird you have! Will be watching for hunting pics/news. Go Finn!

[calebstroh]

Wes,

He is just gorgeous! Perhaps its the camera or the lighting, but he has some very "red" hughes in his feathers.

The excitement begins!

caleb

[wesleyc6]

Wes,

He is just gorgeous! Perhaps its the camera or the lighting, but he has some very "red" hughes in his feathers.

The excitement begins!

caleb

Thanks Caleb. You are right, there is some red for sure in there. I think he is a pretty little bugger too.

I let him kill another baggie tonight. He chased it hard in the air in my bedroom but missed it. When he caught it on the ground, he really just plays with it and when I open it up, he really isn't very interested to be honest. He was 114 g tonight. He has got to be almost hard penned if he isn't already. I am going to begin to feed him a gram less each morning and all he wants every evening for a while until I get him down to one feeding a day and by that time, hopefully he will be more solid outside and I won't be so nervous to turn him loose. Right now there is no doubt in my mind it would be back up in a tree and I would wait a long time or maybe forever for him to come back down. He still is tight winged on the lure and kill, no mantling. I have noticed he takes food a little bit more aggressively since we don't do the mid day feeding thing. I didn't mean to go to two a day, but my wife misunderstood a few days ago and skipped it so I decided to just go with that for a while with all he wants in the morning and evening. Now like I said I am at the point where I am going to taper the morning one off. Time to start moving the little guy toward hunting.

[jeffandheidi]

Did he take a while to go after his first baggie? I haven't caught any for a couple days, but the last several I offered he just watched and eventually turned his back and started preening. Even with dead and opened birds mine still takes his time and eats very little. I think he will be penned by the end of the week but hasn't yet.

[wesleyc6]

Did he take a while to go after his first baggie? I haven't caught any for a couple days, but the last several I offered he just watched and eventually turned his back and started preening. Even with dead and opened birds mine still takes his time and eats very little. I think he will be penned by the end of the week but hasn't yet.

He grabbed the first one I showed him a couple of days ago, but yes it took quite a while and he wasn't serious about it at all. Yesterday he tried to fly the bird down when it crossed the room. He still didn't even eat when I opened it up. He just plucked a second and then hopped off. I brought him back in the living room and he fed off the bird on the lure. Does your bird make noise when he flies? Finn gives a soft call sometimes from the perch, but when he leaves a perch from elsewhere in the house, I know he is coming because he makes noise while flying. I checked him last night and he isn't hard penned yet either.

[JeffNH]

Really enjoying these Sharpie threads...He looks like he is going to be a blast to fly!

[jeffandheidi]

Yes, he peeps with his beak closed sometimes, especially when I'm picking him up. When he bates he always squeaks during the launch.

[wesleyc6]

Neat to see them all progress about the same way. Today Finn got 5g this am and took him outside this afternoon for some lure calls and glove calls. His response is poor as would be expected at this point, but he will come to both at his own pace. He was 112g and took a 16g crop. I suspect with no lunch time meals now and the smaller morning meal the amount he eats in the afternoon will increase some. It is already amazing how much less he eats now than when he was in the rapid growth stage. He is making a little more noise, so I wouldn't be surprised if we don't at least go through a noisy stage. I hope it will be brief. It will take a few days to see if his weight inches down with him eating all he wants in the evenings still. If it doesn't, then I will start slowly cutting the evening feed.

[wesleyc6]

[wesleyc6]

Finn is still doing well. I am dragging my feet a little with lowering weight. My little girl had tonsil surgery and then worked till late last night, so I have been erring on the side of caution with lowering his weight. I think he is penned. I can't see any blood now. He is so much fun to watch. He preens ALL the time on his little perch and he peeps quite a bit during the day. I just took him for a ride in the car on the glove and he did so good. It is amazing how calm he is with pretty much anything new you introduce. He bates very little except some late evening/night. He is also the KING of having ADD. Everything distracts the little guy. You can try to call him to the lure and he will be about to take off and then he will see an ant and he has to look at it and turn his head upside down to see how it looks that way and then back to the lure and then it is a bird and then a butterfly and ........well you get the point. In the mornings he seems hungrier now to start the day. Tonight he didn't eat as much as normal so tomorrow morning he should be more focused and I don't have to work until 9:30am so I will get to train him for his morning feed. I haven't started hooding him yet. I will be doing it with OC training and won't start for a while still. I didn't really notice anything odd with hard penning. I will have to say he is by far the most fun so far of anything I have imprinted. I am ready though to get to the serious part of any hawk........the hunting.

[wesleyc6]

Here is my new Barbary

[wesleyc6]

Finn playing with his paper ball. He will kill it then fly off to the kitchen and then come back in here and kill it again. Very funny

[steveo_uk]

Finn playing with his paper ball. He will kill it then fly off to the kitchen and then come back in here and kill it again. Very funny

Nice Shot !

[Chris L.]

Fantastic shot Wes!!

[wesleyc6]

Fantastic shot Wes!!

Thanks guys! That is the old canon rebel you recommended I get years ago Chris.

[Chris L.]

Thanks guys! That is the old canon rebel you recommended I get years ago Chris.

I'm happy I gave out some good advice, It doesn't happen often . Keep the awesome pics coming!

[wesleyc6]

I'm happy I gave out some good advice, It doesn't happen often . Keep the awesome pics coming!

I try to give good advice one a year.........sometimes I have to stretch it a bit longer than a year to get it in

[rocgwp]

How's he doing Wes? It's been several days since an update. That's about a month in sharpie time. :-)

[wesleyc6]

Hey Jeff,
Yeah, it is all super high speed. I wish I could keep up with him. LOL. We have had a LOT of rain for last three weeks and have been working like a dog. He is coming short distances outside to the lure, but is soooo unfocused. He is making more noise in the house and can be a little hot acting first thing in the morning and in the evening when I pick him up, but then becomes a sweetie as soon as I pick him up. I think part of the problem is that we have been feeding him some on his platform and won't be doing that anymore. He cleans his lure, slowly, and then hops up to the glove. He weighs 104g now and is definitely still very high. With working such crazy hours lately I have been erring on the side of high with him on weight control. Here is a pic from today.

[wesleyc6]

Had a little better response today. I got rid of the Teflon ribbon jesses tonight. What I didn't like about them was the "hole". The Teflon is hollow and even when I use a soldering iron to punch the hole it didn't always seal it correctly and so when using a costa lock it would slide inside the hollow ribbon and just got to be aggravating. They were half the weight of leather, so that was nice and they were actually easy to hold too, however I am back to good ol' leather.

[wesleyc6]

102g today. I went outside to train on the creance again, but saw I had caught a baggie. So instead of setting it all up outside I just went into a room with no mirrors or visible windows and released the bird. Finn watched it make the first leg of the flight and then was off and caught it kind of in a corner. I lifted them both out to the open and gave Finn some time to pluck. Once he got to plucking well, I marked it and then offered the lure and he let go immediately. I was glad to see that. He is still turning his back some which I don't like, but other than that it was a good experience. The bird was about half his weight.

[wesleyc6]

I have done jump ups with a kestrel hundreds of times but I gotta admit it is hard for your mind to register that the sharpie has left the ground before he on the glove! So fast!

[wesleyc6]

Finn is getting more focused as the weight drops...........no surprise there huh. Anyway, what I see right now is that even though I weather him some outside for hours at a time when we go outside he always immediately drops his wings like he is sunning. When I put him on the creance perch, he still looks like he is sunning, but when I call him the first time, he flies to the glove like someone set his tail on fire. He mantles on the glove. I usually wait until his stands up with good manners and then mark it and tidbit. Hopefully that will eventually stick in his little head. He came to the lure today about 50ft or so. I will be done with the creance by the weekend with him and will start trying to walk him some or slip him out the window. Sometimes he makes noise, most of the time actually and other times he is quite. He mantles on the lure too, but when done, he will hop up to the glove. It is still pretty shocking to me how quickly the sharpies do everything. Whether in the air or on the ground they are just super quick. His keel is still completely round feeling. Still let him fly in the house some and he is just a hoot to watch. If I walk in the other room, he will come zipping in there and swoop by my head or land on my shoulder or at my feet or just lap around me and come back in the living room. I am not sure why, but for some reason I am more attached to this bird than I usually am. I don't usually worry about something happening to a falconry bird. I do all I can to protect them of course, but don't have "worry". For some reason with Finn, I have that. Maybe because he is so little.

[jeffandheidi]

Hey Wes, it sounds like you're almost there! What was his weight today? How many feedings or training sessions are you doing? I've been giving Spaz about five grams in the morning, a late afternoon training sessions for about 12-15 grams and then a 10 pm topoff to make weight the following morning.

[BestBeagler]

Wes, enjoying the updates.

[wesleyc6]

Hey Wes, it sounds like you're almost there! What was his weight today? How many feedings or training sessions are you doing? I've been giving Spaz about five grams in the morning, a late afternoon training sessions for about 12-15 grams and then a 10 pm topoff to make weight the following morning.

I would have to look at log. I think 96 or 97. It was a one gram drop. I meant to include that after that first call or two response slows dramatically. I wish I had started dropping weight a bit earlier and more steady but my schedule has been terrible for last month so I was hesitant to try and lower weight then. Now I may be going a bit too quickly but it is time I think to get him going to avoid problems that might occur from dragging feet too long getting in the field. Once he is reliable I will slow weight loss down to half a gram a day as we find the best weight for him.

[jeffandheidi]

Ok, thanks Wes. My birds response also slows from mediocre to nil after a couple bites. Our birds have been so similar all along, it is helpful to compare. I will plan to be at 98 grams tomorrow.

[wesleyc6]

Ok, thanks Wes. My birds response also slows from mediocre to nil after a couple bites. Our birds have been so similar all along, it is helpful to compare. I will plan to be at 98 grams tomorrow.

I dropped Finn another gram. He did really well coming to the glove today. He comes so fast and hits it so hard the first few times that he makes the tiny little creance swivel sting when it hits my arm Only thing, other than mantling that he did today that wasn't so great was for some reason after several glove calls and a lure call to finish up with, he blew off the lure instead of coming back up to the glove. His first several calls are easily good enough to take off the creance, but after a few calls I wouldn't trust him too much yet. Last night I fed him late because of work issues and he flew off the refrigerator, tried to grab the tidbit as he went by, missed, banked and returned to the glove and it happened so fast my hand never moved. I am anxious to see just how fast he really is when on an open flight with more ground to cover. In the house he can do things I just find hard to believe. Finn bates at my Barbary when I come through the house with him on the glove. I think Finn wants to eat him for real.

I found out today that I am going to be starting to interpret again during the week which means I will be back to a regular schedule which will be so nice!

[wesleyc6]

The weekend has been crazy schedule wise, so Finn has been at weight, but off schedule. I decided tonight to just go ahead and fly him free even though he was a gram heavier. It was very late, so I figured that would be on my side too. I took him out and set him on a perch and he was instant. I set him on another perch and got pretty far away and he was on the way in a flash. I took him to another perch and when I started to set him down, he took off and went up in an oak tree. I called once and he didn't come, but I called again and he came right in. So I decided to put him back on the perch I tried to set him on the first time and walked past another oak tree and turned to call him. About that time a cardinal tried to come in one last time for a feed and Finn came off that perch with bad intentions, but the cardinal made good his escape into the thick branches of the live oak. Pretty fun training session for sure. I got the mx392 out today and cut a lot of antennae off and it weighs 4g. I guess I am going to try to hang it from the neck because I don't have a micro back pack and my anklets are grommetless and that is a pain for attaching xmitters and I would just think that a bewit would be tedious on a shin. Getting so close!

[jeffandheidi]

Hey Wes, that sounds like a great training session. He even got a chase, and he came home. Can't beat that!

Where did you guys settle in for a current weight? I'm still dealing with some serious distractions and lack of lure interest at 97g today.

[wesleyc6]

Hey Wes, that sounds like a great training session. He even got a chase, and he came home. Can't beat that!

Where did you guys settle in for a current weight? I'm still dealing with some serious distractions and lack of lure interest at 97g today.

Yes, it was by far the best ever and it was at dusk, so I bet that helped a lot. He was 96g today, but the scale tickled 95 before settling. I ordered a new Ohaus Fri that does 0.1g's. I know with my kestrels I wanted the 1/10's but I didn't feel like it was important yet, but now I am getting to the point that it is time to start knowing to the tenth. Today is also the first time I started using truly tiny tidbits as before I have been using large tidbits and he fills up so quickly. I see no reason to not be hunting by this weekend with Finn if not sooner. I believe if I had walked a field today he would have chased.

[wesleyc6]

Tried to carhawk Finn yesterday. I didn't ride him around a lot as a chick. It took him a bit to settle. He only bated once, but stayed "skinny". After a bit, he roused and fluffed out and eventually even sunned while on the glove. I did find a perfect slip with small birds milling around near a puddle on a field edge, and he eventually went out, but without conviction. I probably will have to bag him on one out the window. However his behavior was great as was his recall. So getting closer for sure. Bought a new scale for him and attached a Styrofoam block to it and I love it. My old scale was a 1g increment scale and this is 0.1g, so I can be more exact. I have started weathering him a LOT outside. So far his feathers are perfect using the perch Bluejack posted on here. I am very pleased with them. I am using a neck mount mx392 and it seems fine. Yesterday was the first time with it on and he ignored it for a while and then played with it a while.

[Breeze]

Still enjoying following your thread, Wes! GREAT photos, too!

[wesleyc6]

Still enjoying following your thread, Wes! GREAT photos, too!

Thanks!