I remember Jim Fustos had posted this to the Hawk-l list server and I had copied
and saved it on my hard drive, it had a date of May 1999. Maybe this sheds a little
more light on his method. Sorry it's not formatted better.


How to Teach an Unhacked Eyas Merlin To Ring Birds
by Jimmy Fustos

It has long been assumed that to teach merlins to ring birds out of
sight took exceptional falcons and careful entering. The falcons had to be
hacked for up to three weeks to become strong flyers and exceptional
footers. They had to be carefully entered and trained in a precise gradual
manner with no mistakes, and even then many didn't make the grade because
they started to bag-off their quarry. That was one way. I will describe another
way that will enliven an unhacked clumsy eyas to easily ring birds out of sight
using shaping and chaining techniques.

After flying merlins for over six years with some successes, some
failures and always confusion, I started applying shaping techniques. While
analyzing ringing flights I heard an offhand comment from an English
falconer and it all became clear. The English falconer reminded me of an
overlooked important point: That eyas merlins rarely catch their quarry in
the air, it usually is caught on the ground. It was that step in the
chaining process that I needed to focus on. All I needed was to shape my
merlins to put quarry to ground. It didn't take incredible stamina, extreme
confidence or haggard style footing to force ringing quarry to the ground.
A young eyas with little flying experience can mount up as fast
as the smaller quarry because of their weight and wing-loading
differences. Once the naive eyas learns that all she needs to do is force
the quarry to ground she rings rather lazily as if she can take the time to
manicure her talons on the way up. The rudiments of forcing quarry to
ground is what I can teach her in the backyard before she is even
hard-pinned.
The backyard training apparatus consists of two one foot long,
two inch diameter plastic pipes laid on the ground about six feet apart.
Secure the pipes so they won't move because they act as a safe refuge for
the sparrows. A nylon string is put through the two pipes and the two ends
are tied together. On the string between the two pipes I attach an English
sparrow with a string harness attached to its wings. I can stand about ten
feet away from the pipes and move the sparrow between them by pulling the
string either way. Block off one end of both pipes, so it is dark inside the
pipes and the sparrow can't be accidentally pulled out of the back end.
To condition the eyas there are three main behaviors I need to
shape to specific objectives. First, she needs to learn to put the same
bird repeatedly into cover during several reflushes. Secondly, she needs to
learn to stay on "point" (stay near the put in and hiding quarry) for three
minutes until I call her to the fist for a reflush. Three minutes is just
an estimated appropriate length of time based on my field experience. Later
in the field she may put quarry in several hundred feet away and she needs
to "point" the quarry until I am able to run up there. It she would leave
the place before I am close enough to identify the exact hiding place, we
may lose the quarry. Landmarks are hard to pick out on the monotonous
prairie. Thirdly, she needs to learn to ride the fist for five minutes
waiting for a flush. Later in the field she may be shaped to ride on the
fist for a much longer time before a flush.
In chaining behaviors together, start teaching the last thing that
happens in the flight first, working backwards.
Teaching sequence:
A. Merlin eats sparrow.
B. Merlin launched from fist and captures sparrow.
C. Merlin comes to fist only on command.
D. Merlin launches from fist and forces quarry to cover(pipe).
E. Repeat C and D three times.
F. Merlin comes to fist only on command.
G. Merlin "points" to hiding place for three minutes.
H. Merlin launches from the fist and puts quarry into pipe the first
time.
I. Merlin rides on fist for five minutes before first flush(being pulled
out of a pipe).
J. Take off hood.
K. Beginning
I did two training sessions a day, one in the morning and one in
the evening. Chain the behaviors together by adding each new behavior after
the previous one is mastered. Reaching the goal behaviors will take less
than a week, but don't rush it, the merlin needs several dozen put ins on
the harnessed sparrow to reinforce that behavior.
A. Before backyard training begins she has eaten several whole
sparrows. I condition her with anti-carrying strategies used for Accipiters
(McElroy,1977). I walk up and around the feeding eyas. At this time I also
condition her to the use of the quarry stick, a proven several hundred year
old anti-carrying technique. It is a 2 and 1/2 feet long 1/2 inch diameter
dowel with a blunted 3/4 inch nail sticking out of the side of one end. I
secure a freshly caught quarry by rolling the nail into the body of the dead
bird from a "safe" distance of about three feet away.
A&B Easy.
AB&C Don't tidbit the merlin when she comes to the fist. Shape
her to learn she only gets the sparrow flushed when she comes to a signal
(whistle) to ride on the fist.
ABC&D Easy
ABCD&E Easy. The merlin may start coming to the fist before the
come whistle is sounded. This is a bad behavior and should never be
reinforced I make sure I only continue the reflushes when she comes to the
fist only on command.
ABCDE&F Easy, nothing new, go to G&H
ABCDEFGH Shape "pointing" on all put-ins now. Shape the length of
the "point" from, let's say, 15 seconds to three minutes by 30 second
intervals. After each intermediate objective is reached about 50% of the
trials start shaping the next intermediate objective until the goal
objective of three minutes is reached. Once she will "point" the first
put-in for three minutes, the reflushes can be made with very short
"pointing" times.
ABCDEFGHI During the whole teaching sequence I have been
inadvertently shaping riding on the fist for longer periods.
The eyas may be doing five minutes already. If not, shape riding on the
fist at this time. One merlin became so wedded to the fist that once she
did catch a bird in the air she flew back to the fist to eat.
All objectives are met. She will ride on the fist for five
minutes, point the first put-in for 3 minutes and try hard on 3 reflushes.
Let's go
hawking. I hunted my merlins in the cool quiet mornings of August and
September. In the evenings I stooped them to the lure in my backyard.
Fly molting adults or young quarry that can barely fly in places
with good cover to entice the quarry to put-in. I fly the merlin with a
transmitter on one leg and a bell on the other leg to deliberately hinder
her from footing the quarry in the air. I want 2 or 3 reflushes before the
quarry is captured. Often after several reflushes the falcon and quarry
will be found sitting on the ground a couple of feet apart, panting. When
the quarry is forced to ground after the first ringing effort it becomes
intimidated and usually never tries to ring again, but only flies a short
distance looking for better cover. If the quarry escapes for good, such as
down a prairie dog burrow, reward the eyas with a dead sparrow pulled out of
the hole. She will be wedded to her quarry after taking about 7 head in 7
days and can now be taken to open ground to hunt high flying young of the
year.
It is stormy when I release the clumsy eyas on a huge flock of autumn
birds. They all ring up out of sight of 7x binoculars and birds start
raining down on me. The quarry is stooping down to nearby bushes or holes
desperately searching for cover. It sobers me to realize that the
individual organism has only a brief glorious existence.
To understand some of the directions on shaping and chaining
techniques study "How to Teach Animals" by B.F. Skinner from Scientific
America, Dec.1951, pp26-29.