Originally Posted by
PeteJ
A couple of things to keep in mind I suppose. Hawks are not falcons. They think completely different. In many ways I have felt that they are much smarter and quicker to pick up the subtleties of our behavior that leads to food acquisition for them. I think with imprint accipiters, particularly the smaller and more aggressive ones, you are unlikely to not experience some aggression during the first few months. They seem to suffer a bit more from frustration (which can come in handy later on as it can forcibly direct intensity toward quarry) and as such will display such feelings toward the falconer, the perch, the dog, whatever is handy. As they grow up (from the stage of yours and older) they begin to exhibit a state of yarak, which is not so easily seen (if it occurs at all) in falcons. Accipiters tend to have the most obvious visible outward expression of this state (yarak) by their posture and behavior (clutching the glove repeatedly, mock lunging at your face, crest raising and lowering, wings dropping slightly, erect stance).
Each bird is slightly different in their expression of yarak, some are extreme, some are subtle. The point being, these are aggressive birds. They have to be. They can't be as common as they are throughout the world without having some mechanism to keeping them in that population status. So, understand that you will be unlikely to not have aggression presenting itself to you during handling of these birds.
The other thing is, and this is fortunate for us, that this aggression can be focused and directed toward quarry. It will allow a build up of the aggression they are feeling by releasing it on quarry or on attacking of quarry. Many of the handling problems we encounter with Accipiters go away quite quickly once they begin killing prey. I know people over here that are working with Cooper's Hawks (like I currently have) that firmly believe that the more killing you let these young birds partake in, the better off you will be. I knew one falconer that said he had to kill at least five head a day with his young tiercel Cooper's imprint to ward off the aggressive attacks on himself. I have yet to really experience that with my tiercel but he's not quite in the field yet as his tail is just now drawing down the blood, and his weight is still highish, but lower than it was. But his tolerance is also very limited and I can tell by feeling his breast that I am still at least about nearly an ounce too high. In other words, right now he's being a spoiled rotten little brat! But, he does have all the things learned that are necessary to get into the field. He will get the lure fairly readily, and he will transfer off to food on the fist. He will also come to the fist, but he is still a bit reluctant at first, and will go to other perches to sort of sneak up on the glove before he makes his move. That tells me he's just too high in weight.
But, I have also seen that his aggression is building quickly now. I have seen him attempt to kill yard birds that land on the roof of his weather pen, or walk too close to it. I have also seen him fly across the pen to hit the chain link trying to get at the hunting dog he will be working with. I hate to say it, but that is what the dog is there for....to take some of the inevitable heat from the hawk off of me. The dog doesn't know this yet.LOL I have also seen him bouncing around from perch to perch in the weathering pen, all the while eye balling me in a subtle way, screaming (food begging/contact call), then suddenly kind of go at the side of the pen that is adjacent to where I am sitting in a lawn chair outside observing him. You could see his crest going up and his frustration building that he couldn't access me directly. He was getting pretty mad about it. Some of that is hunger of course, but in truth, he's not really that hungry yet. But, he just thinks he is.
And when on the fist or lure he's very aggressively mantling now. But these are normal behaviors. If you look at any documentary footage of just about any Accipiters nests from across the globe, you will notice that the young get very very aggressive with the adults just at fledging time and beyond. I think that it is not that they are needing more food, its just part of them growing up and the yarak coming to the forefront. Yarak is, in a way, a saving protocol for them. It pushes them to think about killing before they actually need to. It keeps them 'at the ready' for opportunities that may present themselves at any moment for potential meals. In extreme conditions of cold, this is what allows them to live through some very rough winter conditions. If they wait until they are hungry and in real need, they may be confronted by impossible stormy conditions (blizzards for instance) and be unable to find food and starve. So yarak is a good mechanism to help motivate these birds when they may not necessarily be in need of food desperately.
The sooner you can get your bird into killing the better off you will be, and Bami's suggestion to keep working with the frozen baggie is as good a way as possible if you don't have living bags that you can set up, or actual free living prey to let it try out.
I did look up weights on Shikras the other day and was surprised at how little weight information there was on them online. Do you know if yours is a male or female? I was trying to get a sense of whether you were getting close to a good flying weight for whichever sex, but it seemed a bit vague (both sexes would be somewhere between 100-200 grams?). I had always thought them to be larger and heavier than this...reminiscent of our Cooper's Hawk. But instead its more in the range of our Sharp-shinned Hawk I guess. Very small. My tiercel Coop is likely going to be flying somewhere around 350ish initially...perhaps a little lower. Right now he's around 367 and being a total jerk about many things.
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