Meet Bullet

[rocgwp]

Here's a few from this morning. I take no credit for the pics. A friend of mine takes some great pictures of a really fast bird...

Bullet and Sparrows


Bullet Chasing Sparrow


Bullet Closing In On Sparrow

[FredFogg]

Awesome pictures Jeff, your friend is a great photographer! It is funny how we see our birds fly every day and don't realize how they really fly until we see them in photo's. I have never noticed my coops wings touch each other on the down stroke(picture 1), but seeing it in these pictures, you know it happens. Love the photo's, more, more, more!

[everetkhorton]

Jeff:
Great picture, thanks for posting!

[rocgwp]

Well, Bullet's season has come to an end this year. He caught 80 wild birds and close to 50 or 60 "preserve" quail. He has been the funnest bird I have flown so far. I never had any of the problems associated with a coops (as long as I flew him at weight). He was like flying a super fast harris hawk. I am putting him up and intend to do a forced molt so he is ready to hunt this next summer.

I trapped a passage hen harris that I intend to fly through the winter months. If all goes well, I will have a summer bird and a winter bird.

[Takasho]

If all goes well, I will have a summer bird and a winter bird.

Sounds like a great season! Makes me want to fly a male coops even more than I already did! And year round hawking? Can't beat that!

Good luck with the new Harris and the winter season!

[FredFogg]

If all goes well, I will have a summer bird and a winter bird.

Jeff,

That is what I did for 3 seasons! I flew a red-tail in the fall/winter and the coops in the spring/summer! Next spring is going to be wierd as I won't have the coops. I may have to go to Kentucky and pull a sharpie next June.

[virdz]

You talk about a musket, so I´inclined to believe your experience was with a sparrowhawk (Accipiter nisus). The nisus, although delicate and nervous, is far less problematic than a coopers hawk. You can have a few omissions on a spar and you could be forgiven, but not with a coops (there are always exceptions).
For example, I have my own "recipe" and I do call to the glove and none of my birds are sticky footed no grabbers, but it took me years to fine tune it. I think for the average the best bet is the proven method. I have seen coops not socialized that even the SOUND of a distant car made them go crazy....

I am not convinced that you need to socialise an imprint with hundreds of hours of bombardment with new stimuli.
There has been on one or more occasions where the hawk that became rock steady had hardly any interaction with new people new places the last musket spar I bought from the breeder a week or so from hard pining had never seen the outside world until
I picket him up; he was raised in the home with a few other spars and was hand fed until he could take food from the dish but as far as socialising goes he seen very little.
Same hawk is the steadiest spar I have ever owned so steady he gave semen this year.
Personally I believe it the nature hawk that is going to determine more than anything else how things turn out. Alf.

[virdz]

Sorry I replied to the last message on the FIRST page (Duh!) and didn´t realize about the progress (was wondering how you got such a young eyass in late-october).
Congratulations! How are you planning to molt the coops?
Best regards,

[everetkhorton]

Jeff:
Are you going to free loft Bullet? How long will it take to molt out Bullet? I am thinking of doing about the same thing but later in the year. CJ is a late brancher. How much above Bullets flying wt. will you keep him? Will you still do a lot of handling and manning? Sorry for all the questions but I know zero about Cooper's Hawk and how to maintain them through the molt.

[rocgwp]

Bullet is officially molting now. He has dropped 4 wing feathers. I have him free lofted in his chamber with no problems thus far. I am keeping light on him 24 hours a day with his window covered. He is being fed via a timed cat feeder like the one in a recent hawk chalk article. The only modification is it is installed like a kitchen drawer and can be restocked from outside the chamber. He is completely silent and still tame. He is more jumpy than normal, but that is to be expected since he is ~100 grams over his flying weight. Hopefully he'll be ready to go when the birds come back late this spring. I have high hopes for him this next season. I'd like to train him to retrieve his kills to the fist and to hood. Both using operant conditioning. I'm starting a new thread under Shortwings to discuss it.

[Mike O]

Great thread!!

What happened to Bullet? Did he molt out okay? Were you ever able to fly him again?

[OATS]

Great resurrected thread. It was before my time here at NAFEX so I was glad it came back too life. Pretty interesting read. Like Mike O, I'm curious too.

[rocgwp]

Unfortunately Bullet died at the beginning of his second season. He molted out great, but died from a stroke caused by a collision.