Picco - Imprint Coopers Hawk

[rocgwp]

37 days - 341g

It was raining today so I didn't put Picco at hack. He spent the day inside on the perch. I spent the day rewarding him for calm behavior, sitting on the glove, etc...

He goes back to hack tomorrow...

[sevristh]

Was it raining REALLY hard? My experience with my gos was that he LOVED to be wet.

[rocgwp]

It wasn't raining really hard, but there was potential of some thunderstorms later in the day. I could have put him out, but I figured why risk it with potential high winds and him getting blown to the next county.

38 days old - 348g

11 days of hack

He is back at hack today. He didn't eat alot this morning and he weighed 348g. Some of it may be that he didn't expend as much energy yesterday and it might be that he is beginning to absorb some of the blood from his feathers back in. Either way, he should be hungry this evening...

I am working to begin increasing his exercise rate. This morning I began to add another step in the chain, but since he wasn't very interested in food, it didn't go real well. (Nothing went wrong, he just wasn't interested). I am now building the chain leading up to entering and hunting. I have shaped sitting calmly on the glove and looking away from me. I am now transitioning to tossing a tidbit or tidbit on the lure as a reward for the CR from the fist. Once he gets it I can CR him with the lure and the CR returning to the fist and repeating. I am working toward restrained pursuits to build muscle and increase his focus on chasing prey items. Once this chain is established, I should be out hunting...

I also am phasing out his nest bowl now. I could keep it for longer and use it, but he comes down to the lure or fist and is tethered to a perch indoors in the evening. Last night he slept his first night in the giant hood. It was pretty non-eventful. My normal routine for summer hawking is fly early in the morning (before it gets really hot), come home and let the bird weather during the day, bring the bird inside during the evening for socialization, put the bird in the giant hood before I go to bed and have everything laid out to repeat the following day. He is not far from being ready for this routine...

[rocgwp]

39 days old - 347g

12 days of hack

I was able to work on the chain I mentioned yesterday last night. He was really into playing games so we made some progress. When I got home I saw him fly across the road back to our house. By the time I walked in the front door he was in the hack tree already waiting for me to come outside. My daughter was playing in the back yard with some new toys she bought for our dogs. She tossed a rope into the air and the next thing I saw was Picco standing on it trying to pluck it.

This morning I focused primarily on CRing bating and hopefully moving toward putting it on cue. I pulled out the wing on a string to CR him chasing, but it was after he had about half a crop. He'll be more interested this evening.

So far he makes about 4 or 5 different sounds depending on the situation. None of them are the incessant screaming I expected. He is silent about 90% of the time and the other sounds appear to be more social behaviours.

[rocgwp]

Well, it's gonna be a long night tonight. Picco is spending the night out. He is only about 20 yards from my back door, but he either caught something today or stumbled across a nest. He had no interest in eating at all and had a crop on him...

We will see how motivated he is in the morning...

[rocgwp]

I have now climbed a tree twice for this bird. Once to take him from the nest and today to recover his body.

I located Picco's signal this morning. It was odd that he wasn't hungry or responding. I couldn't see him and after a while I knew something was wrong. I climbed the tree and found him laying near the top. He was about 20ft from a transformer. In examining him, it appears he was electrocuted sometime last night or this morning.

To this point, this had become my preferred method of imprinting...


This will be the end of this thread...

[FredFogg]

Oh man, Jeff, that sucks! I was looking forward to seeing how he turned out. The dangers of a hack versus the benifits, it is a tough one! Maybe continue this by pulling a brancher?

[kitana]

Jeff that's terrible, I can't believe this happened. I know we risk loosing our birds at each outing, but not like this before he was ever flown by you.

[frootdog]

Man that sucks. Sorry to hear it Jeff.

[Mike O]

I'm so sorry to hear about this.

[everetkhorton]

Jeff:
Sorry to hear of your loss!.

[Dirthawking]

Dude that sucks! Sorry to hear it. I was looking forward to your thread.

[goshawks00]

Jeff, My condolences...It would seem with all the technologies that are available today, that someone could come up with a bullet proof device that could be safely installed to prevent this type of accident from happening... I know when we moved into our current house I had under ground power installed at least 500 ft from the house and all wires run underground from there also... Yea it cost a bit but < I've never regretted it
Bummer!!! sorry dude...
Alsos raises another one on those 'what would you like NAFA to do for you issues. It would seem that with private ownership, the cost of protection would be a lot cheaper than litigation.
.02

[touyang]

Sorry to hear about your coops, Jeff. I think there should be a requirement for all new power lines be buried. Fortunately, most of my township's distribution lines are underground, only the transmission lines are above ground because it would be too cost prohibitive to bury all those. So there are virtually no transformers around me.

[PeteJ]

Sorry to hear about your coops, Jeff. I think there should be a requirement for all new power lines be buried. Fortunately, most of my township's distribution lines are underground, only the transmission lines are above ground because it would be too cost prohibitive to bury all those. So there are virtually no transformers around me.

Don't be lulled into a false sense of security just because there are no transformers around. I've seen birds electrocuted on poles with just an insulator on top.
Sorry about the Coop Jeff.

[touyang]

Good point, Pete. My concerns would be when I'm out hunting as my area don't have any above ground utilities.

[PeteJ]

I guess what I'm trying to get across to any newbies out there is that the presence of poles is generally enough for me to look elsewhere for a safer place to fly...transformers or not.

[goshawks00]

I agree, I can remember hawking with a guy many years my elder in falconry and him stopping at a spot to hawk... I quickly pointed out several tranformers and at last on high tension line... He still wanted to hawk as he told me it had unbelieveable game there... I passed and left him there... Several weeks later he told me he lost his hawk theee to power lines... old saying" To soon old to late smart"
Barry

[SOF]

Jeff,

I am a fellow clicker trainer, hater of starlings and lover of imprinting. I've been following this thread since Picco was about 2 weeks old. This incident has come as a shock to me, I am gutted for you... I can't imagine loosing my imprint to that. I'll be taking extra precautions when it comes to power lines now.
I am so sorry for your loss.

[moredtailboy]

I am very sorry to hear about your loss I was hoping to be able to compare our two coops I hope things go well for the rest of your season.

[REYNALDO]

im so sorry to hear that!!!

[Robin]

Just read this post...you did great Jeff...cant help things like this from happening. I hope you will give it another go...it was very instructive.

sorry for your loss

Robin
Netherlands