Disguising your face

[outhawkn]

I absolutely believe in hiding yourself, it does make a difference and makes all the initial processes much easier. Such a simple thing to do, why wouldn't you avoid any potential negatives of you/your face or your hand?

Hi Jeff

In what way does it make a difference?

[JRedig]

Hi Jeff

In what way does it make a difference?

Hey Bill, it works on quite a few levels, IMO.

If the bird does not have a big negative experience with you and handling it initially (think the classic freshly trapped redtail pose), you have that much less to overcome in manning. The bird will not have to be reduced as much in weight, if at all and will trust you much sooner.

That keeps the bird in better health and can help fend off things like asper taking hold. Why take them through the process of losing conditioning etc if you don't have too?

If the first time the bird see's you and your hand, there is food and a quiet dimly lit room, what association does that establish from the beginning? A positive one. Why create more work for yourself? Sure they can have short term memories and forget all that stuff, i'd just rather avoid it and make progress sooner.

[Lowachi]

Hey Bill, it works on quite a few levels, IMO.

If the bird does not have a big negative experience with you and handling it initially (think the classic freshly trapped redtail pose), you have that much less to overcome in manning. The bird will not have to be reduced as much in weight, if at all and will trust you much sooner.

That keeps the bird in better health and can help fend off things like asper taking hold. Why take them through the process of losing conditioning etc if you don't have too?

If the first time the bird see's you and your hand, there is food and a quiet dimly lit room, what association does that establish from the beginning? A positive one. Why create more work for yourself? Sure they can have short term memories and forget all that stuff, i'd just rather avoid it and make progress sooner.

Pretty much what I was told in Colorado when I picked up my first peregrine from Sam Dollar. I believe in it.

[Saluqi]

Hi Jeff

In what way does it make a difference?

I can tell you the theory behind it, or at least my hackneyed version. It's based on "trauma learning", which is basically anything that is learned while in a trauma state is very difficult to unlearn. So if you trap a bird on a BC let's say, and you go running up to the bird and it flips on its back, feet out front, hackles up, hissing the bird is in a trauma state. If the first thing it sees are my big old hands grasping for for it, and my big old ugly head leaning over it, and staring at it with my big eyes (often thought of as an act of aggression in the animal world), then there is a good chance that the bird will learn automatically to fear hands, people in general, and me specifically. Now imagine approaching the bird while holding a big beach towel in front of you and placing it over the bird so it never gets to see you, you've more or less eliminated the people from the equation in the trauma learning sequence. In my experience the less trauma inflicted on a bird, the more steady and less fear that bird will show in the future. I'm still amazed that more people don't keep freshly trapped birds hooded until well after they are eating on the fist, I know the total immersion approach works with redtails and most other birds, but using the slow "bringing into the light" approach makes for a steadier bird in the long term.

[outhawkn]

Hey Bill, it works on quite a few levels, IMO.

If the bird does not have a big negative experience with you and handling it initially (think the classic freshly trapped redtail pose), you have that much less to overcome in manning. The bird will not have to be reduced as much in weight, if at all and will trust you much sooner.

That keeps the bird in better health and can help fend off things like asper taking hold. Why take them through the process of losing conditioning etc if you don't have too?

If the first time the bird see's you and your hand, there is food and a quiet dimly lit room, what association does that establish from the beginning? A positive one. Why create more work for yourself? Sure they can have short term memories and forget all that stuff, i'd just rather avoid it and make progress sooner.

I can tell you the theory behind it, or at least my hackneyed version. It's based on "trauma learning", which is basically anything that is learned while in a trauma state is very difficult to unlearn. So if you trap a bird on a BC let's say, and you go running up to the bird and it flips on its back, feet out front, hackles up, hissing the bird is in a trauma state. If the first thing it sees are my big old hands grasping for for it, and my big old ugly head leaning over it, and staring at it with my big eyes (often thought of as an act of aggression in the animal world), then there is a good chance that the bird will learn automatically to fear hands, people in general, and me specifically. Now imagine approaching the bird while holding a big beach towel in front of you and placing it over the bird so it never gets to see you, you've more or less eliminated the people from the equation in the trauma learning sequence. In my experience the less trauma inflicted on a bird, the more steady and less fear that bird will show in the future. I'm still amazed that more people don't keep freshly trapped birds hooded until well after they are eating on the fist, I know the total immersion approach works with redtails and most other birds, but using the slow "bringing into the light" approach makes for a steadier bird in the long term.

Ok, that makes sense, thank you.

I'll have to give that some thought.....

[goshawkr]

I can tell you the theory behind it, or at least my hackneyed version. It's based on "trauma learning", which is basically anything that is learned while in a trauma state is very difficult to unlearn. So if you trap a bird on a BC let's say, and you go running up to the bird and it flips on its back, feet out front, hackles up, hissing the bird is in a trauma state. If the first thing it sees are my big old hands grasping for for it, and my big old ugly head leaning over it, and staring at it with my big eyes (often thought of as an act of aggression in the animal world), then there is a good chance that the bird will learn automatically to fear hands, people in general, and me specifically. Now imagine approaching the bird while holding a big beach towel in front of you and placing it over the bird so it never gets to see you, you've more or less eliminated the people from the equation in the trauma learning sequence.

But how then will you ever be able to take your hawk for a day on the beach? It will have a horrible fear of beach towels after that experience.

[Saluqi]

But how then will you ever be able to take your hawk for a day on the beach? It will have a horrible fear of beach towels after that experience.

C'mon Geoff, I live in the desert/plains the beach is only a memory from my youth....

[goshawkr]

C'mon Geoff, I live in the desert/plains the beach is only a memory from my youth....

I actually have a friend who had a very good recipie(ish) goshawk that he wasnt able to hood. When he needed to cast her, he would just grab her in a towel and do what needed to be done. I was quite surprised that he was able to get away with that, but he said she never associated the fear with him. She absolutely hated towels though, and would frequently attack them. It was amusing to watch how closely she watched towels as they moved through the room.

The main reason for being so cautious with "trauma learning" is that its very difficult to control the assocition.

In conversations, layman likes to draw the analogy of food associatied sickness. Its not completely acurate but its close. Ever notice how when you get very sick and vomit that you'll frequently develop an aversion afterwards? Notice how its not always related? I had very bad stomache flue as a kid and was eating pecans (lots of em) because it was the only thing that I could get myself to eat. After violontly vomiting them back up, it was almost over 10 years before I could eat any nuts, and 20 before I could eat pecans. But yet the nuts were not what make me sick.

Its very unpredictable when trauma learning will occur. Two people (or birds) can go through the exact same terrifiying experience, and one may may have no fears develop and the other may develop some deep seated fears associated with the event.

[The Rock]

Fear/Associating is what you should try to avoided and any method that works is a good one. Long term reaction from fear is the grim reaper for Gyrfalcons and Goshawks. There are so many ways to train birds with out going down the road of just causing mental and physical trauma. You do not have to starve them into submission either. Slow weight reduction combined with cycling the weight and exposure to positive progression in the basics of training will pay dividends later in the field.

Each bird is an individual and can progress at different positive levels. Usually you can quickly get a read on the birds willingness to move forward and at what speed.

[jal4470]

I just finished reading the article and it sounds very similar to what al the old books recomend when getting a new passage.

step 1, get it to eat well through the hood

2, when it is eating well, slip teh hood off and then back on and let the bird finish eating. each time you do this your goal is for the bird to see you then go back to eating.


soon you pick up the hooded bird, unhood her with some food on the glove and go about your buisness. I think that as he says in the article there is a long history of behaving this way towards our birds, just the words we use and some of the goals are new.

[andy hall]

While I haven't purposefully disguised myself while trapping and casting to initially put on equipment, I have usually been wearing stocking or baseball caps, sunglasses and coats when doing so, and usually am not when I start manning/training.

But I do try to reduce stress as much as possible with a look at the return on time put in. I use a systematic desensitization strategy for my initial manning, which is basically on the opposite end of an intrusiveness continuum from wake manning. I only enter the mew for a few second each time, several times a day the first day or two until the bird is eating. Then I toss small food each time I come into view and the bird remains calm (there is really a lot more to it than this). Usually by day 7 or so the bird is coming to me, and they have always weighed more than the trapping weight, and I have really only spent a couple of hours at most with the bird and almost every time they were highly reinforced.

This greatly reduces the stress of the bird. I know of some training golden eagles that have greatly reduced the rate of Asper with this method vs. more hands on manning.

I think you were asking about just the initial casting and bad stuff when you first get a bird, but as far as casting the bird once trained and working, I firmly believe in being the one to do the bad thing. I want to keep the overall stress as low as possible and I have seen that my birds are much calmer and recover much faster when I hold them or at least initially restrain them. Their overall stress is lower and I don't rob too much trust from them, AS LONG AS I have built up lots of trust to begin with. If it is something that has to be done regularly, then I will really work on training aspects of the process to give them reinforcers for doing it. My first redtail would let me trickle meds in her mouth from a syringe while sitting on her perch.

I may have to look at disguising myself more in the trapping part of getting a bird now and see if that can make a difference.

Andy

[kitana]

If you are interested in the theory and applications of trauma learning, both in humans and animals, the best book I ever read about the subject was Animals in translation, by Dre Temple Grandin. She is a renowned behaviorist, autistic, and what she writes is breathtaking and eye-opening.

The way I explain the associations made with trauma learning is like this: a woman who was raped at dusk in a backalley, developed a phobia of green metallic trash containers. She could go nowhee near one of these, and it was very hard for her because she would start to shake and sweat and feel ill if forced to do so. Unconsciously, the brain while experimenting an extreme fear takes mental pictures of everything it perceives, and weirdly associates them together. So there was probably a green metallic trash container somewhere in the backalley when the woman was raped, and the association was made, bringing back every feeling she had when she was raped at the simple sight of a trash container. It is a real case, and we see it all the time with our animals, whatever species they are.

This knowledge is also impossible to erase from the brain; you can train an animal to have less fear, by desensitizing it, and it can work perfectly well as long as the animal is in a state of mind where he can think rationally. Bring back some level of fear/stress and all teh training done will go out the window.

I never knew how to train a hawk to avoid such associations. Layman's article is an eye-opener, and even if I share Geoff's opinion about what is worth putting energy into, or not, I'm interested in trying it out. It goes much further than covering your face though...

[MrBill]

I have trapped and trained a lot of passage hawks (RT's, Cooper's and Harris's). I have never covered any aspect on my body while approaching them on the trap, or later and the vast majorithy of these birds were on the wing in two weeks time. So, I really don't think it makes any difference at all.

In terms of trauma, here is a definition of the word that I feel is fairly accurate:

"an extremely distressing experience that causes severe emotional shock and may have long-lasting psychological effects"

If this were the case, there is no way (IMO) that we would be able to get passage hawks flying free (and returning) in a couple of weeks; it would take months, perhaps years.

Bill Boni

[Tom Smith]

I have trapped and trained a lot of passage hawks (RT's, Cooper's and Harris's). I have never covered any aspect on my body while approaching them on the trap, or later and the vast majorithy of these birds were on the wing in two weeks time. So, I really don't think it makes any difference at all.

In terms of trauma, here is a definition of the word that I feel is fairly accurate:

"an extremely distressing experience that causes severe emotional shock and may have long-lasting psychological effects"

If this were the case, there is no way (IMO) that we would be able to get passage hawks flying free (and returning) in a couple of weeks; it would take months, perhaps years.

Bill Boni

I tend to agree with this as I have had good luck "taming" freshly caught birds. But I have seen some real severe exceptions and in my opinion it has a lot to do with my initial encounter with the bird. For instance when I'm approaching a bird on a trap or in a trap I try to never chase the bird but try to keep it facing me with wings spread and gradually gather it up into my hands avoiding getting bit or footed, making the whole operation as calm as possible.

Sometimes I have caught prairie falcons in a D-net that had their wings free and were able travel pretty well resulting in some long chases on the ground. These birds are severely entrenched with the idea that if they keep trying they can get away and it carries over into the manning process and I have turned a few birds so indoctrinated loose after a few days struggling to gain any kind progress with them.

But there have been exceptions to this also where in spite of an ugly chase and subduing, the bird calmed right down anyway.

I have noticed that birds caught in a bownet and carefully removed are not as traumatized as some birds caught by other methods resulting extra traumatic activity to bring them to sock or restraint. Trapping prairie falcons, peregrines and goshawks in bownets and banding them on the spot for release has produced some interesting episodes where the bird was still watching the pigeon as I was fastening band, and when I released the bird it went right back after the pigeon for some moments until it realized the danger and flew away. One such bird was not interested in the bait bird but was after me and put in some stoops at me on the way back to the blind and then went on her way.
One of the easiest prairie falcons for me to man was caught in D-net and I cautiously approach her on the ground. She was very well caught and couldn't move but was full of fight. I intended to keep her from the beginning so I was careful and respectful as I tried to free her from her bonds. I didn't notice she was freer than I thought and she suddenly popped out of the net and onto the ground a few feet from where I was kneeling and was facing me. I was upset with my self for letting this happen because I had been watching this particular bird and really wanted her. So for some split seconds we just stared at each other, she was glancing over her shoulder and I knew she knew that if she turned I might be able to snatch her back, then she really surprised me by attacking me and painfully footing and biting my legs and I gathered her up and went home she tamed right down and was very agreeable and a joy to work with. I think I had instilled a fight rather than flee mindset in her from the beginning inadvertently by being careful with her. Of course it may have just been this bird, one never knows.

[Goshawk635]

In the for what it is worth department, I have spent several years working with traumitized teens and trauma learning is often deep and most therapy is simply application of coping skills to adapt to a functional life inspite of the trauma. The most effective therapies were those that allowed for re-learning at periods of heightened emotion/adrenaline and the periods immediately following these events. He used high ropes courses, climbing walls, etc... My reason for weighing in is that anything we can do to minimize trauma in these periods of elevated mood/emotion would only be a potential benefit. Connecting the dots from a teenager in a driveby shooting with a redtail ripped off his meal by the side of the road is a stretch but I for one think the idea is a valid one. Learning is always happening whenever we interact with our birds ... the question is what are we teaching?

[goshawkr]

... My reason for weighing in is that anything we can do to minimize trauma in these periods of elevated mood/emotion would only be a potential benefit. Connecting the dots from a teenager in a driveby shooting with a redtail ripped off his meal by the side of the road is a stretch but I for one think the idea is a valid one. Learning is always happening whenever we interact with our birds ... the question is what are we teaching?

This knowledge is also impossible to erase from the brain; you can train an animal to have less fear, by desensitizing it, and it can work perfectly well as long as the animal is in a state of mind where he can think rationally. Bring back some level of fear/stress and all the training done will go out the window...

Something occured to me as I was reading this thread yesterday that bears mentioning. Its something I have been giving a lot of thought to lately.

The is no way to "erase" from a mind. There is an inbuilt mechanism in the mind where memories fade in intensity with time, although that process also amplifies some critical memories. Fear is a trigger that the mind uses to "flag" a memory as being important to retain, and the stronger the fear the more likely it will be amplified. This is why really traumatic memories can get extremely intentense, because these traumatic memories can help avoid the source of the trauma from occuring again and save your neck.

The trauma, if it occurs, cant ever be erased. All you can do is try to desensitise it and/or overlay it with positive memories.

As a computer programer, it is natural for me to draw the link between programming and training - training IS programming of the brain. The important difference to remember is that there is no way to erase data from the brain. The brain does have mechanisms that do that on its own, but it cant be controlled by a trainer (at least not yet...)

[Mandragen]

Something occured to me as I was reading this thread yesterday that bears mentioning. Its something I have been giving a lot of thought to lately.

The is no way to "erase" from a mind. There is an inbuilt mechanism in the mind where memories fade in intensity with time, although that process also amplifies some critical memories. Fear is a trigger that the mind uses to "flag" a memory as being important to retain, and the stronger the fear the more likely it will be amplified. This is why really traumatic memories can get extremely intentense, because these traumatic memories can help avoid the source of the trauma from occuring again and save your neck.

The trauma, if it occurs, cant ever be erased. All you can do is try to desensitise it and/or overlay it with positive memories.

As a computer programer, it is natural for me to draw the link between programming and training - training IS programming of the brain. The important difference to remember is that there is no way to erase data from the brain. The brain does have mechanisms that do that on its own, but it cant be controlled by a trainer (at least not yet...)

great point!

[wingnut]

I have trapped and trained a lot of passage hawks (RT's, Cooper's and Harris's). I have never covered any aspect on my body while approaching them on the trap, or later and the vast majorithy of these birds were on the wing in two weeks time. So, I really don't think it makes any difference at all.

In terms of trauma, here is a definition of the word that I feel is fairly accurate:

"an extremely distressing experience that causes severe emotional shock and may have long-lasting psychological effects"

If this were the case, there is no way (IMO) that we would be able to get passage hawks flying free (and returning) in a couple of weeks; it would take months, perhaps years.

Bill Boni

I totaly agree. They turn out fine either way. It's like having a whisle on your car bumper to scare off elephants on the road. The people who have them have never hit an elephant. They really work well. The people who mask up and hide their face have birds that work out most of the time and so do the ones who don't. To each his own.

[BestBeagler]

The way I see it is that it's worth my effort to cover my face or hands (if I remember to do it). The rewards could be great. Maybe it doesn't do anything but it doesn't take much effort to take the precaution. It's like using pine needles to help ward of asper or help cure it. Has it been proven to work? Maybe not but it is an anti fungal and you bet it's worth the effort to find some pine and use it on my birds. Smells good to!