Month: June 2020

Orville flew like a real osprey today for the first time. Notice the purple martins flying in formation with him. His weight was 1380g. He started with several 10-foot hops to various perches. He’d been doing this for a few days already. Then he unexpectedly (will I ever learn?) overflew a perch and took off across the lake! He turned towards a finger of the lake that grew narrow between trees, got befuddled in the turn, then clumsily landed in the small branches of an oak overhanging the water. He didn’t make a sound until I drove a boat underneath him.

He eyed the perch and fish, but never came to the boat. I went back to the yard and set up a tripod perch with fish on it. He soon (after many false starts) took off, circled, then set up for a landing in the yard. Just then, our bouncy Australian shepherd exuberantly began running, wagging, and barking in the landing zone.

This, of course, frightened the timid bird who then landed on top of the roof. I was somewhat relieved as I had been in this situation many times. I had the yard set up with several tempting perches and tethered fish. He soon (20 minutes, but it seemed like a long time) flew down to the tripod perch and began eating. I had tempted him to this perch by cutting up some fish with his favorite tin snips in full view.

These birds are not very flexible regarding flying for food or tidbits. At his age, in the wild, an osprey probably should avoid diving at fish he saw swimming under the nest and just let mom safely feed him. Regardless, my bird hesitantly flew down (they also don’t like to get low to their surroundings) to perch. I think the familiar perch is as important as the food at higher weights.

Orville flew about 3 feet to the glove several times today at 1326g. I placed the glove over a sturdy perch since he is still clumsy and has trouble balancing on my hand. He nervously ate while perched on my foot as I was standing, but he was quick to hop off if his eating was interrupted.

Orville flew to food today for the first time!

Today, Kennonite pulled out his boxes filled with leather, grommets, and tools. It was time to put some anklets on Orville. He won’t be using them to restrain the osprey the same way he would a red-tailed hawk. But anklets and jesses are handy should he want to hood him or travel with him.

Orville sat on his outside perch and watched as Kennonite set up the table and cut leather. You can see the whole fish–a bream–we put on his perch. When Orville was smaller, we started out hand feeding him small bits of fish, and now that he’s older, he’s able to eat out of a bowl. But he hasn’t learned to grasp the fish with his talons and tear meat from the fish for himself. He’s made a little progress, but we’ll be happy when he can eat a whole fish. The falconer’s hands are aching from cutting up his food.

Back to the anklets: Using an X-acto knife, he cut a strip of leather and measured around the bird’s foot. It seemed to be a good fit, so he cut a second one. This is the easy part. The hard part is placing them on the bird, as he doesn’t always want to cooperate. Pecking can be a problem. Orville only pecked a little when the Falconer placed the anklet on the second leg.

Next, Kennonite made the jesses. These aren’t especially long so they won’t hinder the bird in the water.

Growing fast and still eating lots of fish. Over 1600 grams now (he may turn out to be a she). I’m introducing fishing perch, hoods, and handling to him/her.