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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.

Lots of fish. Catching them, then preparing them for the bird. The first week, I pulled off small pieces with hemostats or tweezers and fed Orville until his crop was full, about a pecan size bulge in his chest. After that, I could cut the fish in pieces and feed him bones and all. He would reject any piece too big or too bony with a very vigorous head shaking, slinging the offensive piece to the side.

He ate vigorously and gained weight daily. He also visibly grew daily. Soon I was using a paper cutter to initial cut the fish, then game scissors to cut the pieces o fail size. He ate the entire fish, entrails and all. I thought there may be some hidden vitamin or biome ingredient hidden somewhere in the fish. I occasionally gave him vitamins for the rare (2 so far) frozen fish I gave him.

He eats a little over one full size bream a day now, 150-200 grams.He has gained from 41 grams to 720 grams in 26 days. When he fills his crop, it gives him about a 10% temporary weight gain.

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I am doing a little falconry training already. Hooding him occasionally and briefly and under supervision. I am constantly touching him, especially his talons (although I have not had one that was footy yet) and his beak (they all have pecked badly). I am carrying him around exposing him to everything, all our cats and dogs, cars, outside flying birds, etc.

I am keeping him well fed at all times as I have read this can help with screaming. We shall see.