February 19: Placed a New Tail Mount

After several months of almost daily dunking, the tail mount disappeared. Fortunately, it disappeared before I mounted a transmitter on it. I haven’t been fishing him due to the cold, but I have been flying him a lot. I get very nervous without telemetry these days. He ranges fairly widely and gets pretty high on the windy days. Plus, I have him at high weights to handle the recent cold snap.

I replaced the mount with the second-to-largest, Marshall metal, single-feather mount, advertised as suitable for red-tails. This mount is gold-colored, whereas the one that fell off (or was preened off) was platinum (in color, I mean).

The new one seemed to fit well enough. It crimps on with pliers. I used the needle-nose style, being too cheap to spring for the specially made installation tool. For wire crimping, a special tool is critical. Hopefully, feathers will be more forgiving of a less-than-perfect crimp. I did not use glue on the old one, but I did on this one (cyanoacrylate). It seems to be functioning fine. I hope I don’t lose a transmitter in the pond.

As stated before, the tail mount and transmitter seem to cause no difficulties in diving. The bird has never seemed bothered by it.

Also, Western Sporting is now stocking and selling the Ospreys in Falconry book. He has already sold the first 30 copies I sent. I am excited about this because they are such a pillar of the falconry publication scene.