Oct. 9 - First Kill

So now I am feeling pretty cocksure of myself.  The first free flight yesterday went as smoothly as I could have dreamed.  I planned to keep Rebel at roughly the same weight for a few days while we worked on following before slowly raising him up and gauging his responsiveness.  After the first three sessions, I figured that we would start hunting.

Now Rebel had shown some pretty good instincts before when he nearly killed his first squirrel while still on creance, but it had been quite some time since that had happened and Al kept feeding my anxieties by telling stories about birds who trained well but never figured out how to hunt.

Rebel was probably around five months or so old by this point.  He probably had a month or so of Raptor Hunting 101 with Mom and Dad before I so rudely interrupted his coming out party.  Over the last month, he had learned a completely different skill set and his hunting skills had not been used at all, so I was of course a bit concerned.  But no matter, this was a problem for another day as this was just his second day of free flight and we were simply out there to reinforce behaviors and cement the lesson of following.  Hunting lessons were still on hold.

So I raced home from work to try to beat the sunset, and got home just in time to take Rebel out for a short flight.  We made several rounds around the yard and the vacant lots and Rebel was once again spot on.  His fist responses were almost perfect at the beginning, but started to wane a bit as we progressed.  The sun was setting and we were almost done but I wanted to have Rebel follow into the neighbor’s yard one more time. 

I walked up to the neighbor’s driveway and called him to me.  He just looked at me for a minute and I thought that maybe he was full and not into following any more.  Nope, he took off straight to the tree overhead instead of the glove which was perplexing.  Perplexing, that is, until I saw him strike a grackle out of the air about five feet in front of the tree!  He hit it with his feet, knocking it out of the sky.  He almost beat it to the ground!  It took him half a sec to dispatch the bird and set in.  He slung the seeds that the bird had just eaten, but ate everything else!  It was amazing!  He mantled reflexively, but let me make in and attach his leash without too much difficulty.  Once finished with his snack, he hopped to the fist easily for a tidbit and a DOC.  Rebel went to the mews feeling pretty smug about his skills and comfortable with a full crop.

Well, Rebel answered the question about whether or not he was a hunter.  His instincts were perfect and he did something that, at least from my readings, is very rare for a Red Tailed Hawk in striking a bird from the air.  Typically that is the purview of the accipiters and the falcons.  His flight was fast and smooth.  He acted like this was not something new to him as he dispatched his prey easily and knew exactly which parts he liked and which he didn’t.  Who knows maybe I have a rare RT on my hands that I can train on birds.  Or maybe it was all just a mixture of luck and timing =).