The Molt is On!!

The Molt Begins!!

Spring and into Summer are rather dull times for falconry! The birds that were trapped the previous fall are either put up for the summer, or released. Of all my friends, except one, I'm keeping my bird. I have agreed to do several educational talks with her. I wasn't raising her weight too much, as her activity level is dropping, and a bird shouldn't add too much weight and get fat. However, I also noticed that I had seen no signs of the molt to begin. So, I adjusted her food intake, and raised her baseline to over 3 lbs. That was the trick!! All the signals went through her body, and as of May 15, the first feather has dropped. Since that time, just a little over a week, she's dropped about 3 feathers off each wing, and yesterday, May 23, both deck feathers (the middle two in the tail for those of you who don't speak 'falconer-ees'). It is mid May. Hopefully, she'll have a quick and clear molt, and be feather-perfect and ready to go by September! I need to remember this weekend, while I'm changing out her leg gear which I need to cut new ones, to spray her with mite spray. Don't want the mites to eat up all her fresh clean feathers. I miss getting out with her!! It was an OK year . . . not great . . . but we did catch game!

Otherwise . . . now this blog will turn to other activities, as I care to share them.

For those of you in my audience who follow this thing (thank you sooooo much . . . step up and say 'Hi' once in awhile in the comments section!!) I am now out on my own. My husband of 20 years has decided he'd rather be other places doing other things. You know, I've had more than one falconer warn me that getting into falconry can be very detrimental to marriages. But, there were other things than falconry that resulted in this divorce. Soooo . . . no hawk to fly, and no husband to take care of.

I gotta find new things to keep myself occupied!

And work on making some new friends!