Barry
20-11-2008, 09:05 PM
I hope you all manage to read this, all the way through.
I have written it for entirely selfish reasons. Please don't reply.
Floyd. :heart:
In late 2001 or early 2002, I can’t remember which, a truly wonderful partnership begun, when I travelled from central Scotland to Kent to collect a Tawny Eagle. I really wanted a female. When I got there, there were a few to choose from. Unfortunately, most were in a bit of a sorry state and I was just about ready to leave for home without a bird. At the last minute, one of the other birds in the aviary took a spook and scared a young Tawny off a long wide shelf platform at the top and back of the aviary. It was a male. He flew a circle of the aviary, and went back to the shelf – and vanished. We made a move, he got up, another circle, back to his shelf and vanished again. It turned out he was laying down up there. He was young and scared, so I could accept that as fear. I umm’d and ahh’d and eventually decided to take this male. He was quickly checked and boxed, and I took off for my 8 hour drive home.
I had wanted a Tawny for some time – my mind filled with thermalling at tremendous heights and stooping like a falcon! Well, when I got home I unboxed him and gave a thorough check. I was not happy with one leg, and he did just keep laying down. Straight to the vet and an X-ray later found a fracture which had begun healing in the wrong place. This had to be re-broken. An inter-medular pin and external fixator was fitted. At this point I should have taken my X-rays and vets report and returned the bird, but something was saying no, bite the bullet, you just don’t know what you’ve got. So for the 2nd time, against better judgement, I stuck with him.
Inside a hospital mews I built for him, I begun hands off manning. Some weeks later the external fixator came off and a few more weeks had the vet confident in my being able to tether him; which I shortly did.
Now, that leg had been long broken, and then weight was not placed on it at all during most of the time the fixator was in place. The result – an emaciated leg! So, with the bird already part manned training needed to begin in earnest to develop some muscle. I didn’t want to do much on the line in case of pulling the leg which still carried an internal pin. So the early stuff took place in our barn, then we transferred outside with a regime of 50 – 70yard flights between two perches. The distance was enough to have him work the wings, but the idea was repetitions – to get him pushing off the perch with his legs, then landing – absorbing the energy of landing with his legs – a kind of 50 yard squat! This over several weeks worked well and the leg was developing nicely. So it was time to get him circling on the wind. This is still early spring 2002 so no thermals, but good breezes. After a few days off this he went lame again. Back to the vet to discover the inter-medular pin had migrated back into the joint through which it had been inserted. The pin was scraping the inside of the joint – ouch!
The pin was removed, some debriding of the joint and back to the hospital mews!
During this second incarceration, I again retained contact in there and within a few weeks, we were back at 70 yard squats as the leg had again lost condition in the muscle.
By now May was upon us with warm breezes and some quite warm days. I was keen to get him to start making height. It soon became apparent though, that our squats had trained a Tawny eagle to fly 70 yards 12 feet off the ground, and he had no plans or aspirations to do more!
After a few weeks of never more than about 50 feet in height, I took him to a small lowland estate in Fife on a very windy day. I perched him on a windward facing small ‘cliff’ and waited, and waited, and waited, and eventually he grew impatient and got up. I got up and scurried down to the bottom, and with the irresistible force of lift on his wings carrying him up, and my dropping to the bottom, we combined to put about 250 or 300 vertical feet between us, I threw out a fist with the biggest meal I had ever offered him on it, and he put in a short nervous stoop to the glove and fed well.
This set a precedent better than I could have ever predicted. Back on home turf, he would every day from then forward make use of any wind to make as much height as he could and come overhead. I had been using a whistle system the whole time of his training. One peep for get up and overhead, then peep peep peep for get here now. He had learned them perfectly, so I could let him go off horizontally for any distance, then ‘peep’ and he’d come over trying hard not to lose height, then peep peep peep and vertical into the fist.
Now in this wind, he was making anything up to about 6 or 700 feet, but with no wind, he had no clue what to do! Thermals were an unknown quantity to him. I figured out a regime to rectify this. At the end of the farm we occupy, there is a tiny hill, more of a mound really. This is in the centre of a east west valley with hills to the north and south.
To start with, I would cast him off the side of the mound then run back the other side and hide! Tawny eagles forage and search using height to command the maximum amount of ground, the idea was if I – the food source vanished, he’d try to go up in a bid to get me back in sight. Well it worked a treat and he started to understand lift in still air, but there was still a limit. Because he was close, Icouldn’t get far away to hide, so he didn’t have to go very high to spot me. So the next thing was to have someone take the eagle, by now named Floyd, up to the higher hill to the north. I would be pre-hidden and when in place I would whistle, the single peep. As soon as he heard it, he’d be up, but now he already had a height advantage, but no sign of me. Clear of near ground turbulence he caught thermals very easily, and by reminding him of his goal, with a single peep every now and then, he’d go higher and higher, but stay near to the invisible peep. It was during one of these sessions that Ruby Tuesday had her very first flight with a trained BOP, calling Floyd in to her fist. She still has the photographs. When he was as high as the conditions would allow (or seem to) and he was directly overhead of my hiding place (in ditches, under stacks of bales, just buried in thick cover) I’d leap out, give the peep peep peep and get the most awesome stoops, fully folded, fully vertical, awesome!
The next stage was hard to overcome. Getting the bird to release from me, have me stay in sight, but go and get height. I did this by releasing him in a mild breeze on a warm day (over and again when conditions were right) then wait. Now the waiting was sometimes hell, four or five hours was not uncommon, but in the end he’d get bored and get up. When he did he seemed to naturally drift toward the old cliff we had cast him from, he seemed to make the connection with that hill and the lift he needed which would give the height which brought on the peep peep peep which means food. Over time the waiting got shorter, the pitch got greater and the stoops more spectacular.
During all of this Floyd was learning more and more about his ability, and more and more about buzzards. He’d often do battle with buzzards and his record stands at being up with 11 at once. Poor sod had nowhere to go! But like everything else, he worked them out and found that if it was good and hot, they’d only follow him so high. That prompted him on to greater and greater heights, until in the end we were happy to let him go and leave him, let him speck out of sight on a clear blue sky day and just monitor him by telemetry. His record stands at 4 hours 15 minutes, of which he was out of sight for a full 4 hours!!!!!!!!
With all this came tremendous loyalty. If I ever started to walk out from my position, he would immediately respond by coming over from however far away he was while going up (and he’d often go many miles to pick up thermal) and following, turning tight circles directly overhead, tracking my like a shadow in the sky.
His ability just continually developed. He started catching game on odd occasions, mostly at in-opportune moments! I have only ever had to retrieve him once apart from on a kill, which was for no reason I can explain. He specked out, stayed above us for about 45 minutes (by telemetry monitoring) then drifted off, and we picked him up off a huge pylon about 5 or six miles away.
One retrieve is not bad, until you realise that he was being flown here, also at events all over Scotland, he was filmed for some art show thing by Henry Coombes, he specked out over Edinburgh Castle and battled gulls over Stirling Castle. He battled buzzards at an aviation show in Dumfries and did over a hundred demo’s at Drumlanrig Castle where he did some of his most amazing flights and stoops. He has had the greatest views of Falkirk as he thermalled over the Falkirk Wheel for three summers.
The bird has become so good that he taught me heaps about thermals and orographic lift and where to find it. He taught me about woodland working as a heat sink, then releasing heat on marginal days. It was a buzz to put him up and watch him follow the fields that were bathed in sun and move to others as little clouds brought passing shadow. Day after day, thermal after thermal, every day making you more and more amazed.
The bird represents my proudest achievement with any individual bird, especially given his inauspicious start.
He has spent one late winter/spring and early summer with a female Tawny but she was too young to breed, but we were keen to have them bond. Floyd was planned for flying maybe another week – he goes easily back to using wind for lift when the thermals go away with the departing summer, then he goes back in the aviary for the winter and then have the female (Dune) go in with him at the end of December for potential breeding. What a thrill it would be to run the cycle again with his son J
To today.
Just another day, he’s boxed and in the car. We go to fly a falcon first on our ‘mound’. She does well, and we fly Floyd right after. He makes a little height and as he often does, drifts to a wood about a half mile off, takes a rest in a tree, then surfs over the woods to the windward facing end where he makes his height on poor days.
Well today, he made the woods and took a perch in a tree just out of sight. He was given a few minutes then the single peep to get him going. For the first time in 7 years, no response. Another peep, nothing. Telemetry out assuming he had caught something, and sure enough a static signal. It was tracked to a railway line.
Floyd had spotted a roe deer that had been killed on the railway and was feeding on it in just the way he would take carrion in the wild. He’d done this before.
Floyd was torn into several pieces and the body and wings, along with the life that had brought so much pleasure and awe to so many people was spread far along the line by the train as it hit him.
The bodies that carry the lives that bring us so much pleasure are so fragile.
:cry:RIP Floyd.:heart:
I have written it for entirely selfish reasons. Please don't reply.
Floyd. :heart:
In late 2001 or early 2002, I can’t remember which, a truly wonderful partnership begun, when I travelled from central Scotland to Kent to collect a Tawny Eagle. I really wanted a female. When I got there, there were a few to choose from. Unfortunately, most were in a bit of a sorry state and I was just about ready to leave for home without a bird. At the last minute, one of the other birds in the aviary took a spook and scared a young Tawny off a long wide shelf platform at the top and back of the aviary. It was a male. He flew a circle of the aviary, and went back to the shelf – and vanished. We made a move, he got up, another circle, back to his shelf and vanished again. It turned out he was laying down up there. He was young and scared, so I could accept that as fear. I umm’d and ahh’d and eventually decided to take this male. He was quickly checked and boxed, and I took off for my 8 hour drive home.
I had wanted a Tawny for some time – my mind filled with thermalling at tremendous heights and stooping like a falcon! Well, when I got home I unboxed him and gave a thorough check. I was not happy with one leg, and he did just keep laying down. Straight to the vet and an X-ray later found a fracture which had begun healing in the wrong place. This had to be re-broken. An inter-medular pin and external fixator was fitted. At this point I should have taken my X-rays and vets report and returned the bird, but something was saying no, bite the bullet, you just don’t know what you’ve got. So for the 2nd time, against better judgement, I stuck with him.
Inside a hospital mews I built for him, I begun hands off manning. Some weeks later the external fixator came off and a few more weeks had the vet confident in my being able to tether him; which I shortly did.
Now, that leg had been long broken, and then weight was not placed on it at all during most of the time the fixator was in place. The result – an emaciated leg! So, with the bird already part manned training needed to begin in earnest to develop some muscle. I didn’t want to do much on the line in case of pulling the leg which still carried an internal pin. So the early stuff took place in our barn, then we transferred outside with a regime of 50 – 70yard flights between two perches. The distance was enough to have him work the wings, but the idea was repetitions – to get him pushing off the perch with his legs, then landing – absorbing the energy of landing with his legs – a kind of 50 yard squat! This over several weeks worked well and the leg was developing nicely. So it was time to get him circling on the wind. This is still early spring 2002 so no thermals, but good breezes. After a few days off this he went lame again. Back to the vet to discover the inter-medular pin had migrated back into the joint through which it had been inserted. The pin was scraping the inside of the joint – ouch!
The pin was removed, some debriding of the joint and back to the hospital mews!
During this second incarceration, I again retained contact in there and within a few weeks, we were back at 70 yard squats as the leg had again lost condition in the muscle.
By now May was upon us with warm breezes and some quite warm days. I was keen to get him to start making height. It soon became apparent though, that our squats had trained a Tawny eagle to fly 70 yards 12 feet off the ground, and he had no plans or aspirations to do more!
After a few weeks of never more than about 50 feet in height, I took him to a small lowland estate in Fife on a very windy day. I perched him on a windward facing small ‘cliff’ and waited, and waited, and waited, and eventually he grew impatient and got up. I got up and scurried down to the bottom, and with the irresistible force of lift on his wings carrying him up, and my dropping to the bottom, we combined to put about 250 or 300 vertical feet between us, I threw out a fist with the biggest meal I had ever offered him on it, and he put in a short nervous stoop to the glove and fed well.
This set a precedent better than I could have ever predicted. Back on home turf, he would every day from then forward make use of any wind to make as much height as he could and come overhead. I had been using a whistle system the whole time of his training. One peep for get up and overhead, then peep peep peep for get here now. He had learned them perfectly, so I could let him go off horizontally for any distance, then ‘peep’ and he’d come over trying hard not to lose height, then peep peep peep and vertical into the fist.
Now in this wind, he was making anything up to about 6 or 700 feet, but with no wind, he had no clue what to do! Thermals were an unknown quantity to him. I figured out a regime to rectify this. At the end of the farm we occupy, there is a tiny hill, more of a mound really. This is in the centre of a east west valley with hills to the north and south.
To start with, I would cast him off the side of the mound then run back the other side and hide! Tawny eagles forage and search using height to command the maximum amount of ground, the idea was if I – the food source vanished, he’d try to go up in a bid to get me back in sight. Well it worked a treat and he started to understand lift in still air, but there was still a limit. Because he was close, Icouldn’t get far away to hide, so he didn’t have to go very high to spot me. So the next thing was to have someone take the eagle, by now named Floyd, up to the higher hill to the north. I would be pre-hidden and when in place I would whistle, the single peep. As soon as he heard it, he’d be up, but now he already had a height advantage, but no sign of me. Clear of near ground turbulence he caught thermals very easily, and by reminding him of his goal, with a single peep every now and then, he’d go higher and higher, but stay near to the invisible peep. It was during one of these sessions that Ruby Tuesday had her very first flight with a trained BOP, calling Floyd in to her fist. She still has the photographs. When he was as high as the conditions would allow (or seem to) and he was directly overhead of my hiding place (in ditches, under stacks of bales, just buried in thick cover) I’d leap out, give the peep peep peep and get the most awesome stoops, fully folded, fully vertical, awesome!
The next stage was hard to overcome. Getting the bird to release from me, have me stay in sight, but go and get height. I did this by releasing him in a mild breeze on a warm day (over and again when conditions were right) then wait. Now the waiting was sometimes hell, four or five hours was not uncommon, but in the end he’d get bored and get up. When he did he seemed to naturally drift toward the old cliff we had cast him from, he seemed to make the connection with that hill and the lift he needed which would give the height which brought on the peep peep peep which means food. Over time the waiting got shorter, the pitch got greater and the stoops more spectacular.
During all of this Floyd was learning more and more about his ability, and more and more about buzzards. He’d often do battle with buzzards and his record stands at being up with 11 at once. Poor sod had nowhere to go! But like everything else, he worked them out and found that if it was good and hot, they’d only follow him so high. That prompted him on to greater and greater heights, until in the end we were happy to let him go and leave him, let him speck out of sight on a clear blue sky day and just monitor him by telemetry. His record stands at 4 hours 15 minutes, of which he was out of sight for a full 4 hours!!!!!!!!
With all this came tremendous loyalty. If I ever started to walk out from my position, he would immediately respond by coming over from however far away he was while going up (and he’d often go many miles to pick up thermal) and following, turning tight circles directly overhead, tracking my like a shadow in the sky.
His ability just continually developed. He started catching game on odd occasions, mostly at in-opportune moments! I have only ever had to retrieve him once apart from on a kill, which was for no reason I can explain. He specked out, stayed above us for about 45 minutes (by telemetry monitoring) then drifted off, and we picked him up off a huge pylon about 5 or six miles away.
One retrieve is not bad, until you realise that he was being flown here, also at events all over Scotland, he was filmed for some art show thing by Henry Coombes, he specked out over Edinburgh Castle and battled gulls over Stirling Castle. He battled buzzards at an aviation show in Dumfries and did over a hundred demo’s at Drumlanrig Castle where he did some of his most amazing flights and stoops. He has had the greatest views of Falkirk as he thermalled over the Falkirk Wheel for three summers.
The bird has become so good that he taught me heaps about thermals and orographic lift and where to find it. He taught me about woodland working as a heat sink, then releasing heat on marginal days. It was a buzz to put him up and watch him follow the fields that were bathed in sun and move to others as little clouds brought passing shadow. Day after day, thermal after thermal, every day making you more and more amazed.
The bird represents my proudest achievement with any individual bird, especially given his inauspicious start.
He has spent one late winter/spring and early summer with a female Tawny but she was too young to breed, but we were keen to have them bond. Floyd was planned for flying maybe another week – he goes easily back to using wind for lift when the thermals go away with the departing summer, then he goes back in the aviary for the winter and then have the female (Dune) go in with him at the end of December for potential breeding. What a thrill it would be to run the cycle again with his son J
To today.
Just another day, he’s boxed and in the car. We go to fly a falcon first on our ‘mound’. She does well, and we fly Floyd right after. He makes a little height and as he often does, drifts to a wood about a half mile off, takes a rest in a tree, then surfs over the woods to the windward facing end where he makes his height on poor days.
Well today, he made the woods and took a perch in a tree just out of sight. He was given a few minutes then the single peep to get him going. For the first time in 7 years, no response. Another peep, nothing. Telemetry out assuming he had caught something, and sure enough a static signal. It was tracked to a railway line.
Floyd had spotted a roe deer that had been killed on the railway and was feeding on it in just the way he would take carrion in the wild. He’d done this before.
Floyd was torn into several pieces and the body and wings, along with the life that had brought so much pleasure and awe to so many people was spread far along the line by the train as it hit him.
The bodies that carry the lives that bring us so much pleasure are so fragile.
:cry:RIP Floyd.:heart: