Lanner falcon
These are our lanner falcons, Buffy and Spike, a former breedingpair.
Buffy's flying weight is 550 gram, and Spike's flying weight is 425 gram.
Apart from a weight-difference you can easily tell them apart through colors. Buffy is somewhat greyish, while spike is brownish.
According to this weights you could say Buffy's a rather small female, while Spike's weight is average.
We start training our birds, after an appropriate time to settle down a bit, indoors in a dimmed room. As a temporarily, disposable, perch we use an 'banana-box' with a wooden shelf, covered with astroturf. Some bricks are added inside to give weight to the box.
When all goes well, basically meaning the bird is quite comfortable, and feeding, on the fist it's time to introduce the bird to new impressions. This means starting to get him/her used to the daily things of live, starting with the livingroom. The bird is perched on a screen-perch, starting with only the quite evening-hours, but progressing to busier parts of the day as the bird progresses.
Next step in the training and manning process is introducing the dog, and getting the bird used to other persons holding her on the fist. Fortunate our daughters like to participate!
Finally time arrives to start spending some time outside! Just a few minutes to start with, but gradually building up. At, and up until, this point in progress all feedings are on the fist.
Of course there's the occasional bating, but offering some food will help the bird gain confidence.
According to plan the bird can now be left on it's own for some time outside. Introducing other birds at this stage is also fairly simple. They'll start off screaming at each other, but quite quickly accept the situation, and thus allowing to very slowly reduce the distance between them. Because they can see each other the whole day outside, and i really don't want the birds scream the whole day, this is kind of a tricky part.
As from this point i proceed with trianing in the 'standard' way, as described in many books, thought by many falconers.
See some more birds
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