from the right or the left of the bowl and walk along the perch and drop it in. My initial disquiet at handling so large a bird soon evaporated. He really was a gentle giant.


Once Samson had mastered dropping the washer in bowl, we set up two short perches a metre apart in the seminar room and asked him to fly with the washer between the perches. My movements were not always coordinated well enough and Samson getting frustrated made a swipe at my hand. Cassie pointed out that I approached Samson too fast and invaded his personal space and that was probably why he swiped. Cassie altered the training plan and she


40 BIRD SCENE


handed Samson the washer while Karen held the bowl and I asked Samson to step across the perch and drop it in for the reward I would hand him.


It became clear that it was easier to get Samson to fly to my hand fly from the perch take the washer, step /hop back to the perch and drop it in the bowl. We did not manage a flighted retrieve but were well on the way at the end of the workshop. We obtained three good repetitions of Samson flying from my hand with the washer a distance of about a metre to the perch. Samson actually gained a few grams from all the peanuts he got for flying between the perches and flying to me.


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