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FEATURE


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.


Pebbles the young Seriama It was expanding my horizon to work with the Seriama, a crane- like bird with a pretty crown of feathers in a fan on top of his head. In the wild, Seriamas smash lizards onto stones and we were teaching Pebbles to do this with a plastic lizard. They will use this trick during the bird show. The timing to deliver the treat was easy to get right because before he would smash down the lizard, Pebbles would raise his head high.


Pebbles already knew how to run for one crate to another in the corridor outside his flight. We practised this. The trick was to throw a piece of meat in the back of the crate and bird runs in after it. And he accepts the door being closed while he gets another treat through the side bars. By the end of the week, Pebbles would pick up the plastic lizard and smash it down onto the stone in-between the two crates. With ample respect for Pebbles’ long thin sharp beak, Karen and I made sure we tossed the meat quickly and in the right place. Karen, as were Wendy and JJ, the other two participants was keener to work with raptors and corvids than I was. But I had to join in and was pleased I did so. We free flew Mason, a well trained Harris hawk short distances in the open space in front of the aviary. The techniques of untying the bird, holding the jesses, how to feed from the glove were all explained with customary good humour by Cassie. In spite of my reluctance to work raptors, I could not but be thrilled when a hawk swooped low to the ground at my feet rose almost vertically and landed on my glove. Cutting up the dead chicks and mice for the BOP (bird of prey) diets was less entrancing. But fortunately I was able leave that to Karen and Cassie. Loki the raven had already had one week of crate training with the previous group. With Karen this progressed to him running straight in and allowing the door to be almost closed behind him. That it was not


BIRD SCENE 41


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