Leading Edge

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Stress Bars

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Cleaning the raptor mews may be a dirty job, but it can lead to some interesting discoveries. Under a pile of shredded newspaper, I found this feather from Carson the Red-tailed Hawk. The central shaft forms a slight S-curve, telling me this came from Carson's alula, a bird's "thumb."  I noticed faint lines along the feather vane like frets on a guitar's fingerboard. Known as stress bars, these lines are weak spots in the feather. They form if the bird undergoes heightened stress as the feather grows. It might be physical stress like starvation or psychological stress like escaping a predator. For Carson, I believe these stress bars are caused by her permanent wing injury affecting feather growth.
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Training Archives

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Rummaging through old files, I found a treasure: the notepad where I recorded my first training sessions with Carson the Red-tailed Hawk.  When I first started at the Museum in 2016, I asked her to step on my glove (a behavior she had done with other trainers) and she ran away from me. We had such little trust that she wouldn't even eat in front of me. That was my first goal to overcome, highlighted at the top of the notepad:  To get to that point, I started by leaving a piece of food on a perch, stepping out into the hallway, and waiting for her to eat it. Sometimes she ignored it and I took the food away after 3 minutes. After a few tries she started eating the food. On the third day, she was waiting for me at our training spot, eager to take food! Carson waited for me at our training spot in 2016. We started with the bar pretty low. Since I took the time to start our training with the very basics, Carson gained confidence quickly. Fast forwarding to 8 months later, I found ...
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Construction

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Aldo loves showing off his nest during the breeding season. When the kestrel hears me coming, he jumps down to the ground in the back corner of his mew. He trills excitedly, bowing. This behavior is rather inconvenient for me when I need to weigh him or take him out for a program. Since he's looking for attention in his nest, I remove his audience by stepping out of sight. I quietly wait in the hallway. I listen for the flutter of his wings to tell me he has flown back to a perch. Then I know it is safe to enter the mew and give him a treat. I didn't realize how much I rely on my ears during this morning routine until construction started on the library's new building next door. An excavator moving dirt is loud enough to drown out the subtle whisper of Aldo's wings in flight. I shift my strategy and shuffle down the hallway just enough to be able to see the perch through the window. I still remain quiet until I see Aldo appear, giving me the green light to enter the mew...
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