Merlin's first proper flight - nearly his last.
Posted: Sun Nov 08, 2009 3:30 am
We went camping this weekend and took Merlin and Bingo, his 'tiel brother.
Merlin's been doing a lot of flapping recently in preparation for his maiden flight and in anticipation, we've been getting him used to his new 'Aviator' harness. He takes to it like a duck to water. Bingo's not so 'ducky'.
Anyway, this morning my daughter called out from her room in the tent "Merlin just flew over to Nik's bed!" Pretty exciting stuff, eh?
So next thing, we're outside the tent, not realising that Merlin's now flight ready, and off he goes. Did 2 glorious laps of our campsite at an altitude of about 12 meters, the whole time I'm chasing him at ground level, watching where he would eventually land, shouting his name so he knew his 'favourite' was nearby. Our non-bird-owned friends thought I was hilarious, not realising that he wouldn't last more than a few minutes if one of our native predator birds got to him.
He finally landed in a tall, thin eucalypt, too high to reach, and not sturdy enough for a medium built adult male human to climb.
Luckily, one of our fellow campers had a big Toyota Landcruiser that I could stand on to rescue him.
Then the harness went on. It's getting easier and he's so accomodating. The harness was a real hit with the other campers. They couldn't believe what they were seeing.
Merlin's been doing a lot of flapping recently in preparation for his maiden flight and in anticipation, we've been getting him used to his new 'Aviator' harness. He takes to it like a duck to water. Bingo's not so 'ducky'.
Anyway, this morning my daughter called out from her room in the tent "Merlin just flew over to Nik's bed!" Pretty exciting stuff, eh?
So next thing, we're outside the tent, not realising that Merlin's now flight ready, and off he goes. Did 2 glorious laps of our campsite at an altitude of about 12 meters, the whole time I'm chasing him at ground level, watching where he would eventually land, shouting his name so he knew his 'favourite' was nearby. Our non-bird-owned friends thought I was hilarious, not realising that he wouldn't last more than a few minutes if one of our native predator birds got to him.
He finally landed in a tall, thin eucalypt, too high to reach, and not sturdy enough for a medium built adult male human to climb.
Luckily, one of our fellow campers had a big Toyota Landcruiser that I could stand on to rescue him.
Then the harness went on. It's getting easier and he's so accomodating. The harness was a real hit with the other campers. They couldn't believe what they were seeing.
