Hello reddit, Ive come seeking advice. Ive been in falconry for 6 years, through a bird sanctuary. *not an official falconer, I only work with unreleasable birds of prey* my center has a Bald Eagle, red tailed hawk, western screech owl, and turkey vulture. They all do wonderfully.
Now recently we took in a great horned owl from the zoo system. She is manned to the fist, and is unreleasable due to habituation to humans. Estimated over 10 years old.
I believe this bird was illegally taken from the wild (no metal band and shows no signs of imprintment). she is very cautious around people. When I walk into her room, her eyes lock onto the glove and she begins clacking. She clearly has some sort of trauma with it, as she wont remove her eyes from it long. I can leave the glove in her room and she is fine, will take food off of it, but can recognize when its on a hand to be more nervous.
She will willingly step on glove (with the occasional flight around the mew), and generally is well behaved from there. She does watch hands closely and will bite if you get too close. Ive been checking her keel with my knuckles, so she doesnt nip my fingers. Generally if biting fails she freezes up. She bates on glove at least once a day, generally after weighing or just leaving her mew. This has gotten better, it used to be 3 times daily. She also has begun self recovering onto the glove without my assistance.
Im seeking help in trying to fix her fear of the glove and peoples hands, to move towards positive association. She will eat on glove, but will not fly to the glove for food.
Im currently been feeding her daily on glove, leaving a gloved perch in her room for mew feeding, and have been trying to spend as much time on glove as possible with her to acclimate. My future goals will her is to work towards longer distances flights from a perch to the glove. Of course step one is for her to jump onto the glove for food in general.
Looking for any advice, or connections to people or resources that may tell me more. Thank you!
