3. Symptoms and cure for starving hawks
This is such a rare occurrence, but it is so important. I want every apprentice to know how to recognize a bird that's too low, because losing a hawk due to your own ignorance is one of the worst things that can happen. Taking a bird's weight down is often the first quick and easy solution falconers try when they encounter a problem. It should be the last. Too many times it's done without trying to find the actual cause of the problem.
Quite often a bird that is too low acts like one that's too high: being unresponsive when called, sometimes flying madly after game it has no possibility of catching. A symptoms of illness is holding the feathers very fluffed when perched. Symptoms of low weight are keeping the eyes half-closed when they should be open and alert, a lack of stamina in the field (flying very short distances then going to ground even when quarry is spotted), and a reversion to eyas-like behavior such as hanging upside-down from branches and food-begging calls.
The most important alert to a starving bird is unusual weight loss despite a normal or higher calorie intake.
Weight gain and loss in hawks is not a straight line. If you give the bird 50 calories less than yesterday's meal on one day, and do the same thing two weeks later, she will not necessarily lose the same amount of weight on both days, even if the weather is the same.
When the bird is high in weight, it's harder for her to lose it. At a median weight the gain and loss is more predictable. Falconers generally keep their birds at this median weight and may touch into the lower range to induce yarak. When the bird is low, it's harder for her to gain it. This is called "the slide."
When a bird is starving or very sick it will keep losing weight despite a lot of food. In either case, you must act immediately.
