P1-2 L
Well heck, no hunting doesn't have to mean no news whatsoever! Pele is having a great time bouncing off the walls in her summer vacation home at Heath's place. I can't weigh her right now, but I'd guess it's probably something over her trap weight, so up in the mid-500 gram range. Right now, she'll come down to food (sometimes) if I put it on a perch, and then she'll let me walk up to her and hand her more. She'll even stand on the glove if what I have looks tasty enough, and eat comfortably there for a while, but every little noise or movement is distracting to her, at which point she will raise her crest and gape at me with a look that basically tells me if I make one more wrong move, I will, in fact, lose my face. The fact that she'll put up with me at all is encouraging, though. Most Coopers I hear of, when fed up for the molt, revert to a pretty wild state and don't want anything to do with people. Pele acts that way around Heath, but she seems to still trust me to some extent.
Since late April, she has been shedding a belly feather here and there, but on 5/14 she dropped her first flight feather, the innermost primary on her left wing. Yesterday she dropped the next one in line, along with a handful of other body feathers. Hooray, the molt is officially begun! It'll take her a few months to drop and regrow all the rest of her feathers, so I'm glad she's finally gotten going on that. The sooner she finishes, the sooner we can get back out there and get the new crop of bunnies before the coyotes eat them all. I've also located some quail spots through my fieldwork, and I'm excited to try and catch a few with her this fall.
Since late April, she has been shedding a belly feather here and there, but on 5/14 she dropped her first flight feather, the innermost primary on her left wing. Yesterday she dropped the next one in line, along with a handful of other body feathers. Hooray, the molt is officially begun! It'll take her a few months to drop and regrow all the rest of her feathers, so I'm glad she's finally gotten going on that. The sooner she finishes, the sooner we can get back out there and get the new crop of bunnies before the coyotes eat them all. I've also located some quail spots through my fieldwork, and I'm excited to try and catch a few with her this fall.