Fable the Raven | Q&A - Answering your questions!

hi everyone and thanks for all your likes and your comments on fables previous videos and I want to do a quick Q&A really because also there's a lot of questions and as much as I like sitting there and replying to you it gets a bit repetitive sort of saying the same things and answering the same questions so I thought I'll do a quick video and hopefully answer most of those questions that people have been asking so one of the most common questions that people have been asking is all about fables Avery here sometimes people use a term cage which I don't like because it isn't actually a fair description of what this place is to her and a lot of people commented also on the use of bars on her windows and I'll explain that as well so this bird is not a wild bird I didn't take her out wild she wasn't born in the wild and bear with me a second I'm just gonna make this a bit higher we're losing her head oh yeah so yes she wasn't born in the wild this is a captive bred bird here in the UK you can own captive bred corvids we don't take any birds out of the wild I work with a lot of birds of prey because I'm a falconer and again we don't take wild birds they're birds that previously have their only captive bred so first of all for people that would say set this bird free she should be wild she never was wild and that comes with something quite important she wouldn't know how to live in the wild so she doesn't understand predation she doesn't understand the effects of weather and she wouldn't know sort of how to feed herself properly so yeah that's where I come in with my day to day care of her and you have to bear in mind this is my job and my work I spend all of my time with these birds I don't have a nine till five I can't just shut the door at four o'clock because I finished at work and I spend anything from twelve to sixteen hours a day sometimes with these birds especially in the summer and when I thirds their breeding we have chicks and eggs hatching it all gets very very busy so my last holiday was about three years ago so if that's the kind of life that you want then you know pursue time with birds or animals but you know this is the lifestyle choice for me and there she's certainly not just a pet she's not just a source of entertainment that I use her for a lot of research and understanding and learning and it's basically yes it's basically working with these kind of birds in captivity that has allows us to protect preserve and conserve wild species by working closely and having these relationships with these animals it helps us to understand how their wild counterparts work it helps us to understand how to treat these birds as they get injured and what an Faulkner's have played a big part in the re-release and the redevelopment and success of certain bird species across the world so and don't before she's not a pet she would make a rubbish pet she has this big outdoor Avery and has about 15 foot in front of me and again 15 foot behind and then it's about 15 foot across so 15 by about 40 foot in all this Avery when that bit in there and it's her indoor section she very rarely goes in there unless the weather's really bad most of the time that's a big storage facility and there's a very important reason for her for that and when I go back to the comment about people saying she should fly free in the wild and hello and she does actually go out of her Avery this is her safe space it's her home but like you go home from work this is where she lives at night or when I'm not around and but when I am around I can open my doors and she'll go for a fly around our farm we live very rural II however if you guys want to see her and you want to see her interacting like this I have to film inside her Avery and I can't make her stay with me when she's out and about and she's usually off stealing things exploring things so it's actually much easier to film in here and so hopefully that makes a bit more sense to you guys and a little bit like you'd like a lazy Sunday what do you find that she actually have some days where I'll open the door and she actually doesn't want to go out like I say this is her territory in here and so it's actually thank you and you're very intense today and so she's actually much more comfortable in here she's got on her toys she's got all her things that she likes he's got a bath she gets the food she hides the food in here so going outside to her depending on her mood actually it's something she doesn't always want to do so another funny thing is that I saw a few comments about people coming up here where you go and you sit on my hand and yeah another funny part about comments that I've seen is that people are claiming that I'm doing her talking or her vocalizations honestly I'm not that great at ventriloquist's so and honestly this is her she does make all these weird and wonderful noises and these guys are great at mimicking them but it actually extends a little bit further yes she's copying the noises that she hears or that she likes sometimes it's just silly noises like her boop boop which seems very popular of everyone and she when we look at wild Ravens sorry there's been research done and studies done and actually they found that Ravens have at least around a dozen words or if you like noises really they're Kronk's and and different noises that they make that actually translate as what we would call words so noises that mean danger or food or family and young Ravens in the nests have to learn these words all these noises or the sounds very very quickly so they can understand and live remember for wild birds it's all about preservation so they have to learn how to survive and hunt very quickly my Birds in captivity compared to a wild bird should live a lot longer and it's another reason and I had a question about you know what these birds sorry I'm shaking that's fable exploring the camera so I had a few questions about what what what I had a few questions about what's in it for these guys you know that I'm making these birds stay with me or you know why do they actually want to hang out with me and one person isn't is it for me to have dominance over these birds absolutely not and I cannot train these birds to do what I want I can teach them things that I would like them to do and I I can show them that if they stay with me they'll get things like food and predominantly food is a massive Drive for both corvids and for birds of prey so for a bird like your fable you know she can see the benefit of hang out with me she gets food she gets safety she gets entertainment and I give her a lot of her social day so for her you know all of these things are really important for my birds of prey that I fly they know it's much easier to hang out with me because if they fly with me they're going to get hunting opportunities they're going to get a constant food source and I also have the ability to give them that care instantly if they get injured they get safe housing they're protected from predation so compared to a wild bird captive bred birds if they're were looked after should live a long life my old bird oldest bird of prey is 33 and she has an expected life of about 40 years in the wild for most of our native bird species that you're looking about an 80% death rate in the first year so 80% of birds will not even survive that long and the average life of a wild bird of prey is three years so it's very easy to say let these birds be free but if you don't understand a where the birds come from that they're captive bred and be that they have no ability to survive in the wild and you'll realize that actually they get a pretty good life now the a what I didn't explain earlier I was about the bars on the Averys I'm just going to rotate this camera on hello favor we'll come and join us there you go so as you can see some perching here we use some astroturf which is really great for her feet it basically varies the pressure whoa that she doesn't want something called bumblefoot and so if she is sitting in one place because she does have her favorite perch in spots she's basically never turn it around she's able to sit comfortably and she's not going to injure herself or she's not going to have any type of health issues now the bars on the aid hello fable are basically a great alternative to using something called square mesh so typically Wow when we think of Averys and we think about sort of a square barred meshing to use on the sort of the window areas and the problem with this is that she will climb up here and as she climbs she'll push her feathers through the mesh so she - she damaged her feathers she might even break them and then she's not going to be able to fly so he's what we found is much better solution is to use these bars and I agree it does look a little bit Prison II but it basically means that she's able to sit here she can look out she's got a really nice she's got officer she's got pretty much well 217 view on two sides here so she gets a massive view of what I'm doing you going up there from there hellowho and she's able to stick her head out so she can just get a head out she can see what I'm doing and but she's not going to damage yourself in any way so it allows the opportunity to have a room with a view and she should fall off my arm and but without actually causing herself any injury which is the most important thing for me is that if I'm going to be a caretaker to these animals that I can make sure that they look after themselves and they look as lovely as possible so basically in short and you know if you've got any concerns about her and you know I can reassure you this bird is free flown and I will try and get some footage of her flying it's pretty hard because she usually goes off to a few of the fields and does her own thing and then she comes back but basically and you know she has the opportunity for me it's all about giving her choice and sometimes that choice for her is that she wants to stay still and not do anything people all suspect in Richmond her over every space is very open and as an important reason for that when she's flying around in here I don't want her crashing into things it's very tempting as pet owners to think that we should give her lots of things and fill up her space but the reality is she can go outside and all that she's got a whole world to play and people and however I do put stuff in her Avery and so she likes a lot of things like this I'm so silly little toddler toys and she even has full blood and things like this this is her little xylophone drum fact that she's got this is actually electronic there we go she absolutely loves this behavior that she's doing on mom at the minute and is excitement however stuff like this annoying as it is I'll turn it off and stuff like that I don't tend to leave in hurry I'll just bring it in when I come to see ya which is you know at least three times a day and then she plays a bit for a bit she gets bored of things very quickly I take it out because anything with things like batteries in office is going to be a danger to her long-term there we go put that down so I hope you've enjoyed that quick Q&A hopefully it's answered a few questions I appreciate at the end of the day we all see things from a different point of view and not everyone is going to understand why I do what I do and but hopefully that's allowed for a little bit more understanding and if you've got any other questions please comment below or any things that you'd like to see with her and I'll do a little bit on her diet at some point and because a diet is super interesting but now thanks very much I'll catch y'all soon you

Channel: Falconry And Me

Views: 644,871

Rating: 4.9706264 out of 5

Keywords: fable the raven, raven, corvid, falconry, bird training, captive birds, bird husbandry, avian training, boop boop

Id: sOwpvFtYcTM

Length: 11min 33sec (693 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 27 2020