As an avid lover of large birds of prey and someone who has an interest in falconry, I find Subeta's current stock of wearable raptor-related items to be somewhat lacking! We have plenty of owls--all of the old Enchanted Owl Feather items, the Owl Treats item, the steampunk owls from the Masquerade shop--but not much in the way of other species. (That said, I would never say no to more owls!) We also have the caged bird items in the Masquerade shop, but you can hardly see the bird inside! D:

I would love nothing more than to have my HA keep company with a sleek falcon, looming hawk, or skulking vulture, and I've got some ideas.

Pose Suggestions

The obvious one is a bird on a glove. We already have one item that does this:

Interesting to note, that bird is sitting on the HA's right hand, but most of the time, falconers keep their bird on their left hand. You generally have the bird sit on your non-dominant hand, so that your dominant hand is free to work the jesses (the straps used to hold onto the bird and attach it to your glove), tie knots in the leash, or offer the bird bites of meat for good behavior or to lure it back to you. Either works, though!

Now, there's all different kinds of glove designs to be used. There's simple ones:

and fancy ones:

The way I see it, the bird could be sitting on the glove as it is in the one existing item... OR you could have the bird returning to the glove. The HA could be 'holding' the glove up and the bird could be coming in from the side with its feet extended, ready to wait for the next slip.

whoooosh

You could also have the bird sitting on a perch, which has just as much flexibility.

There's ring perches:

Block perches:

Bow perches:

T-perches:

These could be placed beside or just in front of the HA.

If on a perch or a glove, the birds could also be hooded, and boy howdy let me tell you, you can really go nuts with the hoods. Just like with gloves, there are simple hoods:

And then... well...

And one of my favorites:

Now, I realize that I've been talking a lot about falconry, but there are plenty of other bird species that could sit prettily on a glove or a perch!

Which leads me to my next point, which is Species Suggestions

Since I feel like I've already used waaaay too many images in this post, I'm just going to use lists, and you can google these magnificent creatures for yourself and see just how wonderful it would be to have some of them grace your HA.

For hawks: -red tailed hawk -red shouldered hawk -Harris' hawk -ferruginous hawk -variable hawk -northern goshawk -sharp shinned hawk -bicolored hawk -red goshawk -red kite -Mississippi kite -brahminy kite

For falcons: -peregrine falcon -saker falcon -lanner falcon -kestrel (we have a European kestrel in the "Kestrel Companion" item, but I'd love to see an American one!) -merlin -bat falcon -gyrfalcon (which is what I believe the Viking Falconers Glove item shows, but you can never have too many falcons!)

For owls: -barred owl -great horned owl -screech owl -long eared owl -great grey owl -barn owl

Other birds: -turkey vulture -black vulture -Andean condor -California condor -cape vulture -griffin vulture -lammerigeier/bearded vulture -osprey -golden eagle -bald eagle -harpy eagle

Now, non-raptor species could also be really fun to have! Birds like macaws, conures, parrotlets, cockatoos, cockatiels... They could easily be perched on the shoulder or walking up the arm, or even on the head! (You could also have some of the smaller hawks or falcons doing this--I've seen plenty of falconers with their kestrels one their heads and their red-tails on their shoulders, though the latter was only for a short time.)

Basically, I think Subeta needs more birds! Is anyone else of a similar mind?

I can get behind this. I do like seeing new items that change the position of the HA's arms (and because that's tricky to do, I can see why the glove we have is on the HA's right hand. There's less extra details needed to block it because the part of the arm we can see is much smaller than the left).

And also birds are wonderful. I would love a raven on a glove, logical or not. Just give me a more useable raven companion that doesn't block half of my HA's face, or blend in as much with matching black clothing like the Though it would still blend in with wings which was half my problem messing in the wardrobe yesterday

Yay, support!

I volunteer with an animal-assisted educational program and we have a raven, and we're trying to train her to the glove, so it's totally logical!

Also, if we had them sitting on shoulders, the birds could be sitting a bit more upright (which is how birds of prey do--ravens slouch). Sorta like...

I agree! I do love the little birds we have already, the cardinal, blue birds and yes we have Crackers the pirate parrot. I would be nice to have more birds though, outside of cages because yes, you cannot see into the cage well.

I just realized I necroed.

Sorry... :(

I could get behind more bird items...as long as they're called bird items

Sorry. Replied before seeing the date of this ;_;

I want a real raven friend so bad. Not a pet, a friend. I just love ravens. So very smart, so pretty.

Raptors in general are cool, ditto parrots. But what I'm really itching for is a white dove. I'm surprised we don't already have one.