Jessie finally relents.

Tami and I decided to hunt early today, she, because her Mother was coming, and I, because I was going to have to hunt three birds. A lot to do and not enough time in the day.

The wind was supposed to come up later in the day, so at 2 PM I drove over to the ranch and Tami, Isabel and I walked out to the field with the Harris'. Both girls were anxious, but the rabbits had seen them before and were busting a long ways out. Yogi was taking slips that were as much as 200 yards out, all to no effect. We made a circuit of the field and finally Puddy grabbed one. Yogi wasted no time in anchoring the Jack. Since we were on short time, we walked back to the entrance of the field hunting as we went. They had a couple of other chases, but were not able to connect. I tossed them their meal on the ground, and after they finished, leashed them up and went back to Tami's house.

Meg, Tami's Kestrel, was ready to fly, so we got things ready. We called Karen, who had stayed home to get the car ready for the upcoming falconry meet in Madras this weekend. She agreed to come over and bring the dogs, so that we could hunt Jessie when we finished with Meg.

We flew Meg free yesterday for the first time. Tami called her to the fist several times, and I had a Starling on a fishing pole to give her her first bag. Meg is quite jumpy and is going to be a bit of a problem with wild game. When I flicked out the bird, she was unsure and did not seem to realize that it could be a food item. After a bit of studying, she gave chase, but missed. She flew back up to the fence, but the bird was still there. I think she made three attempts before she finally made contact. The bird was giving her quite a tussle, but she would not allow Tami to help. Tami stayed back and let her wallow it around until she finally killed it. Meg was still ready to bolt with her prize, so I split a dried weed and had her put a tidbit in the split and offer it to her while she was giving the food call. Well that seemed to be different. Tami stayed kneeling down in a very awkward position and fed her tidbits until Meg finally allowed her to help with the bird and feed her tidbits.

 Today she was back at weight and we wanted to continue our lesson. She was actually a bit lower in weight than yesterday. Meg wanted to fix that situation and sat on a fence post scanning for bugs of any type. I flicked the Starling that had volunteered for today's lesson out, and today Meg wasn't wasting any time. At the first wing beat, she was off and after the bird, who had attempted to take refuge under my feet. They did a couple of loops around my feet and Meg caught him right where she is in the picture. I didn't dare move, but she paid me no mind at all. They were wrestling around in the hay in front of me, and Tami and I agreed that she should help her, if she would allow it.

Tami met no resistance from Meg at all, and was able to kill the bird by crushing its skull. She gave her a tidbit, and opened the skull for Meg's favorite part of the meal. Tami clipped her leash up and continued to feed her tidbits as she ate. I was very pleased to see that the reaction today was totally relaxed and she showed no desire to flee with her prize.

Karen had shown up in the meantime, so we left Tami with the tedious part of falconry, and went to see if Jessie had seen the light.

Jessie was down to 780 grams, and had begged me to pick her up as I was getting the Harris' out of the weathering area. I had not intended to take her out until later in the evening, and quite frankly wasn't looking forward to it at all. She managed to make me feel guilty, so I picked her up and took her with me.

Karen and I drove to the Lake, ( beginning of Crooked Creek) with two happy dogs. Betsy fogged up the car with her constant panting. Its been a while since they had been able to go hawking and they had missed it a lot.

The wind had picked up a bit, but it was still flyable. I turned Jessie loose out of sight of the lake and we began our walk to see what we had on the water for a choice. Jessie began to get her pitch and here came a Prairie Falcon who resented her presence at her favorite spot. She made a few feints at Jessie, who responded by making a grab at the Prairie. The Prairie took the hint and decided to go somewhere else for a while.

When I could see the lake, my heart sank. There were only a couple of smaller ducks at the far end by the reeds. I was pretty sure that this was going to be another disappointing flight. Even if Jessie did want one of them, the odds were stacked against her. The dogs happily ran at the water and apparently flushed a couple of them. Jessie gave pursuit, but she was out of position and they cut back through the trees and back over the water. They decided to  not land because of the dogs, and as they attempted to climb out over the reeds Jessie clobbered one of them back into the water. She hit him hard and he landed in the water upside down. Curse words never left my mouth, but they were there. I walked down   towards the Lake, and for some reason the clobbered Duck lifted off over the reeds and he and Jessie disappeared behind the trees.

 I am not sure if the dogs flushed him, or he just wasn't thinking straight, but whatever the reason, I was very thankful. She needed no assistance, and I wasn't going to give her any even if she did. I sat and watched her eat, while the dogs explored every nook and cranny ( muddy nasty spot) at the lake.

I let her eat for a while, and then offered her a Starling, and she stepped on the fist like a ??lady??.

Hopefully her snit has passed and she will get down to business. She is a great hawk when she wants to be, and when her mind is right, nothing is safe. Even so I was seriously considering getting rid of her.

Hunting by Moonlight

I decided to give Jessie another chance to see if she is ready to hunt yesterday. So late in the afternoon I took her over to the ranch and stole Tami away from her Chicken cleaning to go with me. Yesterday was butchering day for both of our old Chickens. Some of mine were at least three years old and hadn't laid an egg in months. Tami just got rid of a bunch of her older ones to make room for the new ones coming on. Totally there were 17 Chickens to be cleaned. Reuben came along to help. I was tired enough when we were done that I didn't intend to hunt. After a soak in the hot tub and a serious case of boredom, I changed my mind. Poor Tami still had 6 Chickens left to clean when I got there, but I guess she needed a change of scenery, so she went with me.

I had put Jessie up for a bit and fed her some Pigeons and just let her sit for a week or so, on the off chance that she would want to hunt when and if she got another chance. There were plenty of Ducks at the barn, so we put her in the air, and when she was in position, we flushed them. She goofed around without ever committing while most of them flew. She finally decided that she wanted one of them, but was not able to catch up before he splashed back into the creek. She then flew over to her favorite hay stack and sat down. I had seen this before, so we went back to the shop and watched Dave work on a truck. I was monitoring her whereabouts with the telemetry, and could see where she was sitting, and I knew what she wanted was for me to call her to the lure. We sat there for an hour each determined to get our way, but I had already had my dinner and didn't really care if she came or not. Finally she blinked and flew over to where we were. There had been some Ducks in the creek there, but they had all swam somewhere else, so there was nothing to do but call her down to the lure.

She should have anxious to hunt as her weight was about three ounces lower than what I hunted her last year. Well I guess we will have to step it up a notch. She got some rabbit on the lure and half of a Starling for her dinner.

Today was the Harris' day, and I waited quite late to pick up the girls hoping that the wind would moderate a bit. At 6 PM I decided that I couldn't wait any longer and started picking up the girls. Jessie wanted to go, even trying to fly to me while I was holding Yogi. Sorry Pal, not today, and maybe not tomorrow either.

I decided that we would hunt the field that had the dead rabbits in it, and I would check the ones that we caught to see if I could find anything wrong with the ones that they caught. If there is anything wrong with them the Liver will generally show abnormalities.

Unfortunately by the time we got out in the field the Moon was already coming up over the hills to the East.

  Oh well, Harris' don't sweat the small stuff. They will hunt by flashlight if they have to. We jumped one not far into the field and he sure didn't run like he felt bad. He turned the girls every which way but loose, leaving them sitting on the ground wondering which way he went. We went a bit further and the next one also gave them the slip after several repeated attempts to bring him to bag. Strangely enough I was elated. One of the symptoms of Tularemia is sluggishness. These guy's were not sluggish at all. Finally the next one made an error, and Puddy slammed into him, with Yogi soon making the anchoring shot to his head.

If you look closely at this picture you will see that Puddy has him by only his foot, and that there is a big wad of Jack Rabbit butt fur including the tail off to the left of the bush. His butt was ripped to shreds, but he would have escaped if not for Yogi.

I tossed them each a chunk of the last rabbit that they had caught while Tami went to examine the rabbit.  He was not a youngster by any stretch, and was carrying a substantial amount of fat, and his liver was nice and normal, which pleased me enormously.

 We hunted for a bit more, but it was getting really dark, so after a couple more chases we called them back and tossed the rest of their meal on the ground for them to eat. By the time we got to the car it was fully dark.