Jessie was actually ready to fly yesterday, but it had been raining and I wanted the rain to soak in a bit. She was a bit high in weight, I thought. She weighed 924 grams, so I gave her a wing from the last Duck she had killed, deciding to wait for another day. When I weighed her today, she weighed 920 grams, so the only thing I gained was the ground was a bit more settled.
When I went out to do my chores this morning, she appeared quite anxious to hunt. So after Karen came back from the mail at noon today, I gathered her up to give it a shot. I asked Karen to try to get some video of our hunt. She reluctantly agreed. The camera is one of the little Sam sung hand held cameras. It takes good video, but it has no view finder, and is so small that it is almost impossible to hold steady. I have it mounted on a "gun stock" type rig, but even with that it is a miracle to get a steady shot. It also has a tendency to search for focus, and you are guaranteed to have it go fuzzy at the wrong time. Any way I thought it might be worth while to at least try. Karen was kind enough to not share her opinion.
The day was actually just perfect. It was about 50 degrees, a bit overcast, but little to nothing for wind. I put Jessie in the air, and we began our walk towards the lake. She flies this lake the best of all the spots that I have taken her. Of course there are few places to fly her this year. She has had problems here in the past. This is the first year that she has shown the " field generalship" that a falcon needs to be successful. She flies higher here than any other spot that we have flown. She is very careful in the timing of her stoop so that she can get to them before they get to the "braided" water courses coming out of the lake. She has been timing her stoops so that the Ducks have time to clear the lake and the reed beds behind the lake.
After she took to the air, we started towards the Lake. This is the anxious part, since we will not know if there is going to be anything there to hunt or we will have to call her down to the lure. Jessie kept cranking up higher and higher, and finally two Mallards started flying, but landed at the edge of the reeds at the back part of the lake, preferring to not take the chance of flying under a Peregrine already in the air. Jessie didn't react to the ruse. Finally they could not stand the pressure and broke out of the lake in an attempt to get away from me. Jessie slashed down out of the sky following them around behind the trees. I could not see the strike, but I could hear it even as far away as I was from the impact.
I made as good time as I could to get to her. She was trying to drag the Duck out of the shallow water at the edge of the swamp. I reached down and picked them both up and took them to the drier part of the bank. Surprisingly she did not object or act defensive about the Duck. A bit of a new thing for us. Normally, hostility is the main feature if I try to help her. I sat her in a dry spot and secured her leash, then backed off so she could do her thing. It was apparent that the Duck was not dead even though she had opened her neck all the way to the vertebrae. I broke the Ducks neck and we had another rodeo, but neither one of us was bucked off.
Jessie this time decided to eat a bit of meat along with all the fat.
She even opened up the stomach cavity, and removed the intestines.
This is the finished product, after an hour of eating. She did really well this time, and I don't have to worry about her not getting anything to eat but fat. It was almost a balanced meal for a change.
Here is the link to the video, such as it is.
https://vimeo.com/113760833 password is - owyheeflyer
Now it is time for a bit of reflection, about what I have done in the past and what I am doing this year. A fair number of those who read this are falconers as well, and as such know what it is like to have a raptor that is a problem to handle. I have always maintained that Jessie is a bit of a "Prima donna", but most of those who have seen her think that I am exaggerating. Perhaps theirs are worse, or most likely they have not seen into her mind as I have.
Jessie is what is called a dual socialized raptor. She was taken from her mother at 28 days old. She was old enough to know that she is a falcon, but young enough to think that I might be an ugly falcon too fat to fly. As such, she has no fear of me, and is quite convinced that I only give her food out of weakness, and am only waiting for an opportunity to steal it back.
My problems actually began when I first started flying falcons in the 1980's. I was sharing hunting fields with George Peden, a friend who had access to the Running Y Ranch in Klamath. It was composed of canals, and large fields. Both of us had limited time to fly, and we took turns at the few Ducks that were on these canals.It was as tough a set up as there is, and a miracle if either of us ever caught anything.
As I said we were limited in time, so when your bird either caught something or came to the lure, we hustled our birds out of the field so that the other could get a chance to put his bird up. Even after I left there and there was absolutely no reason to be in a hurry I still continued that practice.
Jessie , having no fear, had no problem showing me that she did not like me hurrying her up, and at least three times left her prey and began the climb up my arm to tell me so face to face.
This year I finally decided that one place on this earth is just as good as another, and there was no place that I had to be right at the moment, other than where I am. So this year I backed off and let Jessie alone, not even touching her Duck unless it was fighting her. It finally does not matter how often she flies, it is more important how well she flies. She has responded by flying better and a lot more seriously. You can see in this video she is not paying any attention to me at all,even though I am only inches behind her. Her wings are high and tight, and relaxed. Last year I seriously thought about getting rid of her, this year she is a sweetheart. I have always said to my apprentice's in an attempt to get them to study the Raptor and read what the Hawk is thinking, " The hurrieder you go, the behinder you get". As you can see, I can't even spell it, but it works, its about time I followed my own advice.
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