Alternative conditioning

The wind has died, and with it the chance to get Jessie in flying condition. Plan B of course is to take her to the field, since she will fly no further at home than is required to get me to throw the lure.

Karen and I took Jessie to the ranch next door. There is a small pond there that if approached properly, any Ducks sitting on it do not have a chance if the falcon really wants one. We left at 4 PM, giving us an hour and half of daylight. The last time I flew over the pond, it was jammed full of Ducks.

When I flush I go to this end of the pond so that the Ducks have to flush over land. To do so, I travel along the creek that is behind me. As I started along to get in position, a large number of Ducks flushed off the creek. The creek is difficult because there are plenty of places that the Ducks can get back into the water. At that point it rapidly turns into a Rat hunt that I do not have the speed and physical endurance to bring to a possible positive solution. 

I released Jessie and she flew up, but really not over the pond. Hoping that there would be something there, I rushed the dike. Empty! The ducks that had flushed earlier had gone in a couple of hundred yards further up the Creek, so off I went. The Ducks saw us coming and flushed well ahead of us. Jessie tried and splashed several of them back in to the pond. They only waited until she flew to the far side of her circle, and flushed again. By this time Jessie had been in the air for about 10 minutes and was getting lower and lower, finely she landed on a rock to rest.

I went back to the pond and Karen, and tossed the lure when Jess left the rock. She grabbed it and took it towards the pond, landing on the dike. Regardless of the out come, I was pleased with the amount of conditioning that she had demonstrated, and her desire and attempts to catch one of the Ducks. She had done her part, it was the human factor that screwed things up. I asked Karen to take a few pictures of her, and walked off without picking up the lure that she had left to come to the fist.

  

We made an attempt to get ready earlier in the day in the hopes that the Ducks would be using the pond for rest in the middle of the day. The wind again was down to nothing, so I had to go back to get my lure. I don't need it with the kite, but I do if we fly game.

This time I stayed away from the creek, so that I could fly it if the pond was again empty. It was in fact almost frozen over. I peeked back at the creek, and promptly managed to scare some of the Ducks off of it. I dodged back down and made my way to Karen, who I had left holding Jessie while I did my recon.

I put her up, and she took position by the Ducks and the creek. We timed our approach with her position over the Ducks. Finely they could stand it no longer and busted off the Creek. Jessie smacked a Mallard Drake out of the air into the willows. She did not go in after him, which surprised me a bit. She gives no quarter to the females, but is hesitant on the Drakes. She broke her leg on a Drake in 2006, and she is still a bit shy. Not always, but with it buried in the Willows and the beginning of the season, I could understand.

She soon landed on a rock to rest. Karen went back to the car, as she was cold, and the rest was just going to be a predictable waste of time. I wanted her to fly more, so that she could build more muscle, so we went up the creek. She was soon in the air following me, but though we went quite a ways up, found nothing to hunt. I now had my lure again, so I called her down.

She is doing quite well this year,( her 10th ) and while stronger than I had thought. If I was able to do my job, she would be catching Ducks. I have two more ponds here that I can fly, one of which will require her to be a lot higher than she is flying right now.

If the wind blows tomorrow, I will put the kite high enough that she will have to work her butt off to get it.