Its cold as can be- Happy New Year!

This is the view that I got this morning about 10 AM. It actually wasn't all that cold. It was 8 degrees when we got up at 0630. I had expected it to get colder. The fog while decorating the trees and weeds might have kept a bit of warmth from escaping the ground.

I tend to keep a close lookout on the area around the house, especially in the winter. The creek is a natural travel corridor for all wildlife, and the sounds of the Chickens and Pigeons are a natural attractant for hungry predators. I normally lock up the Chickens and Pigeons at night to try to keep temptation under control. Four nights ago I got sidetracked until quite late. I decided one night wouldn't hurt. I was wrong of course. Normally I let every thing out around 10 AM so that it can warm up a bit, and I can put the Hawks out and feed them. Doing all of my chores at one time.

I try to go out in the afternoon and put some more feed in the chicken trough. When I did, I noticed body parts and a partially eaten Chicken half buried in the duff. As near as I could tell they were all Old English Roosters. That is good as I have a surplus of new Roosters that haven't been culled out as yet. 

I found the results of the depredation to be quite confusing. To my knowledge the only thing that will bury its food is a Bob Cat, or a Badger. I checked the well tracked snow around that area, and could find nothing that didn't look like a Dog track. Of course the Dogs had been all over looking for rabbits.

Perhaps the thing that caused the most confusion is that it appeared that what ever it was, only killed what it needed to satisfy its appetite. Coons,  Badgers and Horned Owls will kill every thing that moves, eat what they want and leave the rest until the next night. Badgers of course will dig a den usually inside of the house, if they can, to wait to get hungry again. Horned Owls will kill all that moves and eat the heads, leaving bodies all over. The scene indicated a Cat more than anything else, but again I could find no sign. Cats run a set travel line over their territory, hitting the same spot only about once a week. They generally keep on the move. I did hear what I took to be a large cat in heat calling for a mate last week or so. The evidence points to a Bobcat. Time will tell.

Anyway as I was saying, I generally keep a pretty close watch out of the windows to see what is in the area. The picture above has a dead Coyote lying in it. I came into the computer room and to my surprise a Coyote was within 10 yards of the "Cat House" where our barn cats live.

To say that I was surprised is a bit of an understatement. I have two rifles that I use for varmint hunting. A 22-250 and a 17 HMR. I use 22 grain hollow points for the 17. I have tried the 17 grain bullets before and I didn't like them for anything as large as a Coyote. This is the second Coyote that I have taken with the 22 grain bullets and they seem to do quite well on close ones. This girl didn't move at all after I shot her.

Exit hole.

entrance hole.

The 22-250 is sending a 40 grain frangible bullet @4000 fps, and if you get a little off the large bones, you can blow a pretty big hole. So I use the 17 on the close ones, so I don't have to sew as much. I of course sell the hides each winter around the last of Feb. and the less damage the better.

The temps had risen to 13 degrees, so I put the Hawks out on their outside perch to eat, while I skinned the Coyote. After I finished I decided to check on Hope to see if the extra weight was keeping her warm. She was holding one leg up trying to warm her feet, so I put her in the shop again.

She gets bored not being able to see outside, but she stays alive, and that is what counts. As you can see she is still pretty cold, even though I had heated up the shop while I was skinning.

The weather is forecast to be below zero by a lot this next week or so. While am not ready to quit hunting Hope, I anticipate that I will be able to begin hunting for a bit more by February. If she begins molting then plans could change a bit.

Merry Christmas!

Its obvious that hunting with a Harris Hawk is out of the question. Neither one of us would enjoy it all that much. Yesterday was high fog with the frozen flakes that accompany it. Every thing was covered in Hoar Frost and temps of 12 degrees did nothing to change the landscape.

This is the little Pine tree in our front yard.

This morning it snowed about an inch and half.

There is little sense in keeping Hope at flying weight as it will likely be at least two weeks before the weather moderates enough to even try to go hunting. So we both will keg up like we had some sense and start again when the weather moderates enough that frost bite has been eliminated from consideration. 

I have been having problems with a Pack Rat in the Chicken house for the last few days. They dislike sharing a food supply with others. They cram the feed trough with sticks, rocks and anything that they can find, so the Chickens can't get to the food. I put a live trap in there last night and today had my rat.

Josie took him for a walk in the new snow this morning. Unfortunately he didn't do all that well, so he supplied a nice casting for Hope. "Its an ill wind that blows nobody any good". 

This is naturally from this summer, but the result is the same.

I put this picture in my last post and while I liked the full color of the original picture, there was some question as to what was the distortion in the side of the picture. I lightened the picture so that the icicles are more visible. It was -13, -11 when the picture was taken.

Karen and I hope that all of you have a very Merry Christmas and enjoy your families like you never have before. We wish all of you the very best. Stay safe and happy, and throw another log on the fire for me.

At least two people are reading this blog.

The reason for the title is that two people wrote to wonder why I hadn't been posting. Worried that something might have been wrong. In short, its because nothing is happening that I consider interesting.

It has been cold! Most nights have been below zero. The coldest so far had been -11. We also had about 2 inches of snow with it. I have been keeping Hope in the Shop, and at least a couple of the days I didn't even put her outside, much less think about hunting.

I've kept snapping pictures of the various Sunrises for you.

even the dullest is worth seeing.

This one was -11 degrees.

Yesterday we had to go to town for a 2:30 Appointment. Man what a nightmare. It was 40 degrees in Jordan Valley and in the Treasure Valley with the inversion it was 19 degrees, and raining. It was 40 degrees above the inversion and the moisture was falling as rain. We managed to get back by 8 PM. Eleven hours of nerves on edge. The idiots were driving bumper to bumper at 65 MPH, with rain falling on 19 degree pavement. There were plenty of accidents, but we weren't one of them.

I went out to the hot tub to try to get some of the kinks out and was serenaded by either a Bob Cat or a Cougar in heat down on the other side of the creek. What ever it was it was far enough away that I could not see any eye shine with my spot light. I compared the calls online and either one could have been making the calls. I didn't stay in the hot tub all that long.

I weighed Hope when I got back last night and she was tipping the scales at 1000 grams, so I decided that if the weather stayed close to freezing I would take her out and we would give it a try.

This afternoon she weighed 987 grams and we trundled on down to Richard's place on the Whitehorse road about 25 miles South. Unfortunately the wind had come up and the temp was 29 degrees. The air was nicely clear and sharp so I took some views of the Steen's from a couple of different areas.

These two are from my driveway.

A couple Feral Horses grazing along the Hwy.

These are from the White Horse Road.

This one shows a well in the foreground with 

Coyote Lake in the Back ground. 

Hope, even at 987 grams is perfectly willing to try to catch Jacks, I just don't think that she is able to twist and turn as she would be at a lower weight. I assume that she would be able to survive the cold temps at a lower weight, but unfortunately I was over zealous in her feeding as usual. She tried her best on each and every Jack that she saw. She pulled hair from at least one of them. She had flown after a Jack that she missed and was sitting on a Sage Bush trying to find where the one she had chased had gone. She was slow to return to the perch, and was intently looking at this one bush. Finally she decided that there was something there. However she wasn't all that sure. She dove into the bush, the Jack that was actually there, jumped about three feet in the air over her head when she crashed into the ground where he had been. I am sure she did not find it nearly as funny as I did.

We hunted for about a hour or more, and I could see that she was getting pretty cold, so we went back to the car and on home.

With Antelope the Bucks have a black band under their chin.

On the way out a really large group of Antelope

ran up the valley towards the ranch. I guessed the herd at about 100 animals.

When I arrived back at the house I gave her a Jack front leg to hold her over night. If the weather stays near zero, we will go out again. 

The weather here in this part of Oregon improves drastically by mid January. When it does I intend to hunt her as long as I can this year. I am not going to get all that excited until the weather moderates.

It appears that winter is here.

We were supposed to hunt Thursday, but a rather nasty storm blew in Wednesday evening. It put down about 5 inches of fine snow.

The snow was very fine, but it snowed all day.

We had a bit of wind to drift what we had. Lucky there wasn't more.

  

At this point I was sorry that Hope was too heavy to fly.

There was a Jack that crawled into this roll of wire to spend the day.

That evening it began to warm up to 43 degrees and almost every thing melted by the next morning. There was water every where, and it was no use to even try to hunt, so I fed Hope a small chunk of Jack on the fist.

We had another storm blow in last night and again we woke up to about 3/4 of an inch of fine snow. The temps was in the low 20's, and it rained on top of the snow lightly. Just enough to put a glaze on every thing. 

The worst weather here is mid December to about mid Jan. When I was flying falcons, this is generally the time that I quit. Every thing is froze up and since I was flying a Tundra Peregrine, whose kin were all in the Bahama's where it is warm. Mine would refuse to fly when the wind chill was in the minus region. When it warms up to freezing I will take Hope out hunting again, but not until then.

Its been a weird day. First a Bald Eagle, apparently in its forth year was sitting 

down by the creek. 

Then I hear Jessie's "war Cry" and look out to see a juvenile Red Tail trying to get to her. Apparently hunting is pretty tough with all the snow. He might think about Jacks for a food supply.

I was supposed to help a friend about 15 miles South, but the wind was really whipping and it was snowing sideways at his place and he wisely decided to stay home. We had nothing here, not even wind. We are in sort of a pocket here that funnels storms around us. It will rain like crazy just 6 miles either direction from here. Since I am not dependent on rain or moisture, I like it. Neighbors not so much.

                                                           This was all we had left for a Sunset.

Dec 12th and 13th- #29

The sunrise and sunset on the 12th was pretty good. The lovely skies are a little more scarce in the winter, so they are worth recording and sharing when they occur.

The Sun just peeking over the Idaho Mtns.

We had to go in to Burns today to straighten up a problem with my drivers license, and it appeared that the Steen's is getting a bit of weather.

                                             Then of course the Sunset that evening was just as interesting.

I case you hadn't noticed, the skull is that of a wild pig that I found in N Nev.

The horns are a pair that I found by the Prairie nest where I got Leezard.

Tuesday the 13th

The temps were to drop below 20 last night so Hope got to spend the night inside. It was my intention to go hunting by about 11 AM to beat the storm that is forecast for later tonight. We are under a "Storm Warning" for tonight and tomorrow. We will see. I am sure that it will be pretty nasty around us, just not sure how much it will affect us.

It was my intention to get out around 11 AM as it would be the warmest and the least amount of wind, according to the forecast. I went out around 10 to do the morning chores and found that there was no water at the chicken pen. When I came in the house I also found that there was none in the house either. I turned on the cool room light to see what was going on and there was no power to the pump. I checked the breakers in the house and they all seemed OK. After getting an electrician headed out from Burns, I checked the output on the house breakers and all seemed to be in working order. I finally discovered that the power to the cool room is connected to a breaker in the Hangar, and it was faulty. Another one of the joys of a house built by amateurs. The cool room is connected to the house underneath the porch, but the power comes to it underground from the hangar. Any way, the power was back on, we had water, so I could go hawking.

I am still looking for somewhere to hunt here close to the house. I had been told that the well head a bit further down South was reputed to have a population of Jacks hanging out there. I had been putting off trying it for some time, but decided that today would be the day to find out.

I went down there and walked with Hope in a circle about a 1/4 mile across, and managed to jump two Jacks. Both of which eluded Hope. She got up at least three times on each of them, but they made their escape. I loaded Hope back in the car, and came back to Crooked Creek and tried the other side of the Creek. I saw one Jack. I loaded her up again and went to the "dump field" where I had entered her and had found so many rabbits.

When I got the the field there was a fairly large group of Cows in there. I drove past them in an attempt to not disturb or be disturbed by them. I have come to the conclusion that Cows have a guilty conscience. They just know that your only purpose in life is to mess with them, and the only way to combat that is to get in front of you and run like hell. Of course right where you don't want them to go.

I stopped the car when I was far enough past them that they had decided to run the other way. As I got out and was walking to the back of the car, a Jack got up in front of me and ran into the field. A good sign for a change.

I got Hope out and we were able to get him up again, but he snookered her, getting away and running towards the Cows.

I walked at least 1/2 mile down the creek without jumping another rabbit. Hope was getting so desperate that she was flying to the bushes with rabbit forms in them and poking around trying to find anything to chase. I walked all the way to the end without finding anything.  I turned around deciding that we probably were going home empty handed, and headed back to the car. I was trying to think where I was going to try next.

I was walking at the edge of the Sage, and looking over I saw what I took to be a pile of horse crap that had dried out. The only thing was that it was under a bush and didn't appear to have been able to fall there naturally. I stopped and took two steps in that direction when the Jack jumped and took off. So did Hope and she caught him in short order.

I ran up and decided to take a picture since she had him in the shoulder and he couldn't get up.

This is a rather convoluted grab on her part, and I hurried to help her. He managed to pull her foot out of his side and the rodeo was on. after 4 of my attempts to grab him in several of the bushes, covering about 20 feet. She was down to only the ankle joint on one hind leg. He made the mistake of trying to scrape her off on a bush, and I was finally able to corral him. I put him out of his misery and sat back to recover.

Hope ate her tidbits and I gave her a front leg off her last kill. She retired to eat it, while I bagged the rabbit.

At the top of the picture you can see my T perch. I am standing where the chase ended. I will not longer take any pictures of a live rabbit. Lesson learned.

Dec 11- # 28

I spent yesterday trying to find a way to mount my Virb video camera somewhere that it would produce a better video. On my head is fine except that it jerks all over with every movement of my head. The Virb does not have the same mount that is on the Drift, so I had to invent a way to secure it in a level mode.  I eventually took a Bino strap that fits over the head and arms to hold your bino's tight against your chest. I made a little cup that I could secure the camera in, put a 90 degree brace on it, and then pop riveted it on to the leather part that keeps the straps together. I also put a piece of lexan on the back to keep the camera from wobbling. I wear the bino straps backward. Not the best, but better than what I have been doing. The Virb is a much clearer camera than my Drift.

If you remember on my hunt around the house in the snow, I only jumped perhaps 4 or 5 Jacks.

  However this is my lawn. Those little spots are not M&M's. The Jacks come in here from miles around to feed on my lawn, and leave their fertilizer behind as payment. Perhaps I should consider hunting at night with lights.

Last night was warm, and it was 22 degrees this morning, so I left Hope out in the weathering area to spend the night. She called to me every time she saw me yesterday when I knew full well that she was over 1000 grams.

As you can see the snow went pretty quickly, leaving very soft ground behind. I wanted to explore the last area that I had hunted, and see if there was a good huntable population of Jacks further out the fence. The area to the left of the picture is where I have been hunting. The area at the end of the light brown spot in the distance is where I wanted to hunt first.

 It was still under 30 degrees so I felt that I could make at least one more trip out there in the car before I started tearing up the road. The ground here gets pretty queasy very quick. The last thing I need is to mess up the back roads around here.

I did manage to get where I wanted to go only sinking about an inch or so into the ground, but it was so squirrely that I will not do that again until the ground freezes solid.

I went past the area that she killed the last time so that I could have the sun and wind at my back. The wind had come up to about 10 MPH, which is almost too much to hunt successfully, at least with Hope.

We got a few chases, but all were way off and there really wasn't all that many. I was very disappointed, but the ground was greasy and Jacks don't like mud between their toes any more than we do, so I really wasn't all that surprised. I had expected higher more solid ground, but it was all greasy as could be.

I made a large circle back to the car without getting any slips that she had a reasonable chance at. I decided to go back to the upwind side of where I normally hunted.

She finally got a nice close slip on a Jack. He tried to turn inside of her, but she used the wind and towered up about 20 feet, and let the wind turn her. The Jack reversed direction but it was too late and she crashed into him about 20 feet in front of me. When I got there he was trying to climb up out of the Grease Wood bush. I started to reach into the bush to get him, but stopped when her foot lanced up through the bush to grab him in the face.They then fell out of the bush and I went around to grab his feet. I then killed him by stretching him until his neck broke. I will warn you that I did not mute his cries, so if you have never heard the "death song" of a Jack in the clutches of a Hawk, it may give you pause.

When he stopped twitching, I gave Hope her tidbits, then a front leg to eat. She stepped off with it, and ate while I gathered my stuff up. When I offered my fist she came to me and we walked back to the truck.

While Hope is still trying every rabbit that she can see, rather than hunting smart and only flying at those that she has a chance to catch. She has surprised me by learning very fast that Jacks caught in the butt are very hard to hold. Its always tough for most Hawks to learn that the secret to keeping a bucking and kicking Jack is to grab it as far forward as you can. Hope has only lost 3 or 4 Jacks total this year, and many of the ones that she catches, only have wounds in the forward part of the body. I don't recall any Hawk that I have trained, has learned that lesson so quickly.

The only injury to this Jack is this cut on his side. As you can see it goes all the way into the chest cavity. There was also some discussion with other falconers of the survival rate of rabbits that have been caught by a Hawk. I don't think "catch and release" would work that well with Hope.

While I am sure that some of the trauma to this rabbits neck was due to me, but not all of it and the bulging eye is not because of me.

This is likely the last video that I will do for some time, so enjoy. I did not narrate this one as it was done while we were hunting. The wind was a bit over 10 MPH, and was quite noisy.

https://vimeo.com/195223908  password  owyheeflyer

Dec. 9th - Snow day

Keeping Hope inside at night has slowed her weight loss enough that she did not lose enough weight to have much of a chance to catch anything today. We have about an inch of snow on the ground and she weighs 1000 grams today, so I didn't need a crystal ball to tell me that today was not going to be a serious hawking day. However I wanted to see how she does in snow, having never seen any before. If she gets on the ground with a Jack she is going to get very wet, as Harris Hawks have little water proofing in their feathers. I decided to make a short foray here at the house, avoiding as many of the Bunnies as I could, then feed her a maintenance amount of food. Then perhaps fly her Sunday, when the snow should be gone.

I again decided to wear the camera, the lighting is pretty subdued but you can still see what she is doing. I turned the sound on this time, so you can hear me wheezing as I walk. :-/

The extra weight had the effect that I expected. She is still willing, just not as able. The required amount of snap just isn't there. Compare the wing beat in the last video to this one and you will be able to see what I mean. It is this lack that will tell a handler what the high end of his hawks response weight really is. Today, she was too fat to hunt! However I felt what she would experience was worth the "wasted" effort.

If I had wanted her to catch something, I could have arranged for her to catch a Bunny. I don't consider Bunnies in this setting to be much of a challenge. It is of course different in the Willamette Valley, due to the terrain, and vegetation, as well as the Rabbits are different. The Eastern Cottontail was brought into the Valley long ago, and are very much different from our Brush Bunnies.

 
Not a lot of places for this one to go. Brick pointed him out to me yesterday, and he was there again today.

There is about three or four of these little guys living here in the wood pile and under the Pigeon house. There is little reason to kill them, besides I think they are really cute, and I enjoy seeing them.

https://vimeo.com/195027665   password- owyheeflyer