Another Bunny- # 15

It is getting pretty cool in the mornings. It was 27 this morning.  I waited until 10 AM to start, so by the time I got to where I wanted to hunt, it had warmed up above freezing. Hope weighed 954 this morning. Apparently there are a few calories in Bunnies after all. I decided to give it a try anyway, to see if she would perhaps be stronger rather than just fat. She shows no less enthusiasm for hunting when she is this weight. I am still trying to find the weight that she hunts best. So far I can't really tell the difference between 900 and 950. She seems to try equally hard at either weight. I decided if she started slacking off I would just come on home, and give it another day.

When we got to the field, I again switched it up on my route to try to keep the Jacks off their game. It seemed to be working, with the exception that Hope still was missing. It was a bit strange, in that some of the medium distance Jacks would be ignored by her, but she would occasionally try Jacks that were a couple of hundred yards away. We had a couple of close misses with Jacks that were trying to hide close enough to me that I could flush them out for her after they had hid, but she still ended up missing. She is still working on flaring up into the air trying to locate the hiding rabbits. I find my self straining to hear a screaming Jack at the end of one of those dives, and am always disappointed when it doesn't come.

I made a pretty big circle around the field, hoping that things would go our way. All the while she was crashing into the bushes from low pursuit and high dives. We got a few slips at Bunnies, and she saw where one ran into a hole under the lava rocks. When I got there she was down as far as she could go and trying to find him. She tried for about 5 minutes to find him, but gave up when she could not get down the hole. When I walked away she gave up and flew to the perch. This is the first that she has realized that they were going underground.

I had walked almost all of a 3 sided rectangle at least 3/4 of a mile on a side, when Hope took off and thumped down over a small rise. When I arrived she was holding a Bunny.

This one she killed herself. I gave her the tin cup of tidbits, and then picked her and the Bunny up. I tore the skin off the Bunny and gave her the rear end to eat while we walked back to the car. She was finishing the hind legs when we arrived, so I cut off the head and let her finish her meal on that. I no longer hurry, and we enjoyed the Sun while she ate the head. From the time I started till we finished at the car had taken two hours. Nine Hundred fifty four grams might be a little high for intensity, but she will still hunt. If she had known what she was doing or needed to do she would still have caught a Jack. She will get there, I have no doubt. Already at the point she is now, she is better than the last four Harris Hawks that I have had. She is a pleasure to hunt with, even with all the misses. I have the time and will spend the time and effort to make her a truly great hunting hawk.