Number 18 with a price

Hope tried to talk me into taking her hunting yesterday, but I was pretty sure that she was too heavy. When I picked her up this morning she still weighed 940. I decided to try the last field that we had hunted, but staying away from the spot with all the Bunnies. Like all Harris Hawks, I am sure that Hope is very susceptible to being spoiled. Bunnies are just too tempting, and too a point too easy. In all actuality, I didn't want her catching another Bunny. I am more interested in her learning how to catch Jacks regularly.

This is private land, and it the Cows had been left on it for a long time.  There was almost a layer of rabbit pellets on the ground.

I started at the opposite end from the last time, in an effort to stay away from the Bunnies, and eventually jumped a Jack. It gave her the slip, as well as the next 5 Jacks. I had pretty well covered the field, and she had missed every Jack as well as the four or so Bunnies that we jumped. The holes and rocks are perfect for Bunnies.  One Jack that we jumped at the edge of an Alfalfa field,  tried running down the ditch at the edge. She made a shot at him that he was only able to evade by jumping straight up in the air. She went under him. They have so many tricks and evasions.

It was beginning to sprinkle a bit, and I really wasn't satisfied with her performance, but decided to go through one last bit of cover. She flashed off the fist and around a bunch of low rocks. Bunny distress sounds soon followed.

This is the crack that the Bunny tried to get down, but she was too close. She had grabbed him in the butt first and by the time I got there she had one foot in his head on the other side of the small rock in the middle of the crack. She was holding him off the ground one in the back and the other in the front with her wings on either side of the crack. I reached in and pulled them both out and finished him off.

After I got home and took her out of her box, I found that somewhere in the melee she had lost a talon on the far left ponce.

Nov 10th Number 17.

There is another field that borders the ones that I hunt in Arock that I have not been able to hunt before today. The owner sold it to a ranch that borders it, and they have had their cattle on it since the end of Summer. There are several Alfalfa fields on it and the rabbit populations have always been good or even better than most places. I called the new owner and he gave permission after the cows were off it. The last time I went to Arock and we got the hiding Jack, I noticed that there were no cows in the Sage area, and I decided to visit it the next time I hunted in Arock.

Its fairly low Sage with lots of Lava flows mixed in and around. It has always sheltered a larger than normal amount of Bunnies simply for that reason. When I arrived there today all the cows had been mover to other pastures, and it was all mine. As I parked the car, I could see that the cows had to be moved because there was pretty much no grass or weeds in between the Sage. The Alfalfa fields had been supplying the majority of the feed for the cows. A bunny flushed before I could even open the back of the car.

We began our hunt and she flew two of the Bunnies before we had gone more than 50 yards of the fence. Of course the Lava means that shelter is never far away. She had three flights on Bunnies before we saw even one Jack. She missed all four of them. I wanted to get a feel of what the area had to offer, so I was working my way back to the Alfalfa fields, when another Bunny jumped and she pounded him. One little squeak and that was it.

Oh well, they all count one in her mind. She weighed 935 grams this morning, and she caught her dinner. That is what counts. Next year will be soon enough to make multiple kills.

I suppose one needs to practice selfies for a bit so that you don't look like a dork when you take one. As you can tell this is my first one and I have not mastered the technique.

A different experiment

A sunrise for you.

Tuesday was supposed to be Hope's hunting day, and of course she knew it. I picked her up to check her and she weighed in at 970 grams. I decided to tie her back up and go to town to get some badly needed supplies. Like a new toilet!

Some dummy, I won't mention any names, managed to break the tank on our old one while trying to fix a floor seal problem. We had been having to use the one in the fifth wheel  until we could go to town for a new one. With her weight at an all time high, it was time for town.

We got back with enough daylight left for a short trip around here with her. While we were making the long 260 mile round trip, I had done some thinking about Hope and her ability to miss Jacks. I came to the conclusion that while she was trying pretty hard to catch Jacks, she still didn't seem to be making much progress about solving the problem. I decided that she was being a bit careless about putting forth that "berserker" flight effort, because she knew that there would be lots of slips. The idea occurred to me that if she had limited slips, and was returned to her perch to contemplate another night without food, she just might begin to try to figure out how to succeed a bit oftener.

I have always flown Harris Hawks in a cast, and they are much more successful because the rabbit cannot watch both of them, thus the screw up factor is increased by leaps and bounds. :-)  I have been lucky this year in that the Jacks are abundant beyond all expectations. Sooner or later one is going to make a mistake that she can capitalize on. The only problem is that the ratio of young rabbits is now drastically reduced. An old one just doesn't make all that many mistakes, however if you put in enough miles we can generally pull it out. I can always use the exercise, but it is time that she makes some mental progress, and it seems to have stalled.

So a walk around here would work out just fine. It would also allow me to take the dogs with me to see if they would be an asset or not.

I put collars (electronic) on the dogs, and put the setting on call. No pain, just a call back noise, and we started out down by the creek. I walked down to the pump at the end of the telephone poles, ( a bit more than 1/2 mile) without seeing anything for her to chase. We started up on the plateau before we saw anything. She gave chase, but I never saw it. When she came back we continued on for several hundred yards before jumping another one. She again tried and failed to connect. After another lengthy walk, we jumped another and she again did her best and again failed. I circled on back to the house spending a total of about two hours. We saw four rabbits, and on each of them she would miss, get back up and continue the chase if they were still visible. I walked on back and put her up for the night. As for the dogs, she didn't seem to mind them, but I could see no positive out put on their part. They had a tendency to work too far out for us, and after I called them in three times, I was tripping on them while we walked.

This morning she weighed 945 grams. I took her to another spot further up country to see if there were Jacks there in numbers enough to hunt. Sam next door is hauling water in there for the cows so it was a good prospect. As I drove in there, I spotted a Jack hiding in a bush just off the road. I stopped and took Hope out of her box, putting her up on the tee perch. I walked to within 15 feet of the Jack before he lost his nerve and ran. She turned her self inside out, but not enough to get her feet on him. We walked a huge circle looking for more but couldn't find anything. I loaded her back in the box and went to a spot closer to the Spring Field where I knew there were 10 or more Jacks living. I hadn't hunted it for a while, so I expected to get enough chances for her to catch one. If she was willing to put out the effort.

We began jumping Jacks right away, and she was busting her butt trying to catch them, but again, they turned just a bit too steep, and hid a bit too well for her to find them. She flew one of them 5 times on her own before she finally gave up. One of her flights was just 20 feet in front of me. She made a grab for him, but got a bit low and when she grabbed I think she got her feet in the dirt and rolled completely over in a cloud of dust. You know she is trying, and trying hard, but somehow she is going to have to figure out when to try and when to bide her time. I ache for her. She gives her all, and doesn't give up, time after time.

So any way we spent a total of about 3 hours, of which about an hour was in game. I took her back to the car, and back home still with no food. Tomorrow we will do the same thing, I will give her enough chances to make it happen, but limited in that I am not going to stay until she catches something. We will see.

When I got back home and got my nap out of the way, I drained the black tank on the fifth wheel. While I was working, the Deer that are sleeping down in the heavy Sage by the creek, came out to eat. They paid no attention to me at all. A pretty nice buck has joined the three that were here.

                     They all perked up, looking up past the hangar, so I knew someone was coming.

                             The big boy began walking up. That's the hundred yard target there.

                          A new group of girls have arrived. We are right in the middle of the Rut now.

Once he had greeted them he turned and beat feet back down to where the little fork was apparently putting the sneak on one of the Does.

This little guy is a small forked horn. The big boy stood up tall and wagged his head at him. He took the hint.
.

                                  He keeps checking. All things come to he who waits, I have heard.

The dogs tell me when they are moving around down by the creek, but they don't bother them, and the Deer ignore them for the most part. However when it gets dark, they eventually come up on the yard, then the dogs run them off.

#16

I suspected that today Hope would be a bit fat. The morning was overcast, hinting of the winter to come. It was actually a bit warmer than usual for this time of the year. Low hanging rain clouds covered the sky, but they are heading towards Idaho, and will not be a problem for Hope and myself this morning.

As I went out to turn out the Chickens and do my morning chores, I listened to see if Hope knew that today is a hunt day. It takes her a bit, but she begins calling to me quietly before I get done. I go back in the house to gather up my stuff, and by the time I get back out, she is peering around the corner to check my progress. I pick her up after tying Jessie to her day perch, and we go to the scales to check her weight. 965 grams, the heaviest she has ever been. I stand on the step to the shop with her and weigh my options. I decide that I need the exercise, so we will go and if she is too bad, we can always come home.

As I mentioned before there is a bit of a magical, hunter type feel about the day. I can recall many such mornings where the promise was so tangible that you can almost taste it. The only problem is that my weapon for the day may not be loaded.

The desert here gives the impression that it is empty, with nothing to see. One needs to be able to actually look beyond the obvious empty appearance to see the things that are around us. The first thing that I saw this morning was a Prairie Falcon that swept through the yard on the off chance that it could pick up one of the birds that live off my Chicken food. While driving to the hunting field there were three wild (feral) horses by Burns Junction, a road killed Coyote by the old Zimmerman place.  ( Too bloody to pick up) Three Golden Eagles sitting on the same set of cross arms overlooking the Owyhee River. Another about a 1/2 mile up the road. A Sharpshin Hawk was hunting by Jordan Creek. Three Deer were hiding in the Sage where we were hunting rabbits. A Coyote pup darn near walked right in our laps while we were resting. Geese practicing their wedge flying in preparation for migration. You cannot travel this country at hwy speeds and begin to see what is there.

Hope seemed to be just as interested in catching a Jack Rabbit as ever, and unfortunately as unable as she normally is. She did seem to be a bit more selective than normal, watching some walk away, while trying others that were way the hell and gone. Again lots of close misses. We worked our way zigging and zagging in my attempts to find as many Jacks as I could, hoping that one would make a fatal mistake. I saw at least three of them leave hair floating in the air after they had made a desperate jink to avoid her reaching talons, going through a piece of Sage that didn't have a passage for them. It worked however.

The most effective evasion is a sudden stop in a bush, waiting for her to overplay her hand and get just that little bit out of position that they needed to make their escape. I saw one do just that not more than 15 yards in front of me. Hope was bout 20 feet in the air, and had turned to look for him. I threw my tee perch at him to try to flush him before he was ready. Hope followed the perch, landing on it quite confused. She didn't seem to understand my laughter.

At that point we had been at it for about two hours. She was beginning to get desperate. I walked by a bush that had a Jack's tail hung in it.

She flew off and was picking through the hair on the ground trying to find something in it to eat. We hadn't gone more than 50 yards when she found an old dried up front foot of a Jack.

 She was on it as though it might be the very thing to pull her through this last stretch of imposed starvation. I didn't bother trying to take it away from her, there was nothing of sustenance on it any way. I went over to sit down on a ledge while she worked on it. She flew with it to the perch, and then down on the ground. I walked over to the lava to sit. She flew off to my right on the same ledge. She no more than landed than I saw a Bunny run back over the ledge and away.

I am not sure if she swallowed some of the leg or not, but she finally finished and landed near me to let me know that she was ready to explore some more.

I decided that I was done, and started towards the car, still hunting. One never knows when the magic will take place, so the trip to the car was through the best cover that I could find. We had a few more flights,  one was a Bunny and several were Jacks. We were within about 100 yards of the car, when a Jack flushed fairly close in front of us, and wonder of wonders, she caught him. The cover was pretty sparse, and I was sure that the catch was in jeopardy. I decided to walk to where she was in the hope that she would be able to tie him up. Unfortunately just as I topped the rise I saw him scamper out of the Sage. Hope took off and caught him again within about 15 yards. Unfortunately he managed to tear away again, and take refuge in some heavy cover. She took a perch on the other side of the cover. I walked through it trying to flush it towards her. It did flush out and she made another shot at him, but missed. Another Jack flushed out going the opposite direction.  She gave chase back and over the hill. I went that way, sure that we were after the wrong rabbit, but having no choice. I got her on the perch and went back to where we left what I thought was the one, and started a new search. The rabbits that we were jumping were obviously not the one that she had caught twice, and I was running out of gas, so I turned back towards the car, ready to accept defeat. We jumped a close one a few feet from the little road, and she made a crashing shot at him in cover, but missed. I watched the Jack circle around in front of a lava ledge. He crossed over a bit of bare dirt, hesitated and then turned back, disappearing from view.

Hope flew back to the perch, and I began walking over to where I last saw him. There was a thick patch of Sage as well as a Badger hole under the lava, and a possible escape route where the lava broke up. I felt that the Jack had taken refuge in the badger hole. They normally depend on their legs rather than hiding, but occasionally will do so. I was just standing there trying to decide what to do, when there was a thumping sound, and a bit of dust coming out of the big hole. Hope flashed off the perch and down against the rock further down, followed by a screaming Jack. I tossed my perch down and she had her feet down a hole at the base of the rock. I moved her wing out of the way and could see both her feet stuck in the Jacks head. I reached down past her and grabbed him by the head and pulled him out. He had lost his nerve and tried to escape out of a small hole a bit further down.

The hole that he went in is not the little one close by, but up against the Lave. Its a pretty good sized hole, but not visible from where the picture is taken.

The one he tried to get out of is that small one on the other side of the weed.

I gave her the tidbits in her cup and sat there amazed at the events of the day, thankful for being alive to experience all the wonders that the day had produced.