Happy New year to all!

I am beginning to see the backside of this wonderful cold that I picked up on the 20th of Dec. The only blessing is, that I managed to keep it away from Karen. No touching, sleeping in a chair when I could sleep that is. I'm not sure if the severity of the thing is evolution of the germs or devolution of my wrinkled old ass. In any case I appear to finally be able to sleep long enough to have to go pee sometime in the wee hours of the morning.

Karen managed to get over her Candida or thrush, under her partial. We haven't heard yet as to the rescheduling of her surgery. I just glad that they postponed it.

All in all it has been a good year for us. Plenty of friends visiting, and in general things have improved. Its good to find that there is a possibility that Karen can get some of her energy back. Yes the prospects are scary, but it would be nice to have my pardner and best friend back again to share in all the fun.

The weather has moderated for us, and we are just about through the months with the shittiest weather. Just January left then the promise of sunshine and good weather.

I decided that I wasn't going to put any effort in Coyote hunting this year even though I bought a "gillie" suit that would render me invisible if I don't move too much. You will notice that the only thing you can see is my face, which I did not cover for the picture.

I went out once to a pond in the back country thinking that there should be a pack of Coyotes working it, but spent all evening with various calls and saw nothing. I had a grown young of the year come up in the field that I had to shoot, and skin, but I just haven't gotten enough ambition to try to add to it. I do keep an eye out however and get up to look out the windows to make sure that we don't have any visitors.

This evening about 4 pm Karen decided that she wanted to get into the hot tub. So we shed our clothes and piled in. We were having a conversation about whether the moon was full tonight or not, and I see a Coyote peering around the end of the Fifth Wheel. I peeled out of the side of the tub, ducked behind the cover and went streaking around the house and in the front door. The little .17 seemed to close 2017 quite nicely for him.

The funny part is that it seems to be an old dog, as his teeth were worn down quite a bit. Apparently he forgot that there are places that one does not go.

Of course that required me to skin the sucker, but actually the thought of it was tougher than the actual job.

It is our wish that all of you have a great new year!

Postponed

We have been scrambling all the last week trying to get everything done before the proposed operation on the 22nd. One of the requirements seems to be a visit to the dentist. All cavities have to be filled and a release from the Dentist filed. It seems that she had a small infection from her partial, so now the operation is postponed until that clears up. Karen is quite disappointed. It requires quite a process of acceptance to prepare oneself to such a serious and invasive surgery, not to mention the recovery time, and she I am sure feels a serious let down. Now she is going to have to go through all this again. Since she is on warfarin to keep her blood thin enough that her mechanical valve that she had put in 20 years ago, I have to give her shots of a different drug in her stomach until the surgery can be completed. Now we get to go through it all again. I am sure its for the best, but still a pain.

We want to wish all of you a Merry Christmas!

Dec 13, 2017

It seems that I made the right decision. We have been fogged in for at least four days now. Visibility has been measured in yards rather than the usual miles. Hope has taken to the new plan with enthusiasm. She is up to 1140 grams. I will hand feed her for as long as I can. I take her tidbits in her tin cup and give her the main course on her perch. She is quite nice about it. I was telling Karen that she is the only hawk that I have ever had that isn't convinced that I really am plotting to take her food away as soon as she lets her guard down. Damn its only taken me 50 years to get it right. Now if I can only remember how it did it.

Actually the pictures do not show the lack of visibility, but the Hoar frost comes through loud and clear. The ground cover is actually frozen fog that has drifted to the ground.

Today however dawned with a bit of clear sky. The temps however were still at 12 degrees, even though the sun did come out a bit.

Hopefully this will be the worst of the weather for Dec, but I don't think I will hold my breath. We usually get a big chunk of below zero weather.

Karen will be going in to the hospital on the 22nd for repair of her mytral heart valve. She will likely be there for about 7 or 8 days. It will take her about 6 weeks to heal, or at least that is the normal routine for such an operation. As many of you might know, she has been getting weaker and weaker. The valve leakage keeps her from getting enough blood to her body, and its result is that she almost has to rest from walking from one end of the house to the other. with any luck at all she may be able to go hawking and do some things again. Before you ask, she picked the date, saying that she didn't mind missing Christmas but didn't want to miss our anniversary on Jan. 9th. It will be our 52nd.

Wish us luck!

A bit more explanation

I was a bit surprised to get an email from someone wondering why I would no longer be hunting this fall. I tend to forget that almost all of the rest of the worlds population knows very little about raptors. A subject that I have lived for most of 50 years. So I will see if I can find the words to make my decision to stop hunting this fall a bit clearer.

Raptors have evolved to suit their environment, and to the prey species available to them in that environment. Harris Hawks are residents of the deserts of the South West. Having evolved over time to live there, the most important factor for their survival would be the ability to withstand heat. There is very little rain, so the feathers did not develop the "bloom" that makes a Peregrine Falcons wings glow and water to roll off without soaking in to the skin. They are designed to shed heat rather than preserve it.

This is my world now and for most of the next three months. That is not snow that you see in the two bottom pictures. It is frost. Lots of humidity, lots of liquid, colder than a well diggers butt, even without the wind.

To get a raptor in hunting condition requires the obvious - exercise, stamina in flight, regulation of calorie intake. That means she is hungry most of the time. The only time she isn't hungry is when she kills something and is allowed to eat her fill. Her body fat is down to the single digits levels, and muscle burns more calories than she can eat, so she is single minded in her desire to kill and thus eat.

So for me to take her out in snow covered fields, which for all intents and purposes she is not suited for, and want her to slam into snowy Sage brush after an animal in its element, is a bit unfair.

Of course it would be very difficult for her to accomplish the task that I have set for her. I have rarely    ( perhaps twice ) fed her when she didn't kill. To do so would tell her that she didn't have to kill to eat. Not a message that I want her to learn. To set her a task that she would not be able to complete would teach a lesson that I would like her to learn either.

The appeal of falconry to me is the contest of two natural opponents on an even "playing field". If I wanted to just kill stuff, I would take my rifle. When the odds are stacked against the prey species, we call it a "Rat hunt." Indicating that the prey didn't stand a chance. While that gives me no pleasure unless it is indeed a Rat, It is not fair to the raptor to stack the odds against them either. For a raptor to achieve its best, it must succeed. Too easy and it is lazy.  Too hard and she can give up, and stop trying.

For me to stop hunting for three or four weeks to wait for milder weather, I would have a choice of either feeding her enough that she would stop straining at the leash to get my attention and hopefully divert my path to pick her up to hunt, or leave her so high in condition that she could develop enough fat to ease her hunger pangs. Then we would have to begin again the conditioning that would allow her to compete with a foe that is not handicapped as she would be at such time. Conditioning a raptor is a balancing act. You don't want them so lean that they are desperate to eat, or so heavy that they are not motivated.

There is also conservation to be considered. Jack Rabbits especially, are subject to cycles that normally run on a 7 year time frame. They get so plentiful that disease runs through them like the plague and they die off to the point that there is little left to rebuild the populations. Right now they are very low. However it was due to weather conditions rather than disease, but the result is the same. They say that a Jacks home territory is one to two acres. It seems to me more, since there are more places that do not have a rabbit to jump than there is. Under normal circumstances the best territory for a Jack would have a smaller less aggressive rabbit ready to move in to fill a deceased Jacks place once the bigger Jack was killed. That does not always happen out here. Too many choices.

The Jacks in this area will begin courtship in mid January. Gestation is not very long, so a lot of the rabbits that we would be catching would be pregnant females. The Jacks will have a tough time going through this winter. The Coyotes Eagles and Bob Cats will need to eat as well. The rabbits can hide from the Eagles, they can outrun the Bob Cats and Coyotes if they are healthy and smart. They cannot escape being chased and thus caught by Hope with my help,  if she is on her game. Don't tell the ranchers, that hope my presence will mean that there are less Jacks to eat their hay stacks.  The last thing I would do is affect the rabbit population adversely. Conservation actually means to leave enough to maintain their populations at their peak.

There is a time and season for every thing. It is good that the ending of this one seems too soon. That means that I am still having fun, and quitting while I am ahead. My first Harris Hawk lived for 34 years . There is time yet. Next year she will be three, smarter, and with some decent weather a Happy warrior once again.

Dec 5th 6th and 7th- fini

The weather has dropped into its December "normal". Upon spending our first year here, I was surprised that December is the worst month for cold here. Every other place that I have lived it was January. Most if not all our below zero weather last year was in Dec. It has been in mostly single digits for the last week, with temps climbing to 32 degrees or so during the day.

I have had 8 Harris Hawks in my career and none of them has hunted in the snow and cold. They just aren't suited for it. Hope has done the best. All the others just refused to chase with snow on the ground. Hope gives the impression that she would like to catch one, if she only had the chance. I am making light of the fact that Hope has not caught anything in the last three days of opportunities. Today she had perhaps 20 slips on Jacks. I don't mind the gas required to drive 90 miles, I don't mind the effort of slogging through the Sage for two or three hours. However I expect some blood on the ground and my hands at the end of it. I can't blame her, but it is obvious to me that these weather conditions are more of an obstacle to her than she is capable of overcoming.

Its too bad because I stumbled on an area that is loaded with Jacks just in the last two days. Unfortunately the area has about 1 1/2 inches of snow on it.

The area is close to what I had available last year as far as Jacks are concerned. The area is totally tracked up. I haven't seen anything to compare to it this year.

The areas that are bare of snow seem to cause the same problem, just because of the cold. I guess that I really wouldn't care to crash head first in to a prickly Sage bush either when it is this cold. On the fifth we tried over at the ranch. I walked two different areas and moved five rabbits in about 2.5 hours. That is what the places without snow can produce, most times, less. I expressed to Karen my reluctance to kill any more rabbits in my spots because I feared reducing the breeders to minus optimum numbers.

I had decided after this hunt that it was time to quit whether I wanted to or not. Then on a trip to town I stopped to see an acquaintance and he told me of a spot with all the Jacks. We hunted there with no success and plenty of slips. At this time I had not fed Hope since the fifth. I went again today with the same result, except when I got home, I fed her and removed her transmitter.

She will finish the season with 20 head of game. Nothing to "write home about",  but nothing to be ashamed of either. She is still the most fun and pleasant to fly Hawk I have had. 

For those who have followed Hopes daily progress, I thank you.  I have enjoyed relating her hunts, since it is a bit of a diary for me. I guess its time to dust off the elliptical again, and refresh my library card. 

Dec 2nd

Sunrise, Dec 2nd

When I weighed Hope this morning she tipped the scales at 1063 grams. I decided to skip another day because she was so heavy. As the day wore on, it became obvious that tomorrow could well be a lot worse, especially the wind aspect. At 1:30 PM I gave up and started loading the car, thinking that at least we would get some exercise.

Karen agreed that we weren't in a hurry, so I detoured to check a spot that was fairly close to the house. There were  old faint trails in the grass, but the Dogs and I could not find anything at all. We moved on towards Rome and tried the area that we had killed a Jack and a Bunny. The dogs and I began going through the field. It looked good, but we only jumped one Jack. Hope tried to catch it, but the Jack was smarter. We found nothing else in the field, so we loaded up to go to Arock and our old standby.

 I reached into my bag to get a tidbit to put on the perch inside the hawk box, and found that I had none. Hope went exploring in the car and grabbed a foot full of the blanket that we put down for the dogs, hoping that there was red meat underneath all that cloth. I had to pinch off a piece of meat from the bunny front leg that I had reserved for her meal. This is the second time in a row that I didn't have any tidbits. The surprising part was that the little cup was as clean as if it had been washed. The first time, I decided that I had forgotten to get any, but I had cut some this time before leaving. Then the bulb went off. JOSIE! The little sneak had stuck her nose in my bag and cleaned up every thing that wasn't in plastic bags. Boy is she gonna be surprised the next time I hunt. She seems to have forgotten that the shock collar has more options than just a tone.

When we arrived at Arock, I changed up again and worked backward to the route that I had traveled before. The dogs put a Jack up down on the flat. Hope started after him. He stopped and jinked as she made a shot at him, got back in the air and tried again, but didn't make contact. I walked towards her and bumped another. She gave chase to it as well, but the Jack had such a start that it took her a long time to catch up. She missed him as well. She flew to the car. I walked on and she came to the perch.

I walked a little valley on one side going down, then turned and came back the other side. I had been pausing every 10 yards or so, or when a new vista opened for us. The dogs were working off to my left, Karen was on the little road that goes through the are just about 25 yards away. I stopped to watch the dogs and give them more time to cover the area. Hope flashed off the perch without warning and hit the ground about 8 yards ahead of me. At first I couldn't guess what she had grabbed, but then the bucking started and she had slammed a Jack that was hiding in a little bitty Sage bush. Not sure what she saw, but the Jack was still sitting when she hit him. She has always peered under each and every Sage that could hide a rabbit.

This one was another second year Jack. When I was skinning him I felt a mass in his abdomen. I pried it and the liver out. The liver looked good and healthy. this is the mass that I found.

Its obviously an egg sac

I have found these many times before in older Jacks, and I always assumed that they were tape worms. This is the first of them that were not under the skin. I have some inquiries out and will let you know what it was. The little white specs are the larva?

I asked a falconer- Scientist- Toby Bradshaw, ( you can be both) and this is his answer. - ( you can tell he is a scientist by the big words. :-)    All kidding aside, he is a great guy and a serious falconer.


"These are indeed larval tapeworms (metacestodes).  Rabbits are the intermediate host for the dog tapeworm (Taenia pisiformis).  The adult form of the tapeworm is only found in carnivores, which ingest the tapeworm larvae when they eat an infected rabbit.  The carnivore then expels egg-bearing tapeworm segments (proglottids) in the feces, the rabbit ingests the eggs from soil or vegetation, and the cycle continues."

When we had gotten home, we were putting things away and found that one of the little bucks that had been around earlier, had come back for what ever treats were in our yard, such as Apple Trees. I had pulled a bunch of weeds before the last fly-in and tossed them out in the field. Apparently an appetizer for him.

We ignored him for a bit, and then the next thing we know he is in the yard heading for the Apple trees. I sicced the dogs on him, but he came back again about dusk, and we had to do it again. Hopefully he will take the hint.

Nov 30

sunrise

The migration seems to be in full swing. Seeing lots of Prairie Falcons and the Eagles are coming into most of the areas that I hunt. The Jacks seem to be thinning out as well. We hunted in Danner this morning and we had a lot fewer slips than I am used to. Hope managed to catch a Bunny fairly early in the hunt. I gave her a Jack front leg, and kept on hunting. She had a few chases on Jacks, but couldn't make contact.

I was a bit surprised that she caught this one. I heard no scream from him at all. She had him by the head, so I guess that the best he could do was to hum. Its hard to scream with your mouth held shut. 

I went by Karen and the car and asked Karen to give the dogs some water. Hope thought that she might be giving out Rabbit steaks, so she got in line as well.

Catch and release, with a little help!

Sunrise this morning

Josie finally shamed me into getting out of my chair to go hunting this morning. She did so by standing on my chest and sticking her nose onto mine, thus finishing the process of waking me up from a morning nap. Dogs seem to have a highly developed sense of when it is time to go Hawking. At least Josie does. Its pretty hard to feign sleep when you are nose to nose with a dog that is standing on your chest. She was right it was time and the right day as well.

I decided to go to the top of the hill at Arock, and had just began a circle of the area before heading down, when the ranch manager drove up in his quad. He had come up to tell us that he had a set of "snares" set for Coyotes further out from where we were. It was very nice of him to go out of his way to tell us about them.

I invited him to join us for a hunt if he had the time. He thought it might be fun so we started back down the hill. I told him that Hope would likely only catch one out of 10 attempts on the Jacks, and really didn't tell him anything more, such as how to react if she did catch one. My mistake! We really hadn't gone very far when she zipped over a lava lump after a Jack, that she caught. He took off like a shot, leaving my fat old gasping ass behind.

He gave the Jack enough of a scare that he managed to tear himself loose, leaving a pile of hair behind. He was amazed at how Hope was crashing bushes and stuff in pursuit of these Jacks.

We went on, and had a couple of chases where in the Jacks managed to elude her. Then a close slip and Hope caught another one.

 He rushed up on that one as well, and it too tore away. I should have told him how to react when she caught one, but didn't for some reason. Possibly thinking that she was not grabbing them all that well, or even Not Thinking.

We went on a bit further and she again caught another Jack. This one he reached for and Hope just let it go, as she realized that she didn't know this guy. This time he understood what was happening, and apologized.

Hope this morning weighed 1014. About 5 or more ounces over her weight when I got her. Granted she is probably better muscled than most of the hunting Harris's out there, because she flies more. I can find her keel bone, but it isn't very prominent. The nice part is that she is starting to wise up to their tricks and escape maneuvers. She is making more contact, more often. They tend to be a bit more tenuous as a result, but that is OK. When I am by myself, our keeping rate is much higher. She is at least making contact. I normally do not feed her if she doesn't make a kill. Today she got her food, she earned it.

The wind began to come up as we were finishing. We have a "wind warning" for this afternoon. It is blowing at 34 MPH right now with a gust showing of 54 MPH. Timing is every thing.

Josie is under my desk, sleeping. I think I will wake her up.

Yesterday's Sun sets.

Thanksgiving and the 24th

Hopefully you all had as good a Thanksgiving as Karen and I did. The weather was unusual in that it was quite warm. The temps got up to 70 degrees by the end of the day Thursday.

I tried but I could not resist going hunting with Hope Thanksgiving day. She weighed in at 1043 grams. Karen decided to sit this one out. I went to Arock to hunt again. I forgot and left the "shock Collars" for the dogs at home. Its kinda tough getting old. Oh well, just have to do the best we could.

Josie was ecstatic, and ran all over hell and back. I eventually got tired of seeing her "waaaay over there", and hearing her yip-yippee as she bumped this rabbit and that rabbit. I stopped and used my spare leash to keep her by my side, dragging her through each and every Sage bush that was too close to where I was walking. Well, it actually wasn't that bad, but I am sure that it stung not being able to run and check stuff out. Hope did rip most of the hair off at least one Jack's butt as it pulled her through the bushes. She broke one small secondary on that one. Eventually the time caught up with us, and we had to go home empty handed.

we found this on our travels

Tami and Dave had invited us over for Thanksgiving dinner with their family. Her Dad and Step Mother were down for the holiday. Her Dad and step Mother are a lot of fun, so we were very pleased to accept. Of course dinner and the fellowship afterward made for a special day. Yogi is still not ready to fly, but I could see no evidence that any thing was wrong with her wing. I should have another week to build Hope's string of kills before she is ready to show us up again.

We got a tenth of an inch of rain last night, and with the warm temps the grass is greening up pretty good. Of course with all the weather we have been getting the Sun rises and sets have been pretty spectacular.

These were taken over a period of three days, and cover 

both Sunrises as well as Sunsets.

The Steen's were quite spectacular this morning

After breakfast this morning it was time to go hunting again. Hope weighed in at 1014 today. I decided to go to Skinner's, just this side of Jordan Valley. They had apparently gotten a bit more rain than we did as the roads were quite muddy. I was quite pleased and excited to see a young Bob Cat along side the road going in. He was as surprised as we were, and he took off across a grass only field towards the Lava Rocks off on the other side. Somehow I did not expect him to be able to run continuously for what I estimate to have been about 1/4 mile or more without stopping. 

I did not forget the collars this morning, but even so Josie was very excited. I do not use the shock feature on them merely the "tone" that tells them that I need them to do something different, or they will get a shock. Before when I had "toned" her, she would come back to me and stay by my side almost as if she was on leash. She has finally gotten the idea that I only want her close, not on my heels. Today she worked as she should and it was a lot better. I still had to remind her occasionally however. It was just that kind of day for her as well.

We hadn't been in the field very long when a Jack jumped pretty close, Hope used the wind and grabbed him. Unfortunately he managed to pull her loose before we could get to her. Perhaps it was the rain last night, but Jacks were pretty hard to find, and I had to travel well outside of our normal route to find anything at all. I had walked up on one lava ridge to watch the dogs coursing back and forth. As we stood there a Sage Hen got nervous and flushed out of the Sage. Hope flinched to start, but when she saw that it was a bird , she stayed on the perch. I have not given her any winged game, so when they don't run, she doesn't chase. Our options for game birds is pretty limited, so I haven't even tried to get her to fly birds. I stood there waiting for the dogs to come to the area to see where the rest of the Sage hens were. A month or more ago, I saw a small covey of about 8 birds. The last time I saw them there were only three. Two hens and a Boomer.

As the dogs got closer another Hen took off from the same area. I saw a pretty small shadow on the ground when the bird flew, so I continued to watch. After a bit a Golden came into view, diving at the Grouse. He started his dive too soon however and the Grouse eventually out flew him putting into the Sage about a 1/2 mile away. Hope's refusal to fly the first one likely saved her life. Pretty hard to be unhappy with her after that. We stood and watched until the Eagle went somewhere else to hunt.

So the Grouse population in that area seems to be down to two hens. There is a pair of Goldens that always hunts that area. Year around. I am sure that they are responsible for the reduction in numbers.

Our wandering path through all the Lava ridges eventually left me near the spot that my friend John Williamson lost his life, so I dropped in for a visit. Hope chased a Jack that had been living there, but missed.

As we left in search of Karen, the dogs put a Jack up and this time Hope was smarter.

I killed the Jack, gave her a set of Jack ribs to eat, and walked on looking for Karen. Hope got up and flew twice without me being able to get a picture of her with her food in her beak, trying to keep up. Eventually she caught me with the perch in a landing position, and was able to ride and eat at the same time. I arrived at the car, and as I was catching Karen up on the recent events, she took off and crashed into the Sage not 20 feet from where we were standing. She didn't make contact however. I could have hunted on, but one a day is all I ask for. She got the rest of her food as well as fresh warm liver.

For what ever reason today was very special for me. Every thing had a special shine to it. Seeing all the wild life, 3 Prairie Falcons, Three Golden Eagles, Two Sage Grouse, a Bob Cat, All the Jack Rabbits and being able to walk and hunt. The friends that I have, and of course our health. It just don't get any better than that.