Jessie appears to me to be ready to hunt again, after 2 years of inactivity. She of course is out of shape, but her mental state seems to be where it should be, so I am at least going to be exercising her even if she won't hunt. The way of course to do that is flying her to the kite or a suitable alternative.
In the past I used the Kite or a balloon about 6 feet in diameter. That covered each weather condition- Kite in windy times and a balloon when the wind is calm. Unfortunately this conditioning would occur during the one time of the year that the wind doesn't blow in this area. The balloon covered that, but in recent years Helium has become scarce, and no one wanted to sell any to me. I finally made a contact at Norco, but the cost for enough to fill my balloon was$166.00. I chickened out.
A good and generous friend gave me two basic ( at least by today's standards) quad copters. If you remember when I had Lee-Zard, I intended to use them to train him. After he left I had little reason to fool with them. So a couple of calls to my friend and a bit of OJT and I was back in business.
The day before yesterday was my first free flight for Jessie and I was able to use the kite. Today there was no wind, so it was time to grit my teeth and give it a shot. She has so far not shown the reluctance that Lee had towards the buzzing menace. I still have a long line between the drone and the lure.
The plan was to get Jessie out of the weathering area, hooded, and setup with a transmitter, ready to go. Then put the drone at the altitude that I wanted the lure to be. Once that was accomplished, I would then bring Jessie out, unhood and release her to climb up to the lure. The lure line has a parachute on the other end so that she could not take off with the food.
I am using a pvc pipe secured to the legs of the drone, with the parachute stuffed up into the pipe. I stuffed the parachute to what I hoped would be the proper friction point that would still allow her to jerk it out without dragging the drone along with it. Of course that didn't work, and the weight of the lure and food pulled the chute out of the pipe before I went for Jessie. I landed it and really stuffed it back in this time. I put it back up in the air. Unfortunately I still had too much power applied and by the time I got back out it was much too high for a fat hawk to climb to, so I brought it back down to a normal height, and turned her loose.
Jessie appeared to have no other thought in her mind but to grab the lure and within three circles did without hesitation grab the lure and fly it back to the ground. I flipped the return home switch and set the transmitter down and walked to where she landed.
Karen stayed and kept filming the drones return to where I began the flight. I don't understand what happened, every thing went off without a hitch. What a concept!
https://vimeo.com/237006215 password owyheeflyer
Thursday, October 5, 2017
Wednesday, October 4, 2017
Finally, #2
I turned Jessie loose for the first time yesterday. I had only called her to the lure on the creance twice before, and she had looked at me as if to say- I've been doing this for 12 years, and you want to go back to basics? Which one needs training? At least it seemed so. It was quite a windy day, and Karen had gone to town by herself, so I considered putting her back on the creance again. When she felt the wind in her face she had other ideas, and was doing her best to go fly. I took her back to her perch, and began trying to get everything in order so that I could put the Kite in the air for her.
My normal transmitter left with Lee-Zard more than a year ago, so I found a working transmitter, scrounged a 3 volt battery for it, talked Pete into securing it to her leg, without the necessity for band aids, and put the kite in the air. I only put it up so that the lure was only about 30 feet up. She hasn't flown in two years, so I expected her to be a bit flabby. I also hooded her, which surprisingly went very well.
Once I struck the hood and stuck her into the air, she quite surprisingly sat and checked her surroundings rather than bolting into the air. She took off and I considered raising the lure a bit more, but she had already turned and bound to it, just as if she had been doing it for the last two years without a break. I sat down and waited for her to finish the food on the lure and she walked up to me just like normal and got on the fist for the rest of her meal.
Since Karen wasn't home, I decided rather than risk Pete's fingers, I would wait until Karen got back to take the transmitter off of her leg. Karen got back about 3 hours later, so we went back out to remove it. The new cover that I had made for the transmitter was gone and destroyed, the battery was gone and she either ate it or buried it in the gravel to the point that we couldn't find it. The antenna was almost untwisted, but still usable. Sigh! She hasn't forgotten a thing!
I last hunted Hope on Monday, and she again didn't catch anything. I took Brick ( the male Brittney) with me in the hopes that together we could finally get back on track and catch rabbits. I had hoped that he would prove to be a distraction to the running rabbits enough that she would be able to connect. I took him because he tended to stay close to me. Josie runs way wide, and Hope does better with the close slips. Well what I found was that the rabbits were jumping well in front of us, so far that the dog had no clue that there was anything around. Hope eventually became discouraged, which led me to make a straight line to the car and home. She weighed 954 grams. Last year that was her high hunting weight.
I determined that although the dogs loved the hunt, the results were not improved with their use. Brick in spite of his best efforts did not see a single Jack as they were bolting quite a long way ahead of us.
I didn't fly her yesterday, even though it was cold enough for her to have shed considerable weight, and she begged me every time she saw me. I resolved to convince her that if she wanted to eat, it would require her to catch something.
It was again below freezing last night, and I was a bit concerned about how much weight she would have lost last night, but found that she weighed 885 grams. I felt her keel bone and realized that she was in no danger of being underweight.
Karen and the dogs came with me to Danner to see if she was going to get her act together finally. She had a couple of slips that were so close as to cause me to hold my breath listening for the scream that would indicate that she had her groove back.
She was peering down likely looking holes trying to find something to eat.
We had covered about 200 yards of cover with her having four or more slips. Karen was pacing us with the car, which apparently served as a blocker. Another Jack jumped and Hope took off over a Lava ridge and slammed down in the brush. Finally the sound of a Jack in pain drifted back to me.
This one tried to lose her in tall Sage, but it apparently wasn't thick enough to keep her from getting a clear shot at him. Notice where her feet are. She has both feet into his neck with the left hind leg over her legs. He couldn't get his feet under him so that he had any chance of escaping. I am not real sure how she grabbed him underneath like that. His head is facing the other way because I had to break his neck by twisting. She was in the way for any other method.
I gave her a chunk of meat to eat, and am waiting for her to finish that so that I can pick her up to a hind leg.
Hopefully this will be the turning point that we need. It appears that I am going to have a substantial gas bill this year.
My normal transmitter left with Lee-Zard more than a year ago, so I found a working transmitter, scrounged a 3 volt battery for it, talked Pete into securing it to her leg, without the necessity for band aids, and put the kite in the air. I only put it up so that the lure was only about 30 feet up. She hasn't flown in two years, so I expected her to be a bit flabby. I also hooded her, which surprisingly went very well.
Once I struck the hood and stuck her into the air, she quite surprisingly sat and checked her surroundings rather than bolting into the air. She took off and I considered raising the lure a bit more, but she had already turned and bound to it, just as if she had been doing it for the last two years without a break. I sat down and waited for her to finish the food on the lure and she walked up to me just like normal and got on the fist for the rest of her meal.
Since Karen wasn't home, I decided rather than risk Pete's fingers, I would wait until Karen got back to take the transmitter off of her leg. Karen got back about 3 hours later, so we went back out to remove it. The new cover that I had made for the transmitter was gone and destroyed, the battery was gone and she either ate it or buried it in the gravel to the point that we couldn't find it. The antenna was almost untwisted, but still usable. Sigh! She hasn't forgotten a thing!
I last hunted Hope on Monday, and she again didn't catch anything. I took Brick ( the male Brittney) with me in the hopes that together we could finally get back on track and catch rabbits. I had hoped that he would prove to be a distraction to the running rabbits enough that she would be able to connect. I took him because he tended to stay close to me. Josie runs way wide, and Hope does better with the close slips. Well what I found was that the rabbits were jumping well in front of us, so far that the dog had no clue that there was anything around. Hope eventually became discouraged, which led me to make a straight line to the car and home. She weighed 954 grams. Last year that was her high hunting weight.
I determined that although the dogs loved the hunt, the results were not improved with their use. Brick in spite of his best efforts did not see a single Jack as they were bolting quite a long way ahead of us.
I didn't fly her yesterday, even though it was cold enough for her to have shed considerable weight, and she begged me every time she saw me. I resolved to convince her that if she wanted to eat, it would require her to catch something.
It was again below freezing last night, and I was a bit concerned about how much weight she would have lost last night, but found that she weighed 885 grams. I felt her keel bone and realized that she was in no danger of being underweight.
Karen and the dogs came with me to Danner to see if she was going to get her act together finally. She had a couple of slips that were so close as to cause me to hold my breath listening for the scream that would indicate that she had her groove back.
We had covered about 200 yards of cover with her having four or more slips. Karen was pacing us with the car, which apparently served as a blocker. Another Jack jumped and Hope took off over a Lava ridge and slammed down in the brush. Finally the sound of a Jack in pain drifted back to me.
This one tried to lose her in tall Sage, but it apparently wasn't thick enough to keep her from getting a clear shot at him. Notice where her feet are. She has both feet into his neck with the left hind leg over her legs. He couldn't get his feet under him so that he had any chance of escaping. I am not real sure how she grabbed him underneath like that. His head is facing the other way because I had to break his neck by twisting. She was in the way for any other method.
I gave her a chunk of meat to eat, and am waiting for her to finish that so that I can pick her up to a hind leg.
Hopefully this will be the turning point that we need. It appears that I am going to have a substantial gas bill this year.
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