My Christmas Card to You!

I suppose this is the time of the year when we spend a lot of time on reflection. There of course has been to me, a lot of adjustment in my life, still. I am truly sorry that Karen cannot be here to take care of this little chore. You would have then gotten a proper Christmas Card.

There is not much that has happened to me this year that you would not know about if you are still interested enough to read my blogs, so this will be mercifully short. However a couple of things were not dwelt upon all that much when I wrote this blog.

I met  (in his words) "a long lost cousin" on my way back from Glacier Park. He and his lady stopped by on his way to a Southern vacation at some of the Parks in Calif. We had a great time and to my surprise there seemed to be a bit of bond with him that I have generally "poo pooed" when the same sentiment was related to me by an acquaintance. Anyway I admit that I was surprised at the feeling that his "kinship" evoked in me.

Connie and I are into our second year together, and I am truly grateful to have her in my life. Our love and appreciation of each other has deepened this year.

I have been thinking of adding something of this sort to my blog, and putting it off, because I cannot possibly put into words my appreciation of each of you and my wishes for your continued happiness and well being. Then as I rose this morning to see what the day would bring. This Sunrise sequence bringing light and beauty to this world,  was the inspiration that I needed to wish you each and everyone.
                                                               Merry Christmas, and Happy New Year!

Another shopping trip for Hawk Food.

Winter is coming right along. We have had another snow that covers the ground a bit, and this morning the snow was sparkling with diamonds. You should know that snow on the ground here is a bit unusual for this area. We do get snow, but it soon melts off. The "big die off" of three years ago was due to a snowfall of about 18 inches that turned into ice, and would not go away. That began the eradication of all the Rabbits, Antelope and Deer in this area. There were too many Rabbits and they would have died of disease the next summer if they hadn't froze to death because of the icy snow and starvation. I suppose that the nature of the Sage limits the food available to this type of wildlife, and snow covering and blocking it are just too much for the Rabbits. Then minus temps and the wind chill that comes with it are just too much.

When I moved here one of the locals saw the snow plow for my quad and asked "what are you going to do with that"? He told me at the time that the snow rarely lasts for more than a week, and for the most part that seems to be the reality. The snow and ice of three years ago was definitely unusual.

Connie came down Monday to spend some time with me. She likes to shoot and is always after me in the summer to go shoot some of the Ground Squirrels that infest the hay fields of Burns. So when the snow again covered the ground I knew that my friend on the White horse road was going to have the Jacks working on his hay stacks again. So I made arrangements to go back there again for another shopping trip.

Without getting too deep into the subject, this seems to be a bit of a contradiction of my philosophical beliefs. In a nutshell I am a true conservationist, in that I try really hard to leave enough of the game population so that there is enough breeding population left to keep the next years offspring high enough that there is no reduction in numbers. Nothing noble about it at all. I do have "principals" that I live by in falconry- I want the hunt to be fair, and I do not require a large head count to feel successful.

So basically this type of hunting for me is not sport, it is "shopping". The ranchers normally shoot the rabbits with shotguns and toss them in the Sage for the Coyotes. They need to protect their hay stacks from the Jacks that come from miles around to feast on the hay. They can topple the stacks from their undermining of the bottoms if the numbers are high enough. You have no idea as to how many Jacks converge on some of the stack yards. There are paths in the snow that are beaten down that are amazing, and they are everywhere and coming from all directions. I read earlier that Jacks will travel up to 10 miles for food or water.

The snow has caused the Antelope to gather up as well, and we saw one group of Antelope that had to have more than 150 in it, along the Hwy as we went south. The feral Horses were also gathered close to the White Horse Road as well.

This ranch is one of the few places that I rarely hunt with the Hawks, simply because there are not enough rabbits that stay in the area during the daylight hours to make it worth while. It is also 15 miles of gravel road to get there. With snow on the ground its a bit like it was here, when I brought in some bales of Alfalfa to feed our horses. I had 30 deer camp on this spot and it just drove me crazy trying to keep them off of it.

The temperatures was in the mid teens as we took up our vigil in the stack yard. Connie was sitting in the back seat to watch to the right of the yard while I took the left. We of course had to leave the car windows down. I gave her my 17 cal rifle while I used my 22 rimfire. Nothing but head shots.  As it got darker the rabbits began coming so fast that it was sometimes difficult to keep up. The darker it got the more came. I picked off a group of four that came on my side by shooting the farthermost one and then forward till there were none left standing. It was so cold that both of us had trouble reloading because our fingers were so numb. We managed 18 before it go too dark to shoot.

On our way back home with our loot, we saw a pair of eyes coming our way down the road. I stopped the car and eventually realized that what we were seeing was a Kit Fox.

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kit_fox

He ran right at the car and didn't turn till he was just 10 feet in front of us. I knew that these little Foxes lived here, but they are endangered and very scarce. I was amazed at how small he was, Tiger, my cat, is bigger than he is by a lot. We were both more than a bit amazed by this apparition, and we were talking about it as we continued our drive. After a bit a truck passed us going the other way, which was unusual as well. Not a lot of traffic on this dirt road, especially at night. As we got within a couple of miles of Hwy 95 we again saw something in the road. The other truck had apparently hit a wandering Jack Rabbit in the road, and there was another Kit Fox feeding on it. Needless to say I left this Rabbit for the Fox.

It was quite a night. Not only do I have a "lady Friend" that isn't afraid to get a little blood on her hands, she is a damn good shot as well.

Time to stop!

In reality, the year 2019 is over. Christmas is just around the corner. Hibernation is pretty high on my list of things to do. The year has been pretty good overall. It has probably been the least active year of my life. I didn't go fishing even one time, and my flying has taken a back seat to every thing I have done. The only thing that remained the same was my Hawking, yet even that suffered from loss of my normal joy of life. Yet I have persisted.

I went hawking again yesterday, and drove to the only other spot that used to have enough Jacks to make the 100 mile round trip worth while. The area is high Sage, with lots of thick Sage as well as Lava outcrops, and it is rare indeed to get a clear shot at a Jack. This is the spot that Hope injured her foot at the end of last years hunt. Normally it also holds an abundance of Bunnies that break up the hunt, by supplying a shot of excitement to the normal long slips on Jacks. However I have seen none of these little dynamo's in the last two times I have hunted there. We put in three miles of exercise yesterday in an attempt to bring a Jack home for the freezer. Hope could not close the deal however, and we came home empty handed.

After a long night of considering the risks and rewards of continuing pursuit of the dwindling numbers of Jack Rabbits, I decided this morning that it was time to give it up for the year and hope that this next one will have a few more Jacks in it. Other areas do have more Jacks, but I seem to be down to one tract of Sage within 50 miles, that holds enough Jacks to make it worthwhile to drive there. So this morning when I picked up Hope from her perch in the Shop, I gave her the first food this season that she didn't catch.

Dec 8th

Well the snow has all melted, but I seem to have gone into hibernation mode. Truth is I am more than a bit spoiled. Hope's aversion to cold and wet snow, and my unwillingness to show her what happens to Hawks that don't hunt, seems to have given me the excuse that I need to sit in front of the TV and wait for spring. However the TV and politicians in general piss me off enough that there is no comfort in that exercise either.

Then there are a couple of friends that keep sending me pictures of their hawks with dead Rabbits that also contribute to my general feeling of worthlessness. I took Hope out here at the house, the day before yesterday and while we did jump four Jacks over 3.5 miles of slogging, nothing came of it.

The clouds are heavy with moisture and lowering over the desert, so If I am going to hunt at all, I needed to get my butt out there.

I am down to one field that I can hunt, and I hesitate to hit it too hard. There just isn't that many places close enough to drive to, that hold Rabbits. The one here at the Ranch is too muddy to get to, so that leaves Arock, and it is a 50 mile round trip.

The snow has laid down most of the weeds that covered the fields there, and that to me was an improvement. I had hoped to find a Jack in some of the open stuff with the thought that we could get it over pretty quickly with the right slip. Eventually she took off after a Jack that was at the limit of my ability to see her, and of course missed. She came up on a Sage bush, acting as though he might still be there. I began walking towards her. She took off again, and made a shot in the Sage, but again came back up on a Sage. I walked to her and she took her place on the Tee. I looked around to see where the jack might have taken refuge, and decided to go to a clump of rocks that would give us a vantage point. He held his nerve until we had passed the bush he was hiding in and then made his break behind us, up the hill. It didn't matter,  he was too close and she burned him down within 30 yards.

She had caught him by the front shoulder, and he was stretched out with his legs between hers and pushing for all he was worth.  She was lying on her back and had torn most of his shoulder skin off. I grabbed his head and tried to take a picture, but I was too close and the damn camera would not snap. I considered taking the time to crush the camera with a rock, as it is always a pain in the butt every time I try to use it. I Killed the Jack for her and gave her the cup of tidbits, then a chunk of Coyote to hold her till I could get some meat off the Rabbit.

I was ready with the Jacks head when she finished her appetizer, and we walked back to the car. I have an app on my phone that measures the distance and the time to walk it. The time showed 18 minutes total walking time. Did that shame me some over my laziness- yes, but I will get over it.

Dec 2nd, 2019

As I am sure you are aware, November closed out with some genuine winter. Our morning temps had been in the mid 20's. I woke up Friday the 29th with the nagging feeling that I had misjudged something important. I went to the dining room to check the outside temps and the thermometer read 3.8 degrees below zero. Holy crap! I hurried out to see how Hope was doing, and even though it was dark, she was talking to me. I picked her up and took her inside the shop. She was shaking from the cold, but alright. I turned on the heat to the shop and got her some hot meat that I had soaked in hot water, to warm her from the inside as well.

I always watch the Boise weather before I go to bed and they had said nothing about a cold snap. I counted myself lucky that she wasn't hypothermic. Harris hawks are not suited to Northern climes. They do not have any down to keep them warm.

So it snowed a bit over Friday and Saturday, and put down another couple of inches this morning. I was pretty sure that Hope wan't going to hunt in the snow, but I decided to give it another try, to see if she would.

She sure wanted to be fed, so I weighed her and she was within the weight that she had been hunting, so I cut some meat and went to get her. I started out to the gate to see if we could find some of the Jacks that live here. She started towards the gate, then changed her mind and circled back to the  tee perch.   Then flew to the gate post. I opened the gate and tossed some tidbits down into the snow. She flew down but seemed confused as to where the tidbits could have gone. She eventually found it after several more were tossed down. It was covered with snow, and she flicked it off like she didn't know what it was. I began walking up the road, she flew back to the Motor home. I called her, flicked some more tidbits, got her on the tee and she promptly went back to the Motor Home. I called it a day.

This afternoon my neighbor, down on the Whitehorse road called and asked me if I wanted any Jack Rabbits, as they were ganging up on his feed yard. I had hunted his property at least twice this year and walked my butt off trying to find enough Jacks to hunt. He had been telling me that there were some Jacks there, but we had a hard time finding any when the weather was good. I had told him then that Jacks would travel great distances for food, but their home territory was only about 2 acres. Snow changes the population density around hay stacks by a staggering amount.

I have nowhere near enough Rabbits to feed two Hawks till next Sept, so I grabbed my 22 and drove down there. There is about 4 inches of snow on the ground and the tracks were unbelievable. I parked in his stack yard and waited for them to come to dinner.

I brought home 23 Jacks. That is food enough for 11 weeks, so if the snow holds, I will try to make another trip or two. In case you are wondering they are all "headshot", and I used a solid bullet.
So the heads get tossed and there is no lead in any of the rest of the body.

Not all days are successful :-/

It is a given, if you have an easy day- the next one is going to kick your butt. It serves to keep us humble.

We are due a "reported" serious storm here in the West. Most likely it is over hyped, but the first one of the year is always the worst. Because we as a species tend to get cocky, the hwy's are littered with "angels in the snow" every time we get that first couple of inches of snow on the roads.

I wanted to go Hawking today, while we still could, before the storm caught up to us. Even if it doesn't snow the winds are supposed to be pretty serious. The falling barometric pressure really is felt by the animal kingdom and all the critters are trying to stock up so that they can weather the storm.

 Hope was feeling it pretty strongly, and it showed in her restlessness. It didn't however help any with her ability to duck and dodge with the Jacks. She caught the forth one that we jumped, but he managed to twist out of her grip, never to be seen again.

We really didn't see all that many Jacks and our slips at them were all pretty far away. The wind began to come up, as we spent more and more time in the field. Hope kept pushing ahead, which is rare for her, but nothing we did got us any closer to killing a Jack. To me, another indication of a falling barometer.  She normally rides the perch until something jumps.

I have always wondered about a Hawks memory, and today I found out just how good it is. I have been hunting this huge pasture for several years and I see spots where I remember hawks of the past killed a Jack, and I have always wondered if the Hawks remembered as well. Now I can tell you that they do.

There is a four foot wall of Lava along the road going in, that a Badger dug our for what ever reason.  when Hope was in her first year she caught a Jack that went down that hole. She went in after him and caught him inside the hole. I was able to reach in at a different spot and grab one of his legs, and thus pull them out. I have seen her on more than one occasion land on the rocks and check it out, but today she flew to it as we were walking by. The vegetation is high enough that I could not see the hole, but she flew to it and went down the hole to see if there was anything in it, proving to me that she did remember.

https://vimeo.com/375770901

We gave it our best shot walking 9255 steps or 4.25 miles in over an hour and 50 minutes. I think even Hope was tired since she flew to the car when it finally came into view and thus relieved me of the chore of carrying her the last 1/4 mile.

Our time to hunt is limited and of course depends on the weather. So far she has shown no desire to catch anything with snow on the ground. I have to admit that I am not all that wild about hunting when it is that cold and snowy. There just isn't that many Rabbits around and I would just as soon throw another log on the fire and nap till the weather gets better. As they say, "with age, comes wisdom", or is it laziness, I can't seem to remember.

Nov 23rd

My cousin, Lowell Davis and his lady, Nancy, were on their way back home after a few weeks in Death Valley. They stopped here for the evening. Due to the approaching storms and colder weather he wanted to winterize his travel trailer before he got into the snow zone at McCall.  It didn't take long before the chore was finished.  Since it was Hope's day to go hunting,  he and Nancy wanted to go Hawking again with Hope. So all four of us, (Connie was here as well) loaded up for the trip to Arock.

I went this time to the same field that she killed the last Jack in the first 5 minutes of the hunt. My theory being that we really didn't stir the field up all that much, so it followed that I could hunt it again.

The Sage is quite a bit higher than I like and we only managed 4 slips at Jacks, all of which managed to out maneuver her. After walking for quite a while, I decided to change fields.  We crossed the fence and walked about 100 yards when a Jack jumped about 20 yards away. She missed him on the first strike, but got back in the air and nailed him about 10 yards from the first attempt. She had him by the right front shoulder and he was taking her for a ride around the Sage with him trying to find something to scrape her off, but I got there first and grabbed him as he tried to get by me.

I was a bit close to the action, so Connie took a picture of me trying to take a picture.

As you can see he suffered some damage in the fight.

Nancy took a few pictures with her phone, and gave a bit more perspective.

This Hawk continues to amaze and please me every time I take her out. She is all business.

How tough can it get?

I've been busy with appointments and commitments and had to pass up one or two days before I could get the time to go Hawking. I still have a lot to do, but I decided that I could take a short break to take Hope out to try to contribute to her winter food supply, via her prowess as a huntress.

Things are changing a bit due to the approaching winter. The rabbits change their habits as well, and the last time Connie and I went to Arock it appeared that the Jack's were a bit more plentiful. I can't say for sure, but we found four down in what I would call the grassy part of the area that I like to hunt. To find four of them close to the beginning of the field was a bonus for us and it didn't take all that long for Hope to pick one of them off to add to our bag. I was gratified that we didn't have to spend all day trying to catch one. I decided to go back to Arock as I had not been there for at least a week.

I am leaving the dogs at home now. Josie on her last trip out, came up with a sore shoulder and was limping quite a bit. I ordered her some glucosamine and she is now doing better, but their foray's in to the wilds are over. She is getting up there in age, and I am on a bit more limited time. I really think that the only ones who benefit from going with me is them. The Jacks jump further out when they are there. That of course adds to Hope's challenges and difficulties. It was fun to see them work together, but she is more efficient without them. I actually prefer the more "stealthy" approach.

Upon arriving at Arock, I decided to try a field that I haven't hunted for several weeks. I parked and let her out of the box, and she flew to a Sage Bush at the base of a Lava mound just inside the fence. I walked over, climbed the fence and took two steps towards her when she jumped into the air and crashed into the grass about 10 feet from her. Immediately a Jack began screaming, and my hunt was over. She had apparent'y landed just a few feet from the Jack, who had squatted when I drove up. He never realized that her species is one of the few that can see prey that is sitting still.

At the beginning of August I added an app that is supposed to measure how much I walk. I actually wanted to check the distances of the Hikes that Connie and I were taking at Glacier Park. I decided to leave it on my phone when I began hunting Hope after I returned home. Some, perhaps too many were in the 4 mile range on some of those hunts. So I was actually putting in a lot more walking than I had originally thought. For instance since Aug 1st I have walked 211 miles taking 84 hours to do it. Today's hunt was 40 steps- round trip.

Nov 17

This afternoon I weighed Hope, wondering just how much she had gained with all the Jack she had had to eat 2 days ago, and found, to my pleasure, that she had only gained an ounce or so. She was even calling to me in the dark when I had gone outside last night, so I was pretty sure that she wanted a repeat of her last meal. A greedy Hawk is God's gift to the falconry inclined. Anyway she only weighed 988 this time, and seemed to be convinced she was going to starve to death. So the hunt was on! Connie decided to go Hawking with me on my friend Richard's property. We left around 2 pm.  As a side note, Richard lives 23 miles from me and he is my second closest neighbor.  The other being 3 miles from me.

After a cup of coffee with Richard and the latest information on where the Jack's might be, we drove up the back road to an area that I had not hunted before. Since Rabbits are so scarce ( to me) I am always on the lookout for another spot that would support a Rabbit population. The first spot didn't pan out, so I drove back towards the ranch to a spot where I knew, some Jack's, called home.

I got out and asked Connie to drive the car along side as I went out in the Sage up against the hill. At our prior spot Hope had shown her eager and restless behavior at the first spot,by flying in a circle out and back to the perch. She rode with me for a while, but again flew to a Sage just in front of us, then busted off turning a complete circle and took off after a Jack that had been just behind the bush, she had sat on. He really had little choice in his direction of escape. Connie and I had restricted his movements to less than 90 degrees. He was a young one, and his next mistake was fated to be his last. He ran towards the hill just in front of him. When he got there the cover was really scarce. He chose to hide in the last Sage on the side of the hill. Hope flared straight up for about 15 feet, did a quick wing over and crashed through the thin Sage to land on his head.  

I have been hoping that She would perfect this technique for a long time. My first Harris rarely made one of these maneuvers without a rabbit in her feet. Hope's performance at this 

maneuver, so far, has been dismal. Not today!

Notice that the foot in the face is the bum one. Perhaps she will regain her full mobility.

Today was a pretty light day, primarily because Hope caught the first Jack that jumped. What ever, I'll take it. Only one mile and 6 10 ths, of walking.  Sounds good to me.

I fed her another head, and she chowed down pretty well. It may take her two days to return to normal this time.

What a difference a day makes

Over the years my hunting and training methods have of course changed. You can only stand the suffering from doing the same thing and getting the same result for so long. So I have changed the way that I interact with my Hawks, and gone back to the realities of Nature. That is - if you don't catch game, you don't eat. Hope has missed numerous times over the last two days where-in I have walked 8 + miles. I personally am willing to allow my hawk to get as fat as I am, as long as they can produce dead bodies at the end of the day.

Now I recognize the handicap that I have put on Hope by taking the dogs on our hunts. They for the most part do not make any of the slips better, in fact the opposite is true. The further the slip the more likely the Rabbit can make a plan and escape the "talons of death". ( Sorry, I couldn't resist ) Josie and Brick both do their parts extremely well, but the result is longer slips. After our hunt on wed she ended up with a sore shoulder, and it is still causing her some pain. I like having them hunt together, and her going to where Hope is holding a Jack, is a big plus, but it increases the difficulty in Hope catching Jacks because The Jacks tend to flush well ahead with the dogs in the field. Josie is getting up there for a Brittany. She is 9 this year, and most of my earlier Dogs have died at about 11 years. Josie is recently showing signs of advancing age, and has a tendency to limp after the hunts.

As you know the last two days have resulted in going home with nothing in the bag. I don't feed my birds now if they don't kill. Hope has been feeling the pinch, and today she was down to 964 grams.  Last year was this was the maximum weight that I allowed her to attain. We began this particular fast at 1045 grams. This year she thinks her throat is cut at anything other than 1000 grams. I personally am at a loss at her hunting so hard at such a high weight, but I'll take it. Today every time I went outside she was coming to the Weathering yard gate in the hope that I would come for her.

I decided to go back to Arock and this time leave the dogs at home. Connie and I walked quietly through the Sage, pausing every few yards. It took no time at all before a Jack burst from the Sage about 20 yards away. Hope was off after him and slammed into the sage with a mighty crash. That scene occurred two more times just as hard. It was obvious that she wasn't going to go home with an empty crop this time. We were very quiet and slow as we traversed the Sage. Our forth Jack burst from cover about 25 yards ahead of us but this time a Jack's death song was heard after her crash into the ground, then just as fast was cut off.

This time the "bum  foot was used and was holding some Rabbit. She obviously caught it by the butt and changed her grip to the head. She was eagerly looking for her tin cup. I gave her the cup full and then a chunk of the last Jack's back, leaving me the dead Jack. We moved on perhaps 30 yards, and waited for her to finish what she had. When she had eaten most of it, she picked it up in her beak and flew to the fist for the rest of her meal. I gave her the head and neck to eat. and as you can see a head is a substantial meal.

We only walked .83 miles this time and I for one was glad for the respite. If Josie was not having problems with her shoulders, I would stick with taking them along, and suffer the added mileage.

Walking my butt off- too bad it doesn't work on bellies:-/

Normally I would not write if a hunt was unsuccessful. There are no dead bodies in this post, and I will try to keep the bitching down as well.

I put in four miles and a bit more yesterday in a futile effort to catch an elusive Jack. Today I put in another 4 or more miles. I am already bemoaning the fact that Pat doesn't live closer so that we could collaborate. The Harris have a lot of try, but it is so much easier to have two of them working the Jacks.

I followed a whim yesterday simply because I didn't want to hunt the same old fields again, and went out "Skull Creek" road at Rome to an area that I remembered having lots of game the last time I hunted it many years ago, 2007 actually. Its all dirt road and the back way to Three Forks on the Owyhee River. I stopped at several different sites hoping to find enough Jacks to make a hunt feasible. I was surprised to keep running into Hungarian Partridge. All total I saw 5 different coveys of them. Only about 6 per group, but that is a pretty good deal, If you have a long wing. To my surprise and a little bit of shame, the dogs didn't seem to recognize them as anything unusual. A sad testimony to my lack of bloodlust for a shotgun hunting trip. Just don't have enough energy to do both.

I climbed up on top of a little pointed hill to see if elevation would be of help to Hope in her pursuit of the wily Jack Rabbit. Josie (my female brit) was with me and Brick was working the sage a bit down the hill. A Jack got nervous and broke cover about 125 yards away. Hope took off after him and Josie took off after Hope. Hope of course missed and got back up off the ground to a Sage. Josie in the mean time had caught up to the chase and ran a circle bumping the Jack again and took off yipping her excitement. Hope hearing her, took off and joined Josie trying to catch up to the Jack again. Of course that didn't pan out either. I was standing there watching all this unfold, and laughing my butt off.

So today we hunted again. Hope was a bit below 1000 grams, so hunting was viable. I went to my normal spot at Arock to see if we could catch something there. Brick my male Brit had some training by a genuine hard core Brit hunter and courses nice and close rarely going out much further than 50 yards. That close work is exactly what I need the dogs to do. Josie who can't remember if she ever had any training from anyone other than myself is off like a shot to the far reaches of the field, firing blanks and scaring every thing out of the country far enough a head that Hope doesn't stand a chance. At least she would like to. I called her back twice and she was still stretching it, so I called her back, picked her front feet off the ground and explained that I didn't want her to do that. It actually was just that. She is a very soft dog, so the correction was no more than that. She understood what I wanted and stayed in close, allowing Brick to work back and forth in close.

Actually I would most likely, I believed until today, be better off without the Dogs along. I feel sorry for them so I bring them along. Today I changed my mind.

I had noticed that Josie ran with Hope on her chases earlier, but today with the elevation of the terrain I could see better what was going on. I have always encouraged my Dogs to go to the Falcon when she was on the ground for some protection from Coyotes and especially Eagles. My Pointer used to do that, but she has since passed on, and now Josie is taking up the slack. To what extent I did not realize until today.

The way that it always goes is that when the Jack realizes that we are in the field, they take off about 100 to 200 yards ahead. Hope (springs eternal, couldn't resist) and gives chase. There is plenty of time for the Jack to make a plan and they will usually make a feint that suckers her in, sidestep and take off leaving her sitting on the ground. Today I could see that Josie would arrive shortly after Hope made her shot, run a circle around her, generally jump the rabbit again. Hope also noticed that, and began to take advantage of it and was getting more shots in at the rabbit. Then I noticed that when Josie would jump the rabbit again she would take off after it yipping at every jump. Hope also understood that Josie had eyes on the Jack and there they would go over the horizon, Josie yipping and Hope pumping for all she was worth trying to catch up. When the chase was over, Josie would come back to heel, almost, until the next chase. I kept saying to myself that I needed to record their cooperative behavior but found my self with my mouth open grinning like a fool, not taking any pictures. The serious Bird hunters will be proud of me. Brick has also learned to point Jacks. So far its only where they have been, now if I can get him to expand and point where they  actually are, I will be far ahead of the game. So to sum it up I have taught two of the best bird dogs to chase Rabbits and to point them as well. At least, I think its a good idea!

On my way back Hope did a wingover behind a large Lava "lump", and when I got there, was no where to be seen. I looked all over since there were many cracks and holes under it. I could see not a sign of her nor hear her. I told the dogs to find her, and Brick went over to a hole, stuck his head down and whined. I could see nothing, but I whistled and here came Hope out of the hole like a tunnel rat, and came to the fist. "Good Boy" Brick!

As we drug our butts back to the car, both Dogs left me as soon as the car was in sight and laid down in the shade waiting for water. Hope flew to the gate and sat on the post, while I brought up the rear. When I got to the car I raised the back door, and Hope started to me. I wasn't ready so she landed on Josie's back while I fumbled with my glove. We all had a drink and went home to rest up for another day.

Picture Candy

It is the time of the spectacular Sun Rises and Sun Sets. First the Sun Rise.

This was Monday morning

Now the Moon Rise

This was Monday night

This was the Sun Set Tuesday evening.

Burns Falconry Meet

I have not attended many of the Oregon Falconers Club falconry meets in the last few years. I left that to Karen. I have felt that it is time for the newer generation to shape the club in their own image. I had my time, and I was content to let them run it as they wished. Karen is gone and the meet was in Burns Oregon only 100  miles from here, so it seemed a bit churlish to not attend. There are many things that I do not agree with, but that can be easily be attributed to the crankiness of advancing age- possibly? I  actually had a good time, and have the feeling that the new officers just might be on the right track. So I am glad that I took the time to go. My main bitch was that the officers did not include the membership in the day to day business of the club and it was becoming a bit to yuppie, (catered dinners, and unnecessary expense) Most of the membership are common dirt poor types, due to their chosen lifestyle of falconry. You can either be rich and famous or happy, but poor. Rarely both at the same time.

I arrived on Thursday, and having a dear friend as well, a lady friend within several blocks of each other, I had a leg up on every body else. I stayed at Connie's and went hawking with Pat Brewster. Since Hope has such a wide response weight, I starved her for a couple days, down to a lower weight that would give me a larger margin of weight gain so that she would be able to hunt all three days of the meet without shorting her on her kills. We started out at 940 grams, only 60 grams  (2 ounces) above her real flying weight, and ended up weighing 1148 when we finished. That is of course with her full crop at the next morning of the day after the meet. I would venture that most Raptors do not hunt well even two ounces above their normal flying weight. Hope is a champ even among her own species.

Pat and I hunted in a cast those three days and it was a lot of fun. That is the two birds were hunted together, and cooperatively. That increases the survival difficulty of the Jack Rabbits by a couple of hundred percent, as the Hawks soon learn to take advantage of the other Hawks "set ups". When one misses the other has a free shot that often will end in a catch by the other Hawk who has positioned herself to take advantage of the miss. I ended the three days of hunting with three Jack Rabbits in the bag for Hope. Pat I believe had two.

The one who caught the butt of the Jack is the one who actually caught the Jack,. (Hope)

The one on the head is the back up that keeps the first from getting taken on a ride.

Pat and I, sorting out the tangle and rewarding the victors.

The deer are moving in. I am seeing them in the yard and the creek. These are taking a nap by the creek.

The Moon rise

The Sunset.