Nov 28th, Trifecta!

 Bruce Haak has been coming over here to hunt a couple of times a week. He has a 10 yr old Tundra Peregrine as well as a passage Tundra Peregrine that he is just starting. I have introduced him to Hope and a totally different falconry style. Bruce has always flown falcons, and to my knowledge has never flown a "short wing" ( Hawk ) Of course the styles are as different as they could be.

Both of us are officially "Old Farts" and as such, need to exercise as much as is possible. Walking is boring, but Hawking is not, so this is beneficial as well as a lot of fun.

It warmed up enough this morning around 10 AM to go outside, so we loaded Hope in the car and drove to Arock to begin. I had hunted there earlier in the week, and I wanted to give it another try. I had a field that I had not hunted in a month or more. I thought that more Jacks might have moved into the area, as it always seems to hold Jacks even when they are scarce everywhere else.

Connie is here for a couple of days and joined us. With Bruce on one side, Connie on the other and the dogs running in front we began our sweep of the countryside. Unfortunately we saw few Jacks and all of them were from a distance as they were flushing about 100 yards in front.Hope tried almost all of them, but she was at a disadvantage, and they all ended up with the Jack disappearing over the hilltop. We went about 2 miles up the hill in the one "Pasture", actually all Sage and Lava Rock, and other than a couple of exciting flights on Brush Bunnies, we never got a decent flush. The Bunnies are so fast and devious that she was not able to catch one of them before they went underground. 

One of the Bunnies flushed a good distance from the Lava, was really hot footing it to his Lava home, and it looked to me as though Hope had him by the next jump. The little "bastage" slammed on the brakes, reversed the field and jenked back. Hope at full flight actually turned a complete loop, no bigger than two feet in diameter, and continued after him on the same trajectory. He made it to the Lava and disappeared. When I got there she was about two feet down in the hole. I spoke to her and she managed to back out. She had spider webs all over her head. She looked a bit like a Goshawk with the spider eye stripes. She was really grumpy!

I changed fields trying to get a bit closer to the Alfalfa fields, hoping for a bit more action, and only got into more Bunnies. Now, Hope is probably the fastest female Harris Hawk that I have ever seen, but these Bunnies are really hard to catch. They really turn her on, but damn, they are tricky and fast as can be. They also don't seem to be in anything other than big Sage, so she has a problem finding a clear spot to get through to make a grab.  She went subterranean several more times, and had to be coaxed out of the cavern system that a Badger or Coyote had created in one spot. 

Eventually as we neared the end of the second field just down from where we started, a Jack jumped about 20 yards in front of us, and she burned him down in about the same distance. We were about 400 yards from where we started, but we walked 4 miles to get there. She got a full crop and was a happy camper.

When we arrived back at the house, Connie stayed home while I went with Bruce to fly his birds. We went to the lake that spawns Crooked Creek, and his old Tundra killed a Drake Gadwall in a nice stoop. After feeding her, we went back to the ranch to see if we could find something for the young bird to hunt. We had tried her yesterday on the creek, but messed up the flush and she didn't stand a chance of catching one. She really tried her best but she couldn't overcome the head start that the Duck had. Ditch hawking is the toughest and the most frustrating thing you can ever try. They are never where you thought they were, and they never get very far from the water and dive back in the first sign of interest from the falcon.

I had a different spot that I wanted to try, so while Bruce was getting the bird suited up to fly, I did a little scouting. There is a little pond no more than 30 feet in diameter in the Sage at the South end of the ranch. I had assumed that it was frozen, but while I was waiting for Bruce to get set up, I watched a Duck fly into that area. I went ahead and "snuck" up to see if there was actually a Duck there. A little spot at one end was open ( It was about 10 degrees this morning) and I could see a Ducks butt, I backed out and was lucky that he did not see me.

We got into position and put the bird in the air. When she was in position we rushed the pond and a very surprised drake Mallard flew up trying to clear the Sage. She slammed into him, did a quick throw up, turned and slammed into him on the ground.

I have "entered" (first kill in captivity) many Hawks and it is a rare thing when it all works out  without some sort of screw up. This was perfect, and she will be well on her way to becoming a serious Game Hawk.

Seven miles today on our "Hawkatron". Crap, I need my Hot tub!

Nov 26- Happy Thanksgiving!

 The weather has been just perfect, bad weather- wind, snow, etc on the days that we don't hunt, then nice when we do. I like it! Quite unusual however.

Connie was supposed to have been here yesterday, but she wasn't able to make it yesterday, so Hope and I went hawking by ourselves.

 

The morning was nice and clear and the Steen's were glowing.

 I had decided to go to Arock to see if any of the local Jacks had moved into the area. It is Lava and Sage and near to some alfalfa fields, so it generally holds more Jacks that any place around.

I had asked Sue, the lady that found Jessie's body, if she wanted to go hawking with us, and she readily agreed. Sue was also going to share our Thanksgiving meal later in the day as well.

From the tracks in the small amount of snow on the ground, the population looked quite promising. There were lots of Jacks, but all of them were as wild as "March Hares" even in November, so all the slips we were getting were all long range. We also put up quite a few bunnies, generally when she was somewhere else, and she got very few good chances to score.

This one just barely beat her to the rock pile. She of course went in after him, but I am sure that he squeezed himself into the farthest corner that he could and pulled the hole in after him. 

We had covered parts of two fields in our quest to get a decent slip. She had crashed into many bushes, towered up as high as she could all to no avail, Then one of them finally screwed up and didn't get enough bush in between it and her. It was also the only close slip that we got. No time to plan, and she was too fast for it.

I had to untangle them to get it out to a point that I could put him out of his pain.

 The older more muscular ones are hard to kill. I try to stretch them enough to break their necks, as its less likely to break the Hawks toes or legs. This poor guy had to endure several attempts. 

We walked 3.4 miles total, and I lost track of how many Rabbits we saw. We also jumped three coveys of Hungarian Partridge in our travels.---Turkey time!

Nov 24th

 Last Sunday I went to Burns to help Connie clean her garage. I took Hope along so that I could also go hunting with Pat. Unfortunately the wind was howling ( only a bit of an exaggeration ) . There were quite a few Jacks in the field, and they almost all flushed a long way off.  Hope always went after them, Pat and Chilli were off somewhere else and it basically turned into my version of a cluster ****. 

Chilli was able to take advantage of a miss by Hope to snare the one Jack that gave us a close, decent flush. So, with Chilli getting a rabbit, I picked up all my marbles and went to clean the garage. Hope was carrying plenty of extra weight so she wasn't hurting for food. I hate hunting in the wind, it just adds another dimension of difficulty, and I try to avoid flying in wind that is in the teens. Harris hawks are just not suited to that type of flight.

Yesterday was also pretty crappy, so I didn't hunt then either. Today however was better and it was time to get out and catch some food.

The temperature was in the teens this morning with very little wind. I noticed a week or so ago that the rabbits seemed to be a little thicker close to the house early, so I put on some long johns and we tried the field by the house. I have taken quite a few of the residents there, but hadn't hunted it for a couple of weeks. We only found one Jack in there this time and he gave her the slip, so I came back in the yard and out the other side to hunt along the runway.

We weren't seeing much there either, but I was committed this time. I walked a big circle and she chased two Jacks, that were able to avoid her. Both were long slips and she was unsuccessful with both of them. I began to think I was going to have to get in the car and try some distant pastures, when one jumped at the edge of an opening, close to us. She nailed him in about 15 yards.

I was too busy taking care of the rabbit to take pictures, so we did our "Hero shot" after we got back home.

I wish you all a happy and safe Thanksgiving!