My Christmas Card to you

 I know that I have not been keeping the chatter of the blog going, but really there has been nothing worth wasting your time with. So I will at least use this occasion to wish all of you a Merry Christmas and to hope that things will be better this next year. However being a curmudgeon at heart, I have my doubts that the next few years will do much that will make things easier for us all.

First a couple of Sun Rises for you.

I put Hope up for the year about the middle of November. Bud was teaching her bad habits since they were tethered within sight of each other. He is still throwing a fit every time that I go to pick him up. Then when on the fist he is so sweet that butter wouldn't melt in his beak. Hope however never saw that side of him. I am sure that she thought I either was or should have killed him as soon as we were out of witness range.

 There was nothing to hunt her on without expending a ridiculous amount of fuel to get to a field that held a few Jacks. You need to understand that the nearest 4 + dollar fuel was about 120 miles round trip. I also began to worry that I was destroying two litters of Jacks that could have been born next year each time we actually caught an adult this year. So Hope is out in one of the enclosed mews with a heat tape perch to keep her feet warm.

I found that I misnamed Bud. I should have called him Corrigan, as in "Wrong way Corrigan" . (For those too young to know, look the name up on Wicci.) Every time that I put him in the air, he manages to be in the wrong place at exactly the right time, every time. Of course the Ducks do not help either as none of the ones that we have seen so far are interested in committing suicide.

It is true that he seems to think that Ducks are an interesting distraction, but he knows that I will feed him some delicious Quail just as soon as I get tired of his screwing off. I am afraid that I have been too soft on him.

This too is self inflicted of course. There is a "trueisim" that points out that "one must be smarter that the "shit" he is working with." Unfortunately I seem to forget that on occasion. Jessie was mistrustful of me in that she was always convinced that I secretly was plotting to steal her food. This was brought about by a clumsy incident where in I was paranoid about her actions after she had fed fully on a Pheasant. I was attempting to secure her jesses with a leash, and she decided that I was taking her food. She never forgot it in the 15 years that I had her. So to make sure that Bud didn't have that same problem I haven't let him fully feed on the bagged game that he has caught. I have let him chew on the neck, drink all the blood that he wants as well as feed on the brains of the victims, but he much prefers Quail, and thus is in a hurry to leave the Duck for them. As a consequence, Bud is only playing with his food.

A friend of mine, Bruce Haak, came over from Eagle Id. to fly his 12 year old Peregrine. Its been a slow year for every body, as the Northern Ducks really haven't moved all that far out of the North yet because of the mild weather that we have been having. Encroaching civilization has also inflicted a blow to hawking in Southern Idaho, and they are having problems to find fields that they are able to hunt.

His 12 year old Peregrine tends to fly really high, and that is a problem in that the places that I have to hunt. They are covered in little swampy braided creeks very close to the ponds that hold the Ducks. If she takes the pitch that she prefers, the Ducks can get to the swamps and creeks before she can get down to where they are. When Jessie flew these areas she took a 350 foot pitch that allowed her to smack her prey down on dry ground.

Today we had a sharp West wind of about 12 MPH and his bird stayed about 550 feet up. All the other puddles were frozen today, so there was about 30 Mallards on the "lake". She missed her first flush, but there was still about 15 Ducks on the lake. She flew off down wind to remount and when she came over the lake this time the Ducks flew in to the brisk West wind, and she took a Hen Mallard out of the flock.

Bruce fed her the legs and back of the Duck and gave me the 

rest to feed Bud.

Bud has been a pain to pick up, and I should have flown him yesterday, but he threw such a fit that I did not pick him up or feed him yesterday. So today he came to the fist, rather than throw his usual fit, so I gave him the rest of the Duck to eat, rather than his usual Quail. Hopefully he will look upon the next Duck that he sees in his sights with a slightly more interested attitude. I think the high today was just above freezing, and the rest of the week will be the same. I look forward to a more serious attitude towards getting to eat the next time we go out.

I am set up to began Cataract surgery on Monday, and I will get the other eye done on the 21st. So Hawking will suffer a bit for the rest of the month. Normally I would quit by Christmas.

Have a great Christmas and New year

This Sunset will have to be my Christmas gift to you.

May God bless you all!

Nov 21, 2021

 To make a long story a little less tedious,  Nothing much has improved this last week. I still haven't been able to get him a clean shot at a Duck. Its not from a lack of trying. I have come to the conclusion that he is better suited to a heavier weight than I have been flying him at. Sometimes it can take a bit to figure out what weight a bird flies best at. Yesterday I choose to not fly him because his weight was 830 grams, so I just took him along with Connie and I as we walked the runway. He does really well as long as he can't see the dreaded hood.

I forgot to close the Pigeon door last night, so there were no Pigeons in the loft. I had nothing to use to keep him in a position to actually catch a duck. I had taken him over to the Ranch for two different days to see if we could get him overhead, high enough to actually get a good chance at a Duck. The wild variety fly a lot differently than even the best pen raised Duck. The ducks that we flushed for him were almost all Mallards, but there has always been at least one "diving duck" to pull him away from the Mallards. It takes a bit more confidence than Bud has  at the moment to fly into a flock of birds. Imagine yourself going into a crowd of guy's and ripping one of them out. So- he has never been high enough to have enough time to close the distance on a Duck before they dive into a canal or puddle somewhere.

With no pigeons, I am left with just feeding him,  flying him on the drone, or take a chance.  You see, one needs to have something for the falcon to chase, so if there are no Ducks, then you toss a pigeon so that the lesson is not wasted. You want them to understand that you are where things are happening, and to keep close to you, because things to kill tend to show up where you are. 

 I eventually decided that there was a possibility I could do both. Connie was still here, so I talked her into going with us. she could go home after we were done. His weight today was at my goal of 800 grams. He was 802 grams.

I brought the drone in and programmed it for 675 feet above he ground. I thought that would give me time to put the drone up, pick up Bud, and release him to climb to the drone, while I got in position to flush Ducks, if there were any, before he could climb to 675 feet.   I put the drone up, and Connie tells me that he got excited when he heard the drone motors starting. I put it up as high as I could, then went to get him. I turned him loose  and hurried to get in position. He definitely knows what is next when he hears the drone. He flashed off the fist without looking around, and started climbing.

I  had only to walk about 75 feet to be where I needed. I double timed it to get in position. I looked around and he was way the hell up there and coming towards my position. I ran for the pond, which turned out to be totally empty of Ducks. I stopped to see what he was doing, and I could already see the parachute following him down to the ground. Shit!!!! He had grabbed the thing before I got even close to the pond.

However it actually worked out for the best. He got to show me how strong his flight really is, as well that his weight needs to be higher than I have been flying him at. You see, too heavy and he goofs off, too light and he doesn't want to fly. I think that I can trust him to not go anywhere other than home. 

When he grabs the lure, he does not try to land any where close to me, but he does want cover from other predators.So I start tracking him with my new receiver. I located him in another pasture filled with Greasewood. I start rolling up the dropper line, while he was eating his Quail leg. Before I could finish he was at my ankle looking up wondering when I am going to offer him the rest of his meal. At least he has one admirable trait.

I think that I am going to work this type of combo flight and see if we can make it work out. You see I have had a lot of attempts at falcons and the one thing I have learned it is that it not hard to teach them to fly low. Once they do, it is almost impossible to get them to take any decent height. They need to be high enough to command the field, but close enough to get to them before they get to another puddle of water.

He is quite capable of flying as high as I could desire, and even more, but it isn't hard to screw that up with the wrong rewards too often. I was blown away at how fast he grabbed the lure today.

A Sunset for you, then-

 Here is the moon rise.

Progress

 I've been going back and forth all evening concerning writing about Bud's progress. Of course I have reexamined the events of the day many times. Although there really isn't anything all that noteworthy about his training other than his tendency to throw a shit fit every time I pick him up from his perch or reach for his hood. The interesting part is that he hasn't allowed that hatred to cause him to "run away from Home". I marvel each time I see this performance. Once the hated hood is stowed away, all his animosity goes away as well.  I have never seen behavior of this type in all my time with raptors. One would never believe that anything that acted like that would ever voluntarily return to the fist that caused such an outburst. Yet he does. Once the hood goes away, he is as sweet as a raptor ever gets. Today we went through the same thing, only with a bit more vocals this time. When he turned over from his fit he grabbed the tidbit off my fist on the way up. He knows that it is always there, so he looks for it. Another contradictory action on his part. He should sulk or continue to act up. He does not, he is fine through the weighing and right up to the time I reach for the hood. Then we start again.

After his "homing" episode, it occurred to me that I had missed a vital part of his preparation before exposing him to wild game. Generally it wasn't necessary with the other falcons that I have trained. They automatically hung around me when they were released, so it was back to basics. 

The basics involved the balancing act of allowing him to fly, hoping that he would also gain altitude, yet stay within range of me. I want him to get up in the sky, but not so far that he can't get to the game before it has reached a point that it can go to cover, or back in the water to escape. You would think that in an area that normally has uninterrupted visibility of roughly 100 miles, it wouldn't matter. Besides cover there are other factors such as Coyotes, and especially, Golden Eagles. Lets face it, I am an old fat senior citizen, my running days are long gone. I can shuffle a bit however, just not far. Both of the mentioned critters would be quite happy to add Bud and his prey to their rather skimpy menu.

When he went home, I had expected him to come back over at some point in time, but he didn't get within a mile of me the whole time he was playing with the Red Tails and the Golden. So the next day I caught up all of my "homing" pigeons as well as a fresh Duck, and went to the pasture of the ranch next door. The first day I tossed a new Pigeon out every time he began to stray a bit. Then when he happened to blunder close to me I tossed the Duck which he caught and killed.

The day before yesterday I went with only two Pigeons, and a Duck. This time he kept his circles a bit closer to me and when he began to work his way up, ( it was too early for thermals) I tossed the Duck and he caught it. Since the Duck weighs more than him by a considerable amount, I have tried to shield him from too bad of a "wing whipping" when I can. This time for whatever reason he wasn't all that anxious for me to get in there, so he turned it loose. He quickly grabbed it again after it had gotten  out of my range, so I left him to sink or swim. For the first time he broke its neck. I stayed back and let him feed, mostly he picked at it and drank some of the blood flowing from the Ducks neck wound. He really doesn't like the taste of Duck much more than I do, so he kept a close eye on what I was doing, and after a bit I tossed the lure down between us. He automatically started then stopped. I didn't move and eventually he grabbed the Duck around the neck and drug her over to his lure, apparently just in case. After he finished the quail leg on the lure, he jumped to the fist for the rest of his meal, abandoning the Duck.

The Quail that I have are pretty big and actually were getting old enough to begin egg laying, thus they are pretty fat. He will gain weight on a whole quail, so I didn't feel that I should fly him yesterday. I had to go pick him up to weigh him, and of course we went through the whole fit again, so I made him sit with me while I was cleaning up at the wood shed. Mostly I just sat with him, enjoying the unseasonably warm afternoon watching the fire of the burning wood scraps, bark and such. He studies me when we sit, I think trying to understand what I am doing, and why. He seem to be especially curious about the hat that I habitually wear. Perhaps why I wear it without jumping up and down screaming curse words, but then again perhaps I am assigning human traits to him. Apparently neither one of us understand what motivates the other.

Today he was at what I guess to be the proper weight, so I only took two Pigeons with me. I also left the dogs at home, which didn't make either of them happy. A little side story is warranted at this point. Brick, my male Brit. has begun to "register" his displeasure of being left out of the hunt, by tearing up the paper towels that I have set aside for fire starting. I come home from one of these trips to find that (most assuredly Brick, rather than the much smarter female, Josie) the paper towels that might have a bit of former food smears, torn to little pieces scattered around the dining room. I have only to stop and hold his gaze and he slinks off to his bed to hide. I have stuffed his mouth full of the paper and scolded him a couple of times to little avail. Four days ago I set a mouse trap with peanut butter on top of the full paper garbage basket. The paper and the trap has been untouched. Today when I returned one little piece of paper was on the floor, but the trap is still unsprung. He isn't dumb by any measure.

There is a little pool of water in one of the lots where they keep the horse herd some times. The lot is full of Greasewood. The Ducks like to rest in it through the middle of the day when they are not feeding. This was my destination today. I turned Bud loose, and this time he looked around to see just where he was before he took off. 

One of the problems at this point is that it is easy to fix a low height as the desired goal at this stage of his training. One of my friends is disappointed if his falcon can be seen without the aid of binoculars while it is waiting on. I tend to feel that it is some sort of "compensation" :-), I want to have the bird high enough that it can catch the prey before it gets to cover and I like to see the entire flight, not just the last few seconds of it. So for me 300 feet is enough with the desired height of no more than 500 feet. If I serve him too soon, then, I might fix him to 150 feet.

Today he stayed around when I turned him loose. I had two Pigeons that can and have out flown him before, just in case. He began to get a bit of altitude, and the next time he came over me, I flushed the pond. There were 6 Mallards and a couple of diver Ducks, which are smaller. I watched the Mallards and he apparently chased one of the other ones. One of the smaller ones came back to the pond, rather than share the sky with him. I did get to see him dive at a Duck at the Barn puddle. He then came back towards me. I waited until the Duck that came back abandoned the pond and started into the heavy Sage around the pond. I threw a rock at him, and he flew with Bud right on his tail. He again dived into the Sage with Bud "throwing up" enough to clear the Sage. Bud then came around and went on foot looking through the Sage for him. He didn't find him, so I tossed out the lure. He came right to it, and eventually to the fist after he finished the leg tied to the lure.

I have to admit that Bud excites me- a lot! Today was the first day that Bud has found out that bagged Ducks and wild ones are a lot different. He is tenacious and tough. He has the ability to out fly anything other than a Gyrfalcon, and they are very scarce here. I have only seen one other falcon that was bold enough to crawl through Sage and briers looking to kill a bird bigger than she was, that was Jessie. So once he learns the game, he will be formidable.

We will see what tomorrow brings.

Homing falcon

 Today dawned nice and clear, and warm for this time of the year. Both Hope and Bud were 'ready ' to hunt. Connie was going to go home today, but stayed to hunt with me.

A bit before noon we went to Arock to try our luck at a spot that has never failed us. Hope needed to find something to catch. The scarcity of game is degrading her hunting style a bit, so I hoped to get some good opportunities for her that could result in a kill. There are a number of Brush Bunny's there, but they rarely open themselves up to being caught. They stay within 30 yards of the Lava Rocks, and its rare for her to be able to bring one to bag. The Jacks tend to jump so far ahead that it is rare that she really gets a fair shot at them. Today was no exception as all the Jacks were a minimum of 100 yards away when they began their run. We had three chases like that with little hope of her getting a clean shot at them. 

We did get two Bunnies up, but they were so close to their lava lairs that Hope didn't have much of a chance. After completing a mile and half circle, I jumped a Bunny that had held until I almost stepped on him. This one, she caught. He attempted to run through a 18 inch high Sage that had a bunny sized hole in it. Her long legs caught his butt before he could clear it.

The dark spot to the left of Brick is Hope's back

This is what is sticking out on the other side of the bush from Hope. 

Unfortunately I failed to check the lens prior to taking a shot. Somehow 

it seemed to have collected some dirt.

We were  1.65 miles from the car, so while we saw a few, there wasn't all that many Rabbits in the area.

Connie was picking up a cute little kitten to take to a Cancer patient in Eugene, so we stopped by Sue's House, (The gal that found Jessie, and has since become a friend ) She also just happens to have a small pond by her house that I hoped to hunt Bud on. After his performance the other day, it was time to see if he could catch a wild one. With the right set up and a little cooperation from Bud it looked possible. I am glad that there was nothing on it. We picked up the kitten and headed home.

We dropped the kitten off at the house and went over to the ranch to try one of the small ponds over there. I turned Bud loose and he sailed off to play in the thermals. Most falcons study their surroundings quite a lot so as to know ( my guess or opinion which ever you prefer) where you are and will generally come back there at least once before they stray off. Bud was obviously looking for a thermal and he joined a Golden and two Redtails loosely in a group of thermals to the West of us. He got high enough and far enough off that it was tough to see him, even with bino's, but we still had a telemetry signal on him. I normally get impatient and break out the lure of something in order to get a falcon back, but I was determined to wait him out. As long as I had a good signal I wasn't worried. The Golden is (he said optimistically) is a pretty laid back bird, and he wasn't showing any signs that he might be a threat.

Bud eventually started working his way back in our general direction, but across the flat  and about a mile or more away. I began to swing my lure, but got no response. Eventually the signal indicated that he was at the gravel pit above the house, and soon the signal was lost. The sucker had gone home!

We loaded up and went home ourselves and as soon as we topped the hill at the gravel pit the receiver began chirping again. He was sitting on the Hangar waiting for us. I called him down to the lure, and the day was over. I guess I am going to have to start tossing some pigeons for him whether I want to or not. I have never had a falcon do that before.   He had the nerve to complain at me when I shorted his rations.

A few new pictures and a clarification

 The blog that I put out last night made fun out of something that could actually play a big part in the way that Bud hunts for the rest of his life. Almost nothing is more important or critical than "entering" a hawk to hunting. There are many factors involved in the training of a raptor. All training sessions are or can be very critical to the way and intensity of how he hunts. Bad habits are easy to develop and the intensity of the raptor can be soured in one incident that does not go the way that it should.

This is likely the last falcon that I will be able to train, so every thing that he learns in the next few weeks can make all the difference in the world. It actually takes at least a couple of years to have the finished product, which is a reliable game hawk. 

Almost every thing is against a happy ending. Game, both upland and waterfowl are scarce. Waterfowl is affected because of the drought, and all the ponds in the back country are dry . Its been a mild autumn, so the Ducks have not left the North Country yet. I actually have it better, for instance, than those in the Boise Idaho area. They can't find hawkable ducks any where where they live.

I am driving about 260 miles just to pay $14.00 for a Duck to use to enter Bud. I paid $50 last night for 12 gallons of gasoline. I just can't afford to do a lot of driving in my hunts. Don't get me wrong there is noting wrong with the Ducks that I am buying, I am ecstatic that I can even find Ducks that might fly for him. I have used 6 lb. barnyard Ducks before that could only waddle at best and been damn happy for the opportunity. 

It is normal for so many moving parts, that things go wrong with monotonous regularity. However when the wound is self inflicted or the desperation so intense that it becomes folly, one can only laugh at the ridiculousness of the situation. 

I have always had a deprecating sense of humor and have no problem with making fun of my foibles. I am confident enough in my own abilities that I can see the humor in situations where I should have done better or ones that I just plain screwed up. The part that was so amusing in this one was I was so desperate to complete the change from drone to game, and every move by me was countered by "Murphy's Law", and I just couldn't get a break.  

I was so pleased with Bud's reaction to the one Duck that did fly last night, that all my concerns evaporated. He was confident and acted with determination. He flew up to about 300 feet, stayed with us and began his dive as soon as the Duck opened his wings. He hit the Duck but lost his grip. The Duck leveled out to out fly him, but Bud flew him down and took him to the ground. He held the Duck until we found him ( with the telemetry). He chupped when he saw us come over the hill. His manners with the Duck was impeccable. He still threw a shit fit when I had to hood him after his meal, but that is to be expected. Its one example of a screw up that will be with him for the rest of his life.

Bud is from great stock, and the guy that bred him has done a terrific job. I just don't want to screw up his work, and it appears that there is a possibility that will not happen. The last falcon that I trained was in 2005, and I have always felt that I had made a couple of blunders with her, and that I could do better. Having reliable drones was one of the things that would make it easier. I don't just want to train a good falcon, I want one that will make every one who sees him envious. I feel that I have that with my Harris, Hope, and I want Bud to be the same. So far that is still a possibility. I know for a fact that he scares the crap out of any game bird under him.

The weather is progressing and we are getting some neat sunsets and sunrises. Here is just one.

  

 

The cluster F%^$ continues

 I have to say "Its been interesting" this year. I think I have questioned myself more this year than I ever have. I have been practicing falconry for 56 years,so one would think that I might have an inkling about how things should work. Training a new Hybrid (1/2 Peregrine/half Gryfalcon )  should be a piece of cake. New tools such as a Drone that takes away all the problems of having your falcon learning to drift and wander all over the country. With a drone the reward are always there, it is in action before the falcon even gets it hood taken off. The bird builds strength so much quicker, because you can plug the drone into your computer and set "fences" that tells the drone to go to the altitude that you want, ( You start at 20 feet, and as the bird gets more strength, you keep setting the altitude higher until you have reached your goal) Right now Bud is going 600 feet to get the lure. When the battery gets low, the drone automatically comes back and lands in the spot that it took off from without any help from the operator.

Before your only choice was to turn the bird loose and try to teach him by rewards (pigeons) to stay near you and preferably over head. Most of them would wander off, fly high in thermals and when they got tired they would start a dive from 1/4 mile off and end up over your head at 15 feet. There are lots of variations, none of them what you wanted.

Once you reach the height that you wanted, you introduce game for them to chase and hopefully catch. That has been the problem for me. Falcons love Pigeons! They will chase them every time they get a chance. So the first thing you need in your arsenal is not just Pigeons, but GOOD Pigeons. Ideally you want the Falcon to chase them, but not learn that he can catch them if he chases them long enough.

My last falcon, Jessie, would catch every Pigeon that I threw for her. She would chase them until they tried to take cover and then kill them when they did. Thanks to a friend I was given some good Homer stock. A pigeon that you take out of the barn or from under a bridge, just can't cut it. So that problem was taken care of.

Bud thankfully will take a couple of shots at the ones that I throw for him and then break off- so far! My problem comes in by not being able to set him up with flights on game that I want him to be able to catch. His main quarry will be Ducks. Most falcons if introduced to Upland game such as Pheasants, Grouse, Huns and the like will ignore Ducks. Upland game flies in such a manner that excites a falcon so much that they cannot resist. Ducks however just are not as exciting. So when you enter a falcon you want to be able to hunt both. You start them on Ducks first. If a Pheasant does get up when you are in the field, you can be assured that your falcon will give chase. Not so if they have only had upland game to start on.

So to teach him that he needs to fly high enough to command the pond or area, I needed to toss a flighted Duck under him just before he closes with the lure at 500 feet. Simple right? Apparently not! Things have been going well, so far. I am getting what is called, Flighted Mallards from a game farm in Idaho. $14 bucks a Duck. Well worth the money! Earlier Harry had bought a bunch of Chukars from them to use on his falcon. When he went home he left them here for me to use. 

In all the eons since critters have existed, they have learned that a sickle shape in the sky is bad juju, and you should not fly when those demons are visible. Run don't fly! A "barn" pigeon will if necessary and nothing else is available, fly right back under your feet to escape. So do Chukars!

To avoid problems and because I had no other option, I decided that if I could keep a Chukar inside my vest so that he couldn't see the falcon, and picked a time when Bud was a bit behind me that I had a good chance of him flying long enough for Bud to get down from the sky to get a shot at the Chukar.  My vest has a 'game compartment' in the back, with a zipper. I thought if I put the Chukar there, I could unzip it and let the Chukar escape at an opportune moment and if committed he would keep flying long enough that Bud could have a shot at him, since he would be going at least twice as fast as the Chukar. Hell, it could have worked. I know that the last one sure put a lot of territory between us when he slipped out of a closed and snapped pocket of my bag before I had released Bud. One of the factors that have just about convinced me that I am going senile, is that I thought it would actually work.

What actually happened- I turned Bud loose and cranked the drone up to its set height of 600 feet. Bud needed and wanted to find a thermal that would help him climb to the needed altitude. That happened to be down the ridge line about 600 yards. I have slight cataract clouding in my eyes and recently a chunk of crap cut loose in my 'good eye' that makes it tough to see as clearly as I need to. Bud shortly began coming back towards the drone, so I unzipped my bag when he was about a 100 yards out, nothing happened I reached into my bag, behind my back trying to get the Chukar out, he kept digging on the zipped side and before I could turn him around, Bud pulled the lure out of the drone and the game was over.

The next time I took one of the Ducks out of the big Chicken pen, 20X15. I  basically go through the same setup. I toss the Duck, he flutters to the ground, Bud mugged him on the ground. So basically the lesson from Bud's perspective was just hang around close to the idiot with the duck and save all that energy.

You see one of the dangers of a drone is that the falcon can learn to ignore game under them because they know the reward is hanging from the drone. So I am getting worried that I am getting close to the point that Bud would not go up to altitude without the drone there to draw him up.

I had gone over to the ranch,  where Ducks are filling the ditches around the barns and houses, thinking (again) that he needed to learn that there are other things to chase than drones. I neglected to mention that the field in question was covered in surface water just a bit lower than the grass that covered it,  and he was a bit heavier than normal. Long story short, he flew and flew and apparently he was unable to distinguish the meat on the lure from the mud that was in the field. He didn't leave the area, but he would not come to the lure for quite a long time.

 Connie came down for a visit last Wed. Having one more Duck, I decided to go to another field that was dry and had a ditch that had held Ducks last year. I had cut a bit of weight off Bud, so I felt that he would pay a little more attention to the job at hand. I turned him loose and he began picking up some altitude and hanging around as well. I started towards the ditch which unfortunately did not hold any Ducks. No problem I will just toss out the Duck that I paid $14.00 for and things will work out fine. The Duck hit the ground faster than a cripple without crutches. The dogs and I immediately rush the Duck which in retrospect, was an unfortunate decision. With two dogs and me in the way, Bud declined to join the fray. That lead to a long soar in a thermal about a 1/4 mile away. I apparently lost my mind and could only think of regaining the Duck. I tried to get the dogs to grab the Duck, they apparently thought it was a trap so that I could beat them for touching it, and would only bump it with their noses. ( Josie and I had a talk about her tendency to try to kill the rabbits that Hope was fighting with) The Duck tried to hide in a ditch and I caught him. Bud finally came back towards us and for some reason I threw the damn thing again with the same result of course. I tossed the lure and Bud landed on it. While we started chasing the duck again. Connie is collapsed on the ground between the numerous cow pies, laughing herself sick. The Duck meantime goes from running to chasing the dogs as well as Bud when we ran her close enough to him.

Today my friend Bruce came down and brought two more Ducks with him, that he had at his house. We went to the ridge up from the house, turned Bud loose without the drone, but ready. He started circling us just as he should, got up to a pretty good altitude. I had Bruce toss the duck. I was afraid to touch it for fear of screwing things up again. This time the Duck took off like it should have. Bud turned over and came slashing down, tried to grab the Duck in the air, the Duck shook loose and proceeded to flee the country. Bud recovered and disappeared down the ridge line after it. We waited to see if he would reappear, and when he didn't went after him. We finally found him with the Duck. 

One of the things that I wanted to do different with Bud was to trade him off of game with the lure, and then to the fist for Quail. I feared that with him not eating any of the Duck that he would not be as anxious to catch Ducks if he didn't want to eat them. He does like brains, so I killed the Duck by cutting open his brain cavity, and he was eating that and likes it. I opened the skin on the breast and fed him a bit of that. He wasn't sure that he liked it, but he did eat a few bites. I then gave him the liver which he spit out. It reminded me of the time I sampled a piece of warm Moose liver, so I could sympathize. He did eat the heart, but then he wanted his lure, and after that the fist with the rest of his Quail. Snob!

I am beginning to think that I might be able to come out of this with a falcon that will hunt. I am going to try to do a lot less thinking and more doing. Who know, it might work.

 

A compilation

 There has really been little to share with anyone lately. The hunting has been crappy, and that is generous in the extreme. I have almost given up on finding enough Rabbits to hunt. Bud is stuck in a rut, that has been really tough to get him out of, so I have just been slogging along, hoping for something positive to happen.

Connie and I finally finished her "Catio". I, of course call it the Cat house, as at best, it is a bit too common a structure to call it such a fanciful name. No matter the name, it is the best idea for town Cats that I have ever seen. "Atta boy,Girl". 

The tunnel is 18x12 and opens into the garage, so the cats can access it

from the garage, thus allowing them to go outside, but not into the street.

There are shelves placed so that they can jump to the ground 

as well as to a large shelve along the back wall.

I had bet that they would not like it at all, but they thankfully have proved me wrong. The tunnel has a "cat door" in the garage, and another cat door in the garage allows them into the house. 

I am seriously thinking of stopping hunting for Rabbits with Hope. There are so few Rabbits around, I almost hate it when she does catch one. So far we have brought three Jack Rabbits to bag. A day that turns up three Jacks is currently a good day. The average Hawk makes a catch in ten tries, and we are averaging three tries after covering three to four miles, a losing proposition at best.

Sue, the Lady that found Jessie, my last falcon, came over today to go hunting with myself and the birds. We first took Hope down to the end of the runway to start our search for Jacks. We walked for two miles, and as we approached the car from the opposite direction, a young Jack broke cover much too close to us to have a chance. Hope caught him in about 20 yards, he broke free and she again caught him before he covered another 20 yards.

The poor girl has been so frustrated, that she had begun to fly in front of the dogs and myself, hoping to see something. Then of course if we do stumble across a Jack, it generally busts out in the opposite direction behind us and she can't make up the distance.

Bud

Bud's personality has now fully formed, and it is quite interesting, and actually quite nice. He is fearless, and calmer than one would believe.

 His first flight while on "hack" was to the ground by Hope's weathering area. For a reason that I cannot comprehend, I felt compelled to pick him up and bring him back to the window ledge. He did not want to be picked up but I insisted by holding his jesses and putting him on the fist.

 Since then he does not want me to pick him up. He will "bate" the other direction every time. Once he is on the fist, the rebellion is over and I can do what ever I want, other than put a hood on his head. Once however he is hooded, the fight is over, and even when I take his hood off, he shows no other resistance, or sign that he has just "thrown a shit fit". After eating the food on the lure, he flies to the fist with no problem or hesitation. In fact he is very good on the lure, or even a duck that he has killed, he does not hesitate to leave the Duck for a Quail on the fist.

I have been trying to get him to come to the fist in the weathering area by offering him food when I try to pick him up. If I starve him enough he will come to the fist, reluctantly. However it seems that the behavior is ingrained permanently. Sigh! I have always said that "you need to be smarter than the crap you are working with", and it appears that I "ain't", at least some of the time.

Training a falcon to hunt requires that I teach him to fly high above me, "Waiting On" at an altitude high enough to command the area around us. The higher he is the more area that he can cover.

There are several ways to do this. You can just take them out during the middle of the day and let them play around and hopefully they will get some altitude, at which point you serve them with something that they can catch. The problem with this is that they tend to wander around, rather than stay overhead.

Another and the current method most in use, is a drone. They are taught that their lure is on the drone, and they have to grab the lure off the drone. It starts close to the ground then higher until the altitude that you want is reached. The advantage of this is that the falcon is actively engaged as soon as he is released. There is much better control, and the bird gains condition much faster than by any other method.

The theory is that when the falcon has hit the altitude that you want, prey is released and the falcon then learns that game is forthcoming when they reach a high altitude over you. While that sounds simple enough, nothing ever gets simple, at least for me.

There are several "truism's" concerning falcons, one is that "a falcon that is too fat or too lean will not fly". The only way that I could get Bud to step up to the fist was to cut his weight back. He would still fly 600 feet up to the lure. Primarily because he needed to eat. However without the drone in the sky he would fly around then land on the ground wondering what the hell I was up to. Generally speaking falcons do not hunt because they are hungry, mostly it is because they want to. Yes it is nice to feed on fresh hot warm bloody Ducks, but it seems to be a secondary benefit. Bud would clearly prefer cold Quail.

One of the problems that drives a falconer crazy is releasing game birds that will not fly with a falcon in the air above them. I have some Chukars that were intended for "kill birds" for the falcon. If the falcon is not around, the Chukars fly like crazy, but if Bud is in the air they will not fly at all, preferring to be mauled by the dogs rather than tempt the falcon. That unfortunately for the Chukar, does not stop Bud from plowing through the Dogs to grab it.

 In the past some falconers had found that if you put blinders on Pigeons they would fly because they didn't know where the falcon was, but they could still see in front of them. With their eyes completely covered the Pigeon would just hover in the air. 

Being a great "thinker", or at least believing I am a great thinker,  (I get confused about that sometimes)  I decided that making a little hood that would stay on a Chukar's head was almost impossible. However I had some little paper drinking cups. I could just cut the bottom into little slices and shove it over the Chukar's head, then he would fly like hell to get as far from me as possible.

Well I finally got Bud up a couple of hundred feet with the drone. I tossed the Chukar and he popped the parachute out and landed about 15 feet away, where Bud mugged him in the road by my car. CRAP!

So after three days of Bud landing back on the ground to wait for me to put the drone in the air, we finally reached his true flying weight of 800 grams. I released him in a rather brisk breeze and the started circling up. A wild Prairie tiercel came along and after a couple of circles with Bud, changed his mind about hassling him. Bud kept circling getting higher all the time.

I had made a special trip to a game farm in Idaho to buy some "flying" Mallards just for this occasion. At $14.00 each, a bargain to be sure. All the other Ducks had flown before. This one landed about 15 feet from me in the road and again was mugged by Bud. Sometimes words are just not enough!

After I called Bud to the fist for his Quail, I asked Sue if she liked Duck. She said "yes, I do". So I said " Good then you can have it. She then tried to back peddle,saying that she hated plucking Ducks, as she had been forced to pluck Ducks for the hunters as a kid, and didn't want to ever pluck another one. So I plucked it in the middle of the drive way and shamed her into taking it. 

On another note, I finally got a load of wood, so I won't have to burn the furniture this winter. I have about a third of it split and stacked.

As I was preparing the pictures for this blog, I noticed that the earlier lenticular clouds had coalesced into a spectacular sunset.

 Our weather has begun to normalize a bit. We still haven't gotten more than 1/3 of an inch of rain, but it is better. The Ducks still have not materialized as yet, but they will.

  

Oct 14,2021

 Without even considering Covid, this has been one of the "shittier" years in my memory. Yes there are a few bright spots, but over all its been crap.

As most of you are well aware the fires this year have been terrible, not here for a change. Droughts all through the west, resulting in fires that covered the North west in some of the poorest visibility that I have ever seen and there just wasn't any relief at all. The norm here is 70 mile visibility. This year I couldn't see my neighbors house for most of the summer. 

What is strange was that we had no fires locally, all of our smoke came from Calif. While it was hot here, it was not record breaking heat. No moisture either, so all the ponds are dried up back in the hills. That forced the real BLM (Bureau of Land Management)  to round up some of the 1000 or so "Wild Horses", primarily because they and all the wildlife were dying of thirst.

I flew very little this year, because of the poor visibility. Without a GPS it was impossible. Now however the weather is a bit too cold for a plane with no heater.

I was looking forward to the Hawking season. It was going to be a bit of a challenge flying two hawks for the first time in 5 years, but it would keep me busy. So far for an entire month of effort, Hope has killed one Jack Rabbit. The rabbits are as scarce as I have ever seen them. The rabbits are cyclic and I thought last year was bad. Every place that held rabbits last year, has almost none this year. I don't think that I have seen even one Jack that I could say was born this year. I have walked 36 miles this month for one Jack Rabbit. If I can find three Jacks in an afternoon walk I count it as a great day. I put in three miles today and saw nothing. Poor Hope has begun to fly ahead of me in the hopes that she can see something to chase. I am seriously considering stopping flying her and just feeding her up for the year.

Rock cairns built by the early Basque Sheep herders.

Bud however is actually coming along quite nicely. He has turned out to be quite reliable, and other than his frantic attempts to evade the dreaded hooding each time we go flying, he is doing quite well.

I on the other hand seem to have developed a tear in my retina, in my good eye of course. The other one developed bleeding in the 90's and had to be lazered which resulted in distortion and less clarity. I have an appointment on the 20th to see if they can fix this latest problem. I flew Bud this evening and could not see him for most of the flight. I wanted to serve him a Pigeon, and he landed by me before I saw him. He did fly quite high, just not over me. Other than that, I am just in great shape from all the walking.

The Raptor migration is in full swing. I have been trying to establish a flight of Homing Pigeons to help me teach Bud how to fly well enough to catch Ducks. I noticed last week that the Coopers that I had seen in the area, was working my Pigeons rather than continuing his flight south. 

I went out to get a Pigeon for Bud and found a female Coopers Hawk inside, dining on one of my Pigeons.

Connie and I took her 8 miles South. I didn't have time to go any great distance, but the last I saw of her she was headed back in my direction. The next day she inspected the Drone as I was sending it up on the little ridge by the gravel pit for Bud. She hasn't been back to the house as far as I can tell. Hopefully her experience was traumatic enough that she will stay away.

Then two days ago I see an unusual Raptor sitting on the telephone wire out by the Chukar pen. I couldn't tell for sure what it was, due to my vision problem. As I neared the pen it flew over me and I could see that it was a Sharpshin Hawk. Its sibling had gotten inside the pen with the Chukars. 

 

 I tossed her out here at the house, as her food is Sparrows, so other than temptation, she isn't a problem.

I went over to the ranch yesterday hunting and saw either two Sharpies many many times, or there was about 6 of the little darlings over there hunting the willows for "dicky" birds.

Hopefully there will be some Ducks coming in soon, as Bud is close to being ready to hunt them soon.

Road trip

 Sandy Morrison came down to take Connie and I on a road trip to one of her favorite places in Northern Nevada- Buckskin Summit. Unfortunately I neglected to take my normal lens and only had a telephoto. As a result there are fewer pictures than I would have like to have taken. 

The terrain in Northern Nevada on Hwy 95 is quite steep and pretty spectacular. With the fall coming on the Aspen leaves are breathtaking.

I call this one the "south end of North bound Buckskin Mountain".

If you wanted to check where we went. We entered just south of Orvada, Nev. and came out at the town of Paradise,Nev.