Number 18 with a price

Hope tried to talk me into taking her hunting yesterday, but I was pretty sure that she was too heavy. When I picked her up this morning she still weighed 940. I decided to try the last field that we had hunted, but staying away from the spot with all the Bunnies. Like all Harris Hawks, I am sure that Hope is very susceptible to being spoiled. Bunnies are just too tempting, and too a point too easy. In all actuality, I didn't want her catching another Bunny. I am more interested in her learning how to catch Jacks regularly.

This is private land, and it the Cows had been left on it for a long time.  There was almost a layer of rabbit pellets on the ground.

I started at the opposite end from the last time, in an effort to stay away from the Bunnies, and eventually jumped a Jack. It gave her the slip, as well as the next 5 Jacks. I had pretty well covered the field, and she had missed every Jack as well as the four or so Bunnies that we jumped. The holes and rocks are perfect for Bunnies.  One Jack that we jumped at the edge of an Alfalfa field,  tried running down the ditch at the edge. She made a shot at him that he was only able to evade by jumping straight up in the air. She went under him. They have so many tricks and evasions.

It was beginning to sprinkle a bit, and I really wasn't satisfied with her performance, but decided to go through one last bit of cover. She flashed off the fist and around a bunch of low rocks. Bunny distress sounds soon followed.

This is the crack that the Bunny tried to get down, but she was too close. She had grabbed him in the butt first and by the time I got there she had one foot in his head on the other side of the small rock in the middle of the crack. She was holding him off the ground one in the back and the other in the front with her wings on either side of the crack. I reached in and pulled them both out and finished him off.

After I got home and took her out of her box, I found that somewhere in the melee she had lost a talon on the far left ponce.

Nov 10th Number 17.

There is another field that borders the ones that I hunt in Arock that I have not been able to hunt before today. The owner sold it to a ranch that borders it, and they have had their cattle on it since the end of Summer. There are several Alfalfa fields on it and the rabbit populations have always been good or even better than most places. I called the new owner and he gave permission after the cows were off it. The last time I went to Arock and we got the hiding Jack, I noticed that there were no cows in the Sage area, and I decided to visit it the next time I hunted in Arock.

Its fairly low Sage with lots of Lava flows mixed in and around. It has always sheltered a larger than normal amount of Bunnies simply for that reason. When I arrived there today all the cows had been mover to other pastures, and it was all mine. As I parked the car, I could see that the cows had to be moved because there was pretty much no grass or weeds in between the Sage. The Alfalfa fields had been supplying the majority of the feed for the cows. A bunny flushed before I could even open the back of the car.

We began our hunt and she flew two of the Bunnies before we had gone more than 50 yards of the fence. Of course the Lava means that shelter is never far away. She had three flights on Bunnies before we saw even one Jack. She missed all four of them. I wanted to get a feel of what the area had to offer, so I was working my way back to the Alfalfa fields, when another Bunny jumped and she pounded him. One little squeak and that was it.

Oh well, they all count one in her mind. She weighed 935 grams this morning, and she caught her dinner. That is what counts. Next year will be soon enough to make multiple kills.

I suppose one needs to practice selfies for a bit so that you don't look like a dork when you take one. As you can tell this is my first one and I have not mastered the technique.

A different experiment

A sunrise for you.

Tuesday was supposed to be Hope's hunting day, and of course she knew it. I picked her up to check her and she weighed in at 970 grams. I decided to tie her back up and go to town to get some badly needed supplies. Like a new toilet!

Some dummy, I won't mention any names, managed to break the tank on our old one while trying to fix a floor seal problem. We had been having to use the one in the fifth wheel  until we could go to town for a new one. With her weight at an all time high, it was time for town.

We got back with enough daylight left for a short trip around here with her. While we were making the long 260 mile round trip, I had done some thinking about Hope and her ability to miss Jacks. I came to the conclusion that while she was trying pretty hard to catch Jacks, she still didn't seem to be making much progress about solving the problem. I decided that she was being a bit careless about putting forth that "berserker" flight effort, because she knew that there would be lots of slips. The idea occurred to me that if she had limited slips, and was returned to her perch to contemplate another night without food, she just might begin to try to figure out how to succeed a bit oftener.

I have always flown Harris Hawks in a cast, and they are much more successful because the rabbit cannot watch both of them, thus the screw up factor is increased by leaps and bounds. :-)  I have been lucky this year in that the Jacks are abundant beyond all expectations. Sooner or later one is going to make a mistake that she can capitalize on. The only problem is that the ratio of young rabbits is now drastically reduced. An old one just doesn't make all that many mistakes, however if you put in enough miles we can generally pull it out. I can always use the exercise, but it is time that she makes some mental progress, and it seems to have stalled.

So a walk around here would work out just fine. It would also allow me to take the dogs with me to see if they would be an asset or not.

I put collars (electronic) on the dogs, and put the setting on call. No pain, just a call back noise, and we started out down by the creek. I walked down to the pump at the end of the telephone poles, ( a bit more than 1/2 mile) without seeing anything for her to chase. We started up on the plateau before we saw anything. She gave chase, but I never saw it. When she came back we continued on for several hundred yards before jumping another one. She again tried and failed to connect. After another lengthy walk, we jumped another and she again did her best and again failed. I circled on back to the house spending a total of about two hours. We saw four rabbits, and on each of them she would miss, get back up and continue the chase if they were still visible. I walked on back and put her up for the night. As for the dogs, she didn't seem to mind them, but I could see no positive out put on their part. They had a tendency to work too far out for us, and after I called them in three times, I was tripping on them while we walked.

This morning she weighed 945 grams. I took her to another spot further up country to see if there were Jacks there in numbers enough to hunt. Sam next door is hauling water in there for the cows so it was a good prospect. As I drove in there, I spotted a Jack hiding in a bush just off the road. I stopped and took Hope out of her box, putting her up on the tee perch. I walked to within 15 feet of the Jack before he lost his nerve and ran. She turned her self inside out, but not enough to get her feet on him. We walked a huge circle looking for more but couldn't find anything. I loaded her back in the box and went to a spot closer to the Spring Field where I knew there were 10 or more Jacks living. I hadn't hunted it for a while, so I expected to get enough chances for her to catch one. If she was willing to put out the effort.

We began jumping Jacks right away, and she was busting her butt trying to catch them, but again, they turned just a bit too steep, and hid a bit too well for her to find them. She flew one of them 5 times on her own before she finally gave up. One of her flights was just 20 feet in front of me. She made a grab for him, but got a bit low and when she grabbed I think she got her feet in the dirt and rolled completely over in a cloud of dust. You know she is trying, and trying hard, but somehow she is going to have to figure out when to try and when to bide her time. I ache for her. She gives her all, and doesn't give up, time after time.

So any way we spent a total of about 3 hours, of which about an hour was in game. I took her back to the car, and back home still with no food. Tomorrow we will do the same thing, I will give her enough chances to make it happen, but limited in that I am not going to stay until she catches something. We will see.

When I got back home and got my nap out of the way, I drained the black tank on the fifth wheel. While I was working, the Deer that are sleeping down in the heavy Sage by the creek, came out to eat. They paid no attention to me at all. A pretty nice buck has joined the three that were here.

                     They all perked up, looking up past the hangar, so I knew someone was coming.

                             The big boy began walking up. That's the hundred yard target there.

                          A new group of girls have arrived. We are right in the middle of the Rut now.

Once he had greeted them he turned and beat feet back down to where the little fork was apparently putting the sneak on one of the Does.

This little guy is a small forked horn. The big boy stood up tall and wagged his head at him. He took the hint.
.

                                  He keeps checking. All things come to he who waits, I have heard.

The dogs tell me when they are moving around down by the creek, but they don't bother them, and the Deer ignore them for the most part. However when it gets dark, they eventually come up on the yard, then the dogs run them off.

#16

I suspected that today Hope would be a bit fat. The morning was overcast, hinting of the winter to come. It was actually a bit warmer than usual for this time of the year. Low hanging rain clouds covered the sky, but they are heading towards Idaho, and will not be a problem for Hope and myself this morning.

As I went out to turn out the Chickens and do my morning chores, I listened to see if Hope knew that today is a hunt day. It takes her a bit, but she begins calling to me quietly before I get done. I go back in the house to gather up my stuff, and by the time I get back out, she is peering around the corner to check my progress. I pick her up after tying Jessie to her day perch, and we go to the scales to check her weight. 965 grams, the heaviest she has ever been. I stand on the step to the shop with her and weigh my options. I decide that I need the exercise, so we will go and if she is too bad, we can always come home.

As I mentioned before there is a bit of a magical, hunter type feel about the day. I can recall many such mornings where the promise was so tangible that you can almost taste it. The only problem is that my weapon for the day may not be loaded.

The desert here gives the impression that it is empty, with nothing to see. One needs to be able to actually look beyond the obvious empty appearance to see the things that are around us. The first thing that I saw this morning was a Prairie Falcon that swept through the yard on the off chance that it could pick up one of the birds that live off my Chicken food. While driving to the hunting field there were three wild (feral) horses by Burns Junction, a road killed Coyote by the old Zimmerman place.  ( Too bloody to pick up) Three Golden Eagles sitting on the same set of cross arms overlooking the Owyhee River. Another about a 1/2 mile up the road. A Sharpshin Hawk was hunting by Jordan Creek. Three Deer were hiding in the Sage where we were hunting rabbits. A Coyote pup darn near walked right in our laps while we were resting. Geese practicing their wedge flying in preparation for migration. You cannot travel this country at hwy speeds and begin to see what is there.

Hope seemed to be just as interested in catching a Jack Rabbit as ever, and unfortunately as unable as she normally is. She did seem to be a bit more selective than normal, watching some walk away, while trying others that were way the hell and gone. Again lots of close misses. We worked our way zigging and zagging in my attempts to find as many Jacks as I could, hoping that one would make a fatal mistake. I saw at least three of them leave hair floating in the air after they had made a desperate jink to avoid her reaching talons, going through a piece of Sage that didn't have a passage for them. It worked however.

The most effective evasion is a sudden stop in a bush, waiting for her to overplay her hand and get just that little bit out of position that they needed to make their escape. I saw one do just that not more than 15 yards in front of me. Hope was bout 20 feet in the air, and had turned to look for him. I threw my tee perch at him to try to flush him before he was ready. Hope followed the perch, landing on it quite confused. She didn't seem to understand my laughter.

At that point we had been at it for about two hours. She was beginning to get desperate. I walked by a bush that had a Jack's tail hung in it.

She flew off and was picking through the hair on the ground trying to find something in it to eat. We hadn't gone more than 50 yards when she found an old dried up front foot of a Jack.

 She was on it as though it might be the very thing to pull her through this last stretch of imposed starvation. I didn't bother trying to take it away from her, there was nothing of sustenance on it any way. I went over to sit down on a ledge while she worked on it. She flew with it to the perch, and then down on the ground. I walked over to the lava to sit. She flew off to my right on the same ledge. She no more than landed than I saw a Bunny run back over the ledge and away.

I am not sure if she swallowed some of the leg or not, but she finally finished and landed near me to let me know that she was ready to explore some more.

I decided that I was done, and started towards the car, still hunting. One never knows when the magic will take place, so the trip to the car was through the best cover that I could find. We had a few more flights,  one was a Bunny and several were Jacks. We were within about 100 yards of the car, when a Jack flushed fairly close in front of us, and wonder of wonders, she caught him. The cover was pretty sparse, and I was sure that the catch was in jeopardy. I decided to walk to where she was in the hope that she would be able to tie him up. Unfortunately just as I topped the rise I saw him scamper out of the Sage. Hope took off and caught him again within about 15 yards. Unfortunately he managed to tear away again, and take refuge in some heavy cover. She took a perch on the other side of the cover. I walked through it trying to flush it towards her. It did flush out and she made another shot at him, but missed. Another Jack flushed out going the opposite direction.  She gave chase back and over the hill. I went that way, sure that we were after the wrong rabbit, but having no choice. I got her on the perch and went back to where we left what I thought was the one, and started a new search. The rabbits that we were jumping were obviously not the one that she had caught twice, and I was running out of gas, so I turned back towards the car, ready to accept defeat. We jumped a close one a few feet from the little road, and she made a crashing shot at him in cover, but missed. I watched the Jack circle around in front of a lava ledge. He crossed over a bit of bare dirt, hesitated and then turned back, disappearing from view.

Hope flew back to the perch, and I began walking over to where I last saw him. There was a thick patch of Sage as well as a Badger hole under the lava, and a possible escape route where the lava broke up. I felt that the Jack had taken refuge in the badger hole. They normally depend on their legs rather than hiding, but occasionally will do so. I was just standing there trying to decide what to do, when there was a thumping sound, and a bit of dust coming out of the big hole. Hope flashed off the perch and down against the rock further down, followed by a screaming Jack. I tossed my perch down and she had her feet down a hole at the base of the rock. I moved her wing out of the way and could see both her feet stuck in the Jacks head. I reached down past her and grabbed him by the head and pulled him out. He had lost his nerve and tried to escape out of a small hole a bit further down.

The hole that he went in is not the little one close by, but up against the Lave. Its a pretty good sized hole, but not visible from where the picture is taken.

The one he tried to get out of is that small one on the other side of the weed.

I gave her the tidbits in her cup and sat there amazed at the events of the day, thankful for being alive to experience all the wonders that the day had produced.

    

Another Bunny- # 15

It is getting pretty cool in the mornings. It was 27 this morning.  I waited until 10 AM to start, so by the time I got to where I wanted to hunt, it had warmed up above freezing. Hope weighed 954 this morning. Apparently there are a few calories in Bunnies after all. I decided to give it a try anyway, to see if she would perhaps be stronger rather than just fat. She shows no less enthusiasm for hunting when she is this weight. I am still trying to find the weight that she hunts best. So far I can't really tell the difference between 900 and 950. She seems to try equally hard at either weight. I decided if she started slacking off I would just come on home, and give it another day.

When we got to the field, I again switched it up on my route to try to keep the Jacks off their game. It seemed to be working, with the exception that Hope still was missing. It was a bit strange, in that some of the medium distance Jacks would be ignored by her, but she would occasionally try Jacks that were a couple of hundred yards away. We had a couple of close misses with Jacks that were trying to hide close enough to me that I could flush them out for her after they had hid, but she still ended up missing. She is still working on flaring up into the air trying to locate the hiding rabbits. I find my self straining to hear a screaming Jack at the end of one of those dives, and am always disappointed when it doesn't come.

I made a pretty big circle around the field, hoping that things would go our way. All the while she was crashing into the bushes from low pursuit and high dives. We got a few slips at Bunnies, and she saw where one ran into a hole under the lava rocks. When I got there she was down as far as she could go and trying to find him. She tried for about 5 minutes to find him, but gave up when she could not get down the hole. When I walked away she gave up and flew to the perch. This is the first that she has realized that they were going underground.

I had walked almost all of a 3 sided rectangle at least 3/4 of a mile on a side, when Hope took off and thumped down over a small rise. When I arrived she was holding a Bunny.

This one she killed herself. I gave her the tin cup of tidbits, and then picked her and the Bunny up. I tore the skin off the Bunny and gave her the rear end to eat while we walked back to the car. She was finishing the hind legs when we arrived, so I cut off the head and let her finish her meal on that. I no longer hurry, and we enjoyed the Sun while she ate the head. From the time I started till we finished at the car had taken two hours. Nine Hundred fifty four grams might be a little high for intensity, but she will still hunt. If she had known what she was doing or needed to do she would still have caught a Jack. She will get there, I have no doubt. Already at the point she is now, she is better than the last four Harris Hawks that I have had. She is a pleasure to hunt with, even with all the misses. I have the time and will spend the time and effort to make her a truly great hunting hawk.

A little easier, #14

It was a bit nippy this morning, 27 degrees. I wasn't all that interested in going out, but the wind is supposed to come up this afternoon, so I forced myself to leave the comfort of my coffee and the warmth of the house. ( I spoil pretty easy it appears.) Of course it was 9:30, so I wasn't all that brave.

Hope's quiet days went with the warm weather, and while she has not perfected the Harris Call, she was doing her best. I was pretty sure that she was close to starvation, so guilt was forcing me to get going. I am leaving Hope outside all the time, but she is sheltered from the prevailing wind, so its not all that bad. She was still feeling the effects of the below freezing temps. With as much as I feed her, I can use all the help that cold temps can provide.

I picked her up and put her on the scales. 936 grams, apparently she isn't starving. That's OK, its only necessary for her to think that she is.

This morning I found that the rabbits had changed their location in response to the pressure that I have been putting on them the last few trips. I feel that Hope has a better chance of catching a Jack with less places for them to hide, and the area that I went through is pretty thin cover. The last three times there were lots of Jacks hiding there, but not this time. We had to walk into heavier cover before we even saw one. She got about 6 slips in the heavy Sage with no success. She is still working on the flare up to try to locate their hiding spot, but she still hasn't put it together as yet.

We covered quite a bit of ground with a smaller than usual number of slips than usual, but about half of them were a lot closer than they have been. Her success rate is increased by a closer slip. After all a Jack can turn upward of 45 MPH, where she is full speed in about 15 feet, plus the Jacks don't have a chance to learn what she is going to do. I therefore do my best to sneak up to areas that the Jacks cannot see me due to the terrain, but she is in sight of the area due to the tee perch.

I popped up over a small rock ledge and a Jack busted about 15 feet in front of us, and she managed to barely grab him in the Butt before he could make it around the first bush. Her hold was pretty iffy at best, but she kept grabbing higher with every turn around the bush that he made. When I skinned him his buttock was ripped from the knee to the hip all the way to the bone.

                                    I forgot to take a camera, so I had to shoot this one with my phone.

All in all this one took about 30 minutes to the catch. There wasn't as many slips either. I fed her most of the Bunny that she caught Monday. Its too soon to tell if she is getting better or just lucky. This Jack was last years model as well. He was pretty fat, and not all that small.

Number 13

The forecast for today was high winds that would not slack off until late evening. My opinion concerning Harris Hawks is that wind is not their friend, so I decided to leave the Chickens in their house and do a short hunt here and perhaps feed her enough to maintain her weight, and try seriously when the wind dies down tomorrow. There are enough Jacks living around here that would give her a chance if she wanted to take it. So rather than drive 20 miles to a site for Jacks, I figured a bit of exercise and then a light meal.

The wind was blowing about 14 MPH when we started, and we did get a few slips that ended up of course with the Jack running into the wind. Doesn't bother the Jacks, but slows Hope down considerably. She had some close calls, but the Jacks are still managing to dodge enough to leave her on the ground or stuck in a bush.

I made a big circle around the place ending up down by the rock outcropping by the creek. I stood on the top for a while hoping that one of the Jacks that lives down there would break cover. Nothing, so I intended to cross the creek and try some of the Sage further down the creek. We hadn't gotten in the bottom more than 15 feet and a Bunny squirted out. The cover down there is pretty deep and Hope didn't have much of a chance. The little Bunny was running under bushes while Hope was stuck on top. I think we busted four of them in a space no bigger than 30 feet. I was watching where they were hiding and intending to flush them out for her again. Another that I had not seen busted to the right of us and I heard one short squeal.

I was quite happy to quit with just one Bunny in the bag.