Checking Coyote Lake

Today was still nice for some reason, and it gave me a reason to go flying. I haven't flown for far too long. Its time I get back in the groove. Here is a short video of the area around Coyote Lake.

https://vimeo.com/213440748

password       owyheeflyer


It took a bit of searching to find a way to highlight the link to the video, but it should now play by clicking on it. They keep changing stuff.

Baby has some new shoes!

I decided this spring that I wanted a pair of some new Tundra Tires that had just come on the market about a year or so ago. They basically were just the casing of a tire without the tread, but were 22 inches tall, and without the tread part they were pretty soft and would give me a better chance of landing in unimproved areas of this country.

I bit the bullet and bought the tires, tubes and a new set of rims from the company that makes the Hydraulic Brakes that I currently have on the plane. I bought the new rims because they were thicker and made with a "spun" process rather than the "stamped" method. These were supposed to be thicker and would be better suited to drilling holes to screw the tire to the rim. This would allow me to run a lot less air in the tires, giving a softer ride without spinning the tire on the rim, which shears the valve core off.

I finally got my new rims from Matco Brakes that I ordered last month. They were out of stock and they had to make a new batch. They arrived last night.

This morning dawned clear, calm but 22 degrees. I waited until the temps got up to the low 40's before I began the project.

I first rolled the plane out and set up a camera so that I could see the Air Speed indicator. My main interest was how much speed I would lose with the bigger tire. So I took off and flew several different directions with and against the wind then landed. I decided to land at the last minute and was quite a bit too high to get to the ground before my runway gave out, so not having flaps, I "slipped" the plane to a better altitude so that I could land. For those who do not fly, a "slip" is cross controls, and uses the side surface of the plane to drop altitude without speeding up or "mushing" to the ground. ( a mush is slowing the plane to just above a stall while dropping out of the sky) Slips are easier.) It is full right rudder and full left down aileron. The speed stays the same, but altitude is shed very quickly.

I then began the process of mounting the tires and putting them on the plane. It raised the plane up about 2.5 inches higher. The added height allows me to get into the air quicker. I secured the tires to the rims with screws so that the tire wouldn't slip on the rim with low pressure in the tire. The tires then act like shock absorbers, allowing me to land in rougher areas.

I flew again, and found that there was no apparent reduction in speed. That makes me happy. Now if I could just get some decent weather.

  https://vimeo.com/213383013    

You will have to cut and paste. For some reason I cannot paste the url  so that it will auto load.

    password    owyheeflyer

The answer to an old riddle

We are still in a holding pattern here. The weather is nice enough except for the wind. Its warm enough that I can cut back on the amount of firewood that I am burning, but not so warm that I can work on my tan.

I know very little about either side of my family. My father broke away from his relatives at a very early age. His was not a happy childhood at all, and I always understood that he was a bit ashamed of them. My Mother however was a different story, but other than her brothers and sisters which were scattered far and wide, I really never had much exposure to any of them. I was able to spend a week or so at my Grandparents farm each summer. However they were in their 80's the first time I remember them at all.

You have to understand that this was in W.Va. 60 some years ago and times and travel were different than what we know today. My father was a Methodist minister with a circuit of churches that he tended. The most money that he ever made in one year was $4,000. dollars, and most of our food was either grown by us or fell to one of our rifles. My Grandparents lived only a 100 miles away, but over the back roads of rural W.Va. it was a torturous 4.5 hour drive. I can clearly recall that my father had a $20. a month gas allowance that was supposed to cover all our trips. So going to Grampa's was not a regular thing.

I loved it however since it gave me new areas to explore and ponds that I could fish in. There was a couple of first cousins that I fell in youthful love with as well. All my brothers and sisters were gone by the time I was 10, so I spent a lot of my time by myself. This was not a problem for me at all and I spent most of my time "perfecting" my hunting and stalking skills.

Somehow I developed the belief that my father was 1/4 Indian, which seemed a bit romantic to me. He was quite dark and tanned with a deep copper color. For years I took pride in that thought, and I polished my "woods craft", at every opportunity. That pride however suffered quite a blow when I was assigned to Klamath Falls Oregon as a new State trooper, and I got my first view of the Klamath and Modoc Indians. They were just not at all impressed with me and did not resemble my version of the "noble Indian". I reasoned that although the Eastern Indians were marked by a seriously bloody history, that they would more likely fit my imagined role that had marked my childhood romantic imaginations.

You know how it is when you look in the mirror, and the image that looks back at you doesn't resemble the one in your head? Well quite likely there is no one in the entire world that knows me, sees the "me" that I think resides in my body.

Now I am the last of my line. There will be nothing left of my line when I am gone. I don't have a problem with that. However I began to wonder if my impressions from over the years had any basis in reality. I had grown up believing that I was a mixture of Penn. Dutch, Perhaps some French Canadian, and of course Indian. Now I knew from having to invent a email address that there are a whole slew of hill billy's in W.Va. Kentucky and Tennessee, with the name of Larry Cottrell. Not Lawrence- Larry, which I took to be Hill Billies, since a more worldly parent would use Lawrence rather than the normal nickname of Larry.

So I decided to get one of the DNA tests to see just what I was made of. Since I am not likely to do anything that a DNA test could be used in prosecution, I felt rather foolish, but safe enough to continue. I of course was quite sure that I would find that I was the child or one of the rather more fierce Eastern Indian tribes.

Imagine my surprise when the results came back-  I was 99.9 percent European. Of that I was 97.8 Northwestern European. Of that I was 54.5 percent English and Irish. The rest was Scandinavian, German, France, Iberian, Sardinian, Jewish with a tiny smidgen of Sub-Saharan African. I also found that I had more Neanderthal variants than 86 percent of their customers. What a hoot! The only part that bothered me at all was the report that I was 54.5 % English. I have always considered myself an "Anglophobe", and now I are one!

As you know my driving thoughts and actions have always been Falconry. Most of the published works concerning it were by English men, who to me seemed to be so hemmed in by tradition that it drove me crazy and to do every thing that I could to prove that they were unable to think for themselves. My successes at that may be another story, however that we could discuss some other time.

I did find it quite entertaining that all those different girls who accused me of being a caveman weren't wrong after all, just terribly discerning.

Photo's by Karen.

Odds and ends

Well, finally the weather is getting better. Its about time. We even had one day that was good enough that I was able to roll the plane out to see if I still remembered how to fly. I was a bit rusty, but each landing was a bit better. When I filled out my log book, I discovered that I had last flown 5.5 months ago. I had dedicated all my time to training Hope. It was actually worth it. She still shows signs of being an exceptional hunting Hawk.

The full Moon sometimes is just beautiful when it rises.

I have been having trouble with a Raccoon for the last couple of months. The first problem was in January, I think. I got angry enough that I gathered up the hens and roosters that I wanted to keep and penned them all up in the enclosed chicken pen. I had 6 extra Roosters that I left out as bait.

I set traps, both live and "dog Proof" traps around the areas that the thief would generally use. All to no avail. For three weeks apparently the varmint did not come around again. Finally one frosty morning I see a Raccoon track on the ice of the drinking water tub. I re baited the traps again. Nothing, for at least three weeks again. The weather got a lot better and I decided to not close up the Roosters again believing that with the better weather the critter was finally going to stay at home across the road.

Just in case I was wrong, I put a live trap inside the chicken house trap door, so that the entrance would appear open but the critter would have to go through the trap to get inside.

 For three weeks nothing happened, but I did catch the fattest Pack Rat that I have ever seen. I took him out for Josie to play with, but he was so big that Josie just grabbed him and shook him to death as soon as his feet hit the ground.

Three days ago I noticed that two of the Roosters were missing. I checked around and only found a few tail feathers and one small blood spot outside the chicken house. I decided that I would put out a couple of trail cams to see if I could see what he was doing. He had been ignoring my live trap totally.

I set three Dog proof traps around the Chicken house and set a steel trap at the Chicken pen. I used a cinnamon roll for the bait on the trigger and around the area in front. The traps are designed strictly for Raccoons. They take advantage of the tendency of the Coons to use their front feet to grab their food. The trap is basically a pipe with a "U" shaped piece of metal to hold the Coon. Its nice as the problem of catching Cats or Dogs is non existent.

The next morning I removed the card from the cameras, and found that one of the camera's had a flash on it rather than Infrared, and I got a shot of the Coons butt as he scurried off. Nothing was touched. The next night the one camera without the flash was the only one that I put out. It showed a Jack Rabbit and a Bunny ( Brush Bunny) enjoying the Cinnamon roll. I had sacrificed all the rolls that I was interested in and was looking for something else to use for bait. I finally decided on  Honey Nut Cheerio's for last nights bait.

The first thing I did when I woke up this morning was to look out the windows and I was overjoyed to have finally caught the Bastard. He was a pretty big Boar Raccoon, weighing about 30 pounds. I know from experience that he could hold two chickens at once. Perhaps now things will settle down a bit.

The Coon had gotten into the live trap, and triggered it, but he was so big that his butt stopped the door from totally closing, and he had backed out of the trap. I guess that he then decided to sample the Cheerios. I won't miss him at all.

   

Thoughts on Raptors

Jessie has been for me, the one Raptor that is the most interesting, challenging, as well as effective Hawk that I have ever trained, or rather- Handled. I qualified that because the word "trained" may not accurately describe Jessie's condition. Enabled may be a better description.

Since the acquisition of such Raptors as Peregrines and Gyrfalcons from the wild has, in the past been impossible, we have had to learn how to interact and train captive bred raptors. This is the most difficult task possible. There are many pitfalls that do not occur with a wild caught Raptor. If you recall the earlier posts concerning Lee-Zard the Prairie Falcon, beginning in May. It was the culmination of many days and nights considering how to traverse the mine field of taking a baby falcon and ending up with a hunting companion that was as minimally mentally scarred as possible. The difficult part is teaching that if you don't kill, you don't eat. Since the "eyass" (meaning baby) raptor thinks you are its mother, it stands to reason that you are the source of food. If it is hungry, it demands that you give it food. After all your its mother, right?

Stripped to its basics, the term, trained Hawk, implies that one has conditioned a raptor to accept a human as a hunting partner. The better falconers have learned how to get a raptor to accept their presence and to be aware that the human will enable them to catch game. Some of this is through repetition and hunger management, with a little Stockholm syndrome thrown in.

http://medical-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Stockholm+syndrome            

 (you may have to copy and paste)

The success of this endeavor can be enhanced by the age that the raptor is taken, but also by the species. Not all raptors are created equal. Some, such as the Coopers Hawk, are wound so tight that it takes little for one of them to go over the edge into total insanity. Some are virtually un-trainable. The key to being able to hunt one of them is to have it so accustomed to your presence that it is totally comfortable in your presence. No easy feat, I might add. In the case of Accipiters, one is much better off not taking an eyass, rather waiting until it is hunting on its own.

Other species naturally seem to be designed for falconry, such as the Peregrine Falcon. The British, who did most of the early notable works on Falconry, valued it above all others. Primarily because they naturally hunt from a height. Thus most of the time being in a position to take advantage of the falconer and his dogs flushing game for them to catch.

This of course is the key factor in hunting with a Hawk- having it being ready and willing to catch what ever the falconer flushes for it, as well being able to recover it when it has done so.

Over the course of my life I have had many Hawks and some Falcons. Having the ability to remember, honestly and without excuses, my actions and the results, has given me a bit of an edge in Falconry. I have drawn some conclusions as to how to find and encourage the behavior that I need in a raptor that I intend to hunt with. Now having spent my life with rather limited means to acquire the "better" strain of raptors, it has taken a bit longer to compile any useful knowledge of the subject. I do not lay claim to being an "expert", it is totally possible that I could be as full of shit as a Christmas Turkey.

I am afraid that this discussion is a bit deeper than I can adequately explain in a short written message such as this, since there are many variables that could influence the discussion. I will do my best however.

The age a raptor is taken from its mother influences the outcome of training almost from day to day. Taken at 19 days old a Peregrine could either become an imprint, or just a dual socialized raptor. In other words it would know that it was a Hawk, but thinks that you might be a distant relative. One taken at 35 days old will be merely an unskilled version of a fully grown Hawk. An imprint can best be described as the little lap dog that will go crazy if you get close to its mistress. Unthinking, and very demanding. Not very pleasant in something with a sharp beak and eight very sharp talons, not to mention very loud vocal chords.

I should add that what I am looking for, is a raptor that knows what it is, and is comfortable enough with its life that it neither fears nor disrespects you. It does not long for freedom, or is dissatisfied with its life. With that accomplishment the only limiting factor is its innate ability to catch game and yours to present the game. That stage for a Peregrine is about 28 days old. In Prairie Falcons the age would be 22 days. Gyrs and Hybrids would  be about 38 days old.

The way to achieve this level is through the age that it is taken. Too early and it is an imprint. Too late and the feathers can suffer through shock marks, ( a weakening of the feather shaft due to the withdrawal of the blood that feeds them. Occurring through the shock and fear brought on by handling)

It is only when you have accomplished such as described above that you see the bird for what it actually is. A raptor that is uncomfortable around you, will not show you its true self. It will always hold back, or be reserved in its reaction with you. In many ways you can get away with some mishandling of an older bird, that you could not with one taken at the time that I describe.

In Accipiters such as Goshawks, Coopers and Sharpshins, none of this is needed. Falcons can benefit, having descended from totally different stock they have different reactions and thinking processes. Plus they are readily available in the wild, there is no need to jump through unnecessary hoops, although some will continue to do it.

I have mentioned many times that Jessie is a character. She can be described that way because she has reached a level that she is totally acclimated to her life with me. She unfortunately treats me the way that she would a mate. She is totally trustworthy in the field. I don't have to look for her when I go to flush. She will be there. She however does not like to spend the nights outside, preferring the comfort and safety of her night perch in my shop. If she thinks that I have treated her unfairly she will not hesitate to attack me with beak and claw. She has so far laid about 38 eggs unsolicited or fertilized, by me.

For the most part she is a hard working, very determined hunting falcon. She will, as long as there is game take a pitch over Ducks as many times as is necessary to kill one. She will fly as long as she can, rest on a hill side when she needs to. Regaining her pitch when she has rested. She has killed three Geese, Sage Grouse and even attempted to take a Swan. She was lost when we first moved to Jordan for three days. She chewed her leash off and flew off with a swivel connecting her legs. Three days later she returned to the house and when I picked her up she had a full crop.

All of that makes her sound pretty good. In fact she is but like over achievers everywhere, she demands a price. If I am clumsy when she has killed a Duck, and show too much eagerness to secure her to my glove she will get pissed and stay pissed until the next time and I do better. She has attacked me three different times, because of my insecurity with caught game. If I wear a different hat than the one that she is used to, she calls alarm and won't let me touch her. If I get impatient and do not wait for her to step on the fist when I am moving her from her inside to her outside perch, she will bate from the fist and be cranky for at least a week. She has a well developed sense of dignity, and I had best treat her in accordance.

At this time of the year the raptors in my care spend the days in the weathering area, and the nights on their perch in the shop. This allows me to maintain a working contact with them, and in the case of Hope, the Harris Hawk, allows me to feed her without the counterproductive aspect of "tossing her food". I put their food on their outside perch and take them to it. This keeps Hope from making the connection of hands always having food in them. Harris Hawks are too smart and will sometimes get aggressive. It is best to not let that happen.

Since they are both molting, and the molt is triggered both by the time of the year and the amount of food, or their weight. Control is a fine line. Too much weight and the bird doesn't want to be bothered, and too little, the molt suffers.

Hope is not a problem. I stick my fist out and tell her to "get on" and she eventually will. The hungrier she is the more willing she is. If either bird will not get on, they don't go outside. Hope almost always will, but only takes one day without food to ensure that she is cooperative. Jessie is another matter. The key is to keep them as heavy as I can and still obtain cooperation.

Jessie's indicators that she is getting too heavy is, when I step outside the shop, she will bate off the fist. Once and she is close to too heavy. Twice and she is for sure too heavy. I then normally do not feed her the next day. She however has a tendency to try to set me up for failure. Now I do not ascribe to the Disney school of thought that critters think and reason as we do. With Jessie I would call it more think and un-reason. That is because we don't think the same. 2+2= 14 for her. In other words, most of us are too stupid to see the result of her thinking.   Simplified, Raptors think in terms of strength. If I am strong enough, I will take what you have, and maybe your life. Paranoia is merely an advanced sense of reality. So no matter how many times you give your bird its meal, it still thinks that it stole it from you and you are only waiting for the chance to take it back.

Jessie, yesterday when I went to pick her up, looked at the fist, then looked up at me, as if to say NO! What are you going to do about it? Normally I pick up her jesses, put my fist on her perch and give the command, she will step on, softly talking to me. We then go outside, I tie her to her slider, set her on the tire and she will then fly to her perch and start eating her food.

If I get pushy and nudge her with my fist, she gets cranky. She will generally get on, but she is simmering with dignified outrage, that will soon come out as anger. The worst thing I can do is to scoop her up with her jesses. That comes with vocal outrage and eventual rebellion. So in the last few years, I have decided to take my cues from her. She is a bit like pushing a chain. You can try, but the result is generally messy.

The part that I find amusing is that you can see the gears turning in her little devious head. So anyway, yesterday she would not get on the fist. I stood there for a bit, even repeating the command. Nope! she would look at me, then look at the fist and stand stock still. I turned and left the room. Since the weather was good enough that I had gone out earlier than usual, I marked it up to that. You see, she is very conscious of time as well. 10 AM is the usual time, and 10 AM is when it should happen. I am not kidding! So I waited until 10 AM and went back out. It only took one look at her to know that she wasn't going to cooperate. At this point I was enjoying the contest of wills. I made the offer any way and of course she refused just as before. I left her there all day, and didn't approach her again.

This morning I went out, picked up Hope, and put her on her perch, but did not supply any food to her today. A bit too heavy after about 8 oz of Rabbit back strap yesterday. I approached Jessie and I could again see the rebellion in her stance. I offered, she refused, I walked away. I left her until we went out to exercise, and offered again. She looked at the fist, then at me, at this time it was OK to bump her legs a bit. She stepped on confident that she had made her point. She was a perfect lady while I tied her to her slider. She then went to eat her meal. The consequences are not so bad if we are not hunting. If we were hunting, she would have ignored the flush or just whiffed it, if I had offended her.

She will be a little angel for a while, then soon in the near future she will again set her trap to see if I still respect her.

Its too bad that Jessie came so late in my life with her lessons. I'm not sure if I have time enough to start another. Hawks are, basically simplified, better their first year than the second. While a Falcon will take as much as three years to develop a winning strategy that can be counted on each time.

Jessie seems to have recovered from whatever state of mind or malady that affected her the last two years, so I will take her up to hunt again this year. I can hardly wait.

   

shopping

Things have been a bit slow due to the weather. We are beginning to get some neat Sunrises again and I am including some of the better shots. The shots are of the sunrise as it develope's.

                                       We had a bit of moisture that morning so the rainbow was a bonus.

We also made the last Raptor count of the year and noticed that the Sandhill Cranes are in.

We are still having some storms and snow, but it is melting off again. A bit further South at a friends ranch off the Whitehorse road the snow storm dropped 10.5 inches of snow on them. With all the snow the Rabbits are swarming as well as the Deer herds. I supplied him with a Pigeon trap and he wanted one for Starlings as well. Today we both had the time to fix up a trap, and I decided to take some of his Rabbits off his hands.

On the way down there I saw two bunches of feral Horses, and a small group of Antelope. I was told that the last time he went out to the Hwy he saw about 500 Antelope along the Whitehorse road. The snow has really been hard on the Antelope this year.

As I drove into his place I looked at his stack yard and the rabbits were thick, so I pulled in and stopped, rolled my windows down and started picking them off. I only took head shots, so that I can cut that part off and discard it therefore removing the danger of lead poisoning for the Hawks. I shot 20 before the yard was empty of live rabbits. Only three escaped alive.

Richard came out and I scattered the Jacks out in the snow to cool and get finished leaking. We went to the pigeon trap and got five out of it. Richard gave me the other 13 that he had frozen. We built two Starling traps and got them set and ready, then retired for coffee and some "Bull shipping."

When I left to go home, I killed another five rabbits that had come in to the stack yard. Not a bad day at all. Richard has a real problem with the Jacks. They undermine the hay bales up about 12 inches. Left long enough the 500 lb. bales will tumble making a mess.

As I was coming home, the sun was setting behind the Steen's. Not a bad day. I ended up with 25 Jacks and 18 Pigeons.

Still having fun!

Sunrise

South Mountain, 60 miles East in Idaho

I am not really complaining, just blown away by what has turned out to be the most intense winter for this area in at least 30 years. Having said that, I must tell you that what we have gotten is nothing compared to what is happening in other parts of the North West. Granted it has been a little inconvenient, but no where near as serious as it has been all around us. Those poor guys are suffering collapsed roofs, warehouses, and now of course flooding due to the naturally rapid melting.

The wildlife is suffering the most. The Antelope, Deer and Elk, not to mention the Game birds are catching hell. The Elk have come out of the high country for the first time that I have witnessed. Of course I have only been here 11 years. A friend told me during a phone call that the Elk had come into the towns at the foot of the Cascades, where I used to work. Of course along with them came the Cougars. One of the little towns that I spent many nights while working for the RR had killed 6 Cougars so far. Of course the Dogs and Cats made a much easier food source than Elk.

What affected us the most was the ice. The ground does not willingly accept water here, so as it melted, it stayed on top of the ground, and then naturally it froze into an uneven sheet of ice. "Normally" this time of the year is fairly warm, while the last of Dec and most of Jan are bitterly cold, ( for us anyway) with the temps in the minus range. The temps have risen to 46 the last few days and the ice was finally receding. That of course means that the creek fills up. Not a problem for us, but the melting on the hill between us and the Hwy drains almost all of the water right onto the flat where the house is located.

This time I was ready. I dug a trench along the uphill side of the house and when the water came up, I set up the sump pump, and moved the water on down the hill to the Creek. Year before last I took a road grader from next door and cut drainage ditches across the hillside to divert the water draining off the hill side, and then cut a trench in the "ranch" yard parking spot to divert the remaining flow around the house.

Things were looking up, and then this morning when I got up there was a brand new very wet 4 inches of new snow on the ground again. Now at noon the Sun has come out.