"Tough sledding" reaffirmed and the consequences.

As is often the case, you live or die by the choices that you make. Often it is the omissions that set into action a course of events that jerks you up short. Aided perhaps by a bit of cockiness that allows you to gloss over the seriousness of possibilities that tend to occur given a small amount of inattention to basic principals that every thing is ruled by.

The area that I hunt is really plush this year. In a good year all this dry grass that you can see in this picture would have Rabbit trails cut into them. It also causes a problem if I take my "fuel efficient car" with a catalytic heater possibly catching the grass on fire, so I am restricted in where I can drive or park.

A friend joked to me about how "tough" it was this year concerning game for Hope. Since I had caught 3 Jacks in four trips, his thought was, that it couldn't be all that bad. Actually my head count really wasn't all that bad, but that head count was due to a couple of factors.

 One is that Hope is an exceptionally well trained Harris. Not bragging, but she is the result of a years long exceptional breeding program, of obviously exceptional parents to produce the raw basic material suited for hunting with a falconer. There obviously were no "slackers" in Hopes ancestry. I firmly believe in - "Garbage in- Garbage out".

The second set of circumstances was an over abundance of game in her first year and last but not least a falconer who had screwed up enough birds that he was careful enough to do things right the first time,  nature and the "Gods" smiled on me during her training. Every thing worked much better than would normally happen.

Hope has always preferred sitting the perch waiting for an opportunity to unleash all her energy on any Rabbit that jumps. She is almost always right where she needs to be, and has learned that a rabbit grabbed by the head cannot pull you through a Sage bush. She doesn't need a lot of whistling, yelling or other things to keep her where the action is, and where I am. Her manners are scary good.

There were so many things that aligned perfectly in the training of this bird that it is almost impossible to reproduce. She, given a front leg of a Jack after a kill, will pick up the uneaten portion and follow me through the Sage back to the car. I know it sounds a bit braggadocios on my part, but what the hell, even a blind Hog finds an acorn every once and a while.

That is the back ground of Hope. Now the consequences of a low rabbit year with lots of walking involved in finding something for her to chase. Often results on those fine features that you took so long to cultivate are modified to fit the conditions on the ground.  The "Pedometer" app on my phone says that I walked 140 miles in the month of Sept.

What she is doing here is grabbing a Sage Root in the hopes that it might be edible. She samples every thing that might or looks as though it could be edible. This occurred after a walk of about 1/2 mile without jumping anything at all.

This was another "prospecting" side trip that she took, hoping to find something in there to kill. The reason for these is an indication of the impatience that she is experiencing while waiting for me to produce something to chase. Thus the scarcity of game is directly changing the behavior that I value so much- that of staying with me. She has begun to change her hunting style in an attempt to have more chances of having something to chase. She is beginning "self Hunting". Heretofore she had always followed me, now I was having to follow her.

In an attempt to counter act some of that tendency I decided yesterday to leave the dogs at home. The dogs hate it, and I don't feel real happy about it either. They need to be out and sharing these trips, but Josie tends to get out too far, so the flushes that we do get are somewhat lessened by the fact that they are far enough in front of us to give the Jack a chance to plan. I prefer to slip through the brush as quietly as I can. Noise and yelling and whistling frankly pisses me off.

So to counteract the scarcity of game, she has begun to "self Hunt", flying out in front of me in her impatience to find something to chase. Not much can be done about that on my part. We had put in about 2 hours of walking yesterday with nothing to show for it, and she was going further and oftener, out in front trying to find something.

We had jumped a Jack quite far in front of us and she had missed him. She was sitting on a bush on the peak of a small hill that restricted my view to about 30 yards. When I got there she was gone. No idea of which direction or how far. I listened and thought I heard a short very faint sound of a Jack screaming, but when I really stopped so that I could hear, the only thing I heard was a Meadow lark's one note song. I dismissed the thought that it might be a rabbit, and I really could not get a direction on where I thought it came from. I mentioned before that it is hard to scream with a hawk holding your mouth shut, so the one thing that could direct me to where she was did not exist.

I looked for four hours waiting for her to finish eating and perhaps jump up on something so that I could see her, but nothing! I went all four directions many times during that period and could find nothing.  I felt that she would at least come back to the spot that she had last seen me, but at Six in the evening I realized that the dogs had been locked in the house since 9 AM. I had driven all over swinging a lure from all the high places around with no success. I really had no option but to go home, and hope that she would show up at a later date.

Earlier I was talking about choices and omissions. There was one factor that I should have found a solution to, and did not. That is a transmitter, of which I have several. I do not like to put them on a hawks leg. I want her footing ability to be totally unhindered. Its a bit like tying a swinging weight on a boxers right hand and expecting him to fight. I had used a tail mount for a transmitter in the years past, and she has pulled them off each time. I had one Prairie Falcon that would pull the feathers out of her own butt to get rid of the bothersome thing. I also had a fear of crushing the tail feather so I thought that I could get away without a transmitter. The last time I put one on She pulled it loose while she was sitting in the mews, and since it was turned off, it took me quite a long time to find it. So I thought that I could get away with out using one. That was a major problem waiting to bite me in the butt. Just a matter of time. The other of course was leaving the dogs at home. Josie will run with her when she chases just in case a situation develops where she can bite the Jack when it has stretched her out in a Sage Bush in its efforts to get away. If I had the dogs with me the chances of finding her would have been tripled, but I did not, so last night I suffered the sleep deprivation reserved for those who have shot themselves in the butt through hubris.

When I got home, I let the dogs out, and Brick barked and ran for the Grape in the garden. I saw a Raccoon duck under the wall that separates the garden. Now I knew what happened to every plum on my abundantly fruited tree as well as the disappearance of my surviving Chicken from last years Raccoon raid. I ran for the Shotgun, and he ran for the fence out. When I got back Brick had him "treed" on the rock jack of the garden fence. I shot him and looked for the other one, as I had seen two of them. I let Josie in the garden and she went right for the overhanging Grapes, and began making runs at the remaining Coon. I got her back and he too went to the great Grape vine in the sky. I saw two more later that evening, but couldn't get a shot at them. Raccoons have been the bane of my existence here. I cannot recount all the Chickens that I have lost to their depredations. One of the byproducts of the Creek that flows by.

I never really got to sleep last night, just dosed at best. The weight of losing your hunting Hawk due to stupidity is a heavy burden to bear.

I got up before dawn and took the dogs and the truck this morning so that I could travel without fear of setting the place on fire. I stopped in front of the giant trees that mark the homestead and swung my lure thinking that she might have taken shelter in the trees for the night, but nothing came. I drove by the perimeter of the field hoping that she would be sitting on a fence post, nothing. I then drove into the field and close to the spot that last saw her. I let the dogs out and began to walk to where I last saw her, and there she was sitting on a Sage root about 30 yards from where I parked. She had apparently spent the night in the Sage after coming back looking for me. Having been trained in a spot with no trees or telephone poles she does not know about them. I swung the lure and she came right away. I offered her a Jack Rabbit leg and she was in my possession again. I cannot describe the feeling of relief that I had.

When I picked her up the day before she weighed 950 grams. I weighed her when we got home and she weighed 1134. I perhaps gave her about 15 grams of food on the lure. She was a bit bedraggled but other wise OK. I don't know how long it took her to kill the Jack that she caught. Both feet are generally in the rabbits face and head. Both are a long way from the heart, so that in its self would not be fatal. Jacks are very strong and do not give up, so as to how long it could take is anybody's guess. I had thought when I picked her up that the Jack had gotten away, but that obviously did not happen. She is a remarkable Hawk.

These are the solution at least temporarily, to my problem. The little gadget that is on the transmitter now was too big. I hope that I have the proper size on the feather behind it. I am also going to again take the dogs with me in the future.

2019 going to be a year of "tough Sledding"!

After due consideration and a lot of miles, I have come to the conclusion that its going to be a tough year. You would think that with all my seniority in this job I could get a break every once and a while, but nooooo. Not a chance, but enough whining. I will just call it my new exercise program, and get on with it.

Yesterday John Hauck and I drove down to Oregon Canyon to see if there was any truth to a statement by an acquaintance that there were a lot of Rabbits in the Sage down there. There are always pockets of Jack populations here and there, and it was my hope that this would be so again. However, as almost all of the uninitiated tend to think that two Jacks in the drive way are "lots of Rabbits", I was skeptical but I needed to look to make sure.

Oregon Canyon has two ranches in it. One is Tree Top, a huge holdings in at least two states if not more. The dirt road in the  Canyon goes behind Blue Mountain and on through to the White Horse Road. I know that it is an area sometime frequented by Sage Grouse, as well as Rabbits. I ran the dogs twice in likely spots and walked in two others and didn't see a darn thing. Jack Rabbits are very interesting creatures. They will travel pretty long distances to feed and actually do not need water all that much. So they could be coming from far away pockets at night to feed on their hay and Alfalfa fields.

Giving up on the area we went across the hills heading to another ranch on the Whitehorse Road. On the way we found a fresh road kill on the "two track" dirt road. I stopped to check it and it was still a bit warm and not all that damaged. Food is food, so I picked it up. Aside from being in what I thought was an unlikely spot, the only traffic up there is the rancher in a 4000 gallon water truck that comes through once or twice a day. Life is like that sometimes. When you least expect it, out of nowhere something knocks you flat. I had hunted that spot before with the hawk, and it was not what I would call a productive spot, so we kept going. Probably the only resident, and the victim of as unlikely circumstance as one could find.

When we got to the ranch I did jump three rabbits, but none of them were caught. I put in three miles through the Sage for three Jacks. We came home empty handed.

Today I went by my self back to Arock. I had a spot there that I had not hunted yet. While I did not expect many Rabbits, there were more there than I had located so far. The Cheat Grass is just below the knee, and while I count that as a plus when flying after them. The weeds have to be causing them problems keeping track of a fast flying hawk. The only problem is that the Rabbits seem to avoid that kind of cover, so it just signals to the Rabbits that "something this way comes", and they beat feet as soon as they decide that it isn't Horses or Cows walking. That in return elicits a far off chase by Hope that has little chance of success. If Jacks have time to plan and think, they will come out on top almost every time. Jacks have three basic methods of avoiding being caught. The first is to run far and fast when they are aware of danger. When that gets them chased each and every time they begin using the second which is to hide. The third is to change the places that they hide.

At first they will be scattered all through a field of Sage. All human hunters tend to follow the same trails and patterns when coursing a field. The Jacks notice and start hiding in the places that you do not walk. So at first they are all over. Then they go to the far corners, then they go to the most unlikely spot in the field, hiding behind or under the most unlikely  spot in the field. So one has to pause every few yards, causing the ones hiding in plain sight to lose their nerve and make a run for it. If they are close enough that they don't have time to plan, Hope will catch them.

I left my dogs behind today. I just cannot get Josie to stay close enough. She is a fantastic dog, that has 10 years of experience, but she just runs "too big" to do me any good. My male Brick, stays within 25 yards of me, but I am not going to leave Josie home and take Brick. Not fair, so both suffer. In times of plenty there are enough opportunities to make up for the longer slips at Jacks. Josie will help the Hawk, if she catches one by the butt, and Hope isn't put off by them at all. I just don't have enough Jacks to take any longer flights than necessary.

Another of my problems is the high grass, and my car. I do not want to park over any of the grass, so that means I have to choose my parking carefully. Last thing I want is a fire caused by my car. Then it also has "Eyesight", so if there grass or sage behind me it locks up the brakes. Makes it a bit interesting turning around to leave.

I parked about a half mile from the field that I wanted to hunt. We saw nothing all across the field. I climbed over the fence and had not gone very far when a Jack busted and hope was after him. She missed him in two attempts. I went to where she was and we soon jumped another one and this flight ended with the Jacks death song. I had problems finding them, because I couldn't hear them. Hope always tries for a head shot, and it's tough to scream with your mouth clamped shut, so I had to calm my breathing so that I could hear the grunts the Jack was making.

As I was cleaning the Jack I noticed that he had a very large pocket of Tape worms on his side. I'm not sure how much that contributed to his being caught, but most of the prey that Raptors catch is handicapped in some way or another. Not sure if a healthy one would have gotten away, but having a large pus pocket on your side couldn't have been a plus. ( These are "dog tape worms" and do not affect Raptors at all)

The foot seems to be working quite well. You will notice that she has an ear wadded up in that foot.

Sept 24 Hope's second

The Sun rise this morning was quite dark. I had expected the day to be clear and calm, but not at Sunrise. It got better as the day went along.

I went out to get Hope at 8:45 AM and she surprised me by tipping the scales at 970. My first thought was that I was wasting my time, by I didn't seem to have anything better to do, so John Hauck and I loaded up and trundled off to the Rabbit fields.

She didn't fly as if she was too heavy however, but all the slips we were getting was of the long range variety. The Jacks when you first begin to hunt them tend to flush as soon as they are aware of you. This however elicits a chase from Hope, however futile, but soon they begin to hold longer in an attempt to not be chased. This works to our advantage, because when they do flush close to her they really have less of a chance to plan an escape strategy. While not as fast as a Goshawk, Hope still has a surprisingly fast 50 yard burst, and will burn down most of the Jacks that flush within 30 yards.

I only had to walk a mile and half before she caught her second of the year.

So far she has not to my knowledge lost anything that she has grabbed. all are head shots however, but she tries really hard to make that kind of a catch every time. Makes life easier for me.

This was the first time that she has made a "throw up" looking over her shoulder and then actually catching the Jack where it is hiding. When a Harris masters that technique it is hard for a Jack to escape.

Finally a new season with Hope begins.

Its been a bit of an anxious year. Hope, if you remember, slammed her foot into a rock at one of the places that I hunted last year.

Her last flight was about November 17th. I noticed that she was a little gimpy, then the foot began swelling. There was nothing visible, just swelling. I decided that it was a Stone Bruise and there was nothing to be gained by taking her to the vets, so I treated it as best as I could, mostly antibiotics driven in with DMSO. There is little blood flow in their feet and it is one of the hardest things to treat.

I kept her in for a long time, cutting off her cuff on that side. I then turned her loose in the weathering area for the rest of the hunting season as well as the winter. She favored it for quite a long time. It appeared to me that her ability to open it to grab something was quite a bit reduced. It eventually got to where she would grab her food with it and sometimes dropped it when she would try to take it to her perch. She however began to stand on it and the swelling has gone down completely. I wondered  if she was going to be able to hold a fighting Jack Rabbit.

I began cutting her feed supply the middle of August, and it seemed as if she had suffered a brain injury and totally forgot where her food came from. It took more than a week and half of nothing to eat before she regained her memory and came to me for food. The only thing that I could notice about her foot was that she seemed to have difficulty opening it completely.

I had several Jacks and Bunnies taking advantage of the grass in the yard, so I knew that at least some of them survived the winter. When I began taking her hunting here around the house I could only find four of them and no Bunnies. Of course she was as flabby and out of shape as I am and the four that we did find were too cagey to be caught. I hunted here around the house for at least three times not ever finding more than 3 or 4 rabbits no matter how much we walked. Connie and I went to Arock to my "go to" spot and found that the dead grass was almost knee high and there was almost no Rabbit trails in any of it. You can tell the populations by the small little beaten paths in it. They are about 5 inches wide and are quite noticeable. We walked better than 3 miles that day and had 7 flights that she of course missed. With all the high cover and her weak muscles it was more of an exercise routine than hunting. Her memory had of course returned and was as good as she had ever been.

My friend Pat came down with Chilli ( another Harris Hawk, new to her ) to hunt this last weekend. She had been anticipating this trip for a long time. Unfortunately Chilli jammed a feather that was just coming in and still in the blood, and her wing hurt too much for her to be able to hunt. I had chosen to fly at another of my honey holes, that have always produced Jacks, but it too did not have any stupid Jacks in the few survivors that we found in 3 hours of tromping. I did not feed Hope anything more than the tidbits used that day. She had started the day at 927.

This morning she was 912 when I picked her up. Pat and I went back out to give it another shot. This time I tried another one of the great spots in the past years, and managed to jump one Jack. We changed to another field, that has shoulder high Sage in it. We jumped 3 Jacks and Brick, my Brittany even actually went on point. When I walked up to the bush, out came a Pygmy Rabbit that streaked out and promptly went down a hole.  I was so pleased that I gave him a treat when we got home. Normally when a Rabbit notices that they have been seen, they bust and run. This one stayed long enough for the dog to point him.

After walking that field we went back to the one that Connie and I had hunted on Thursday. Pat and I had only walked about 50 yards when a Jack lost his nerve and broke to the right. We were close enough that he didn't have time to formulate a plan, and stayed in the open a bit too long.

If you look closely you can see that the right foot didn't totally open up and is barely sticking in the Rabbits head. The other however is strong enough to hold the Jack. I thought that she had grabbed one on Thursday, but it was over on the other side of a lava hump and I only heard what I thought was a short squeal. and she was sitting on a bush when I could eventually see her. So time will tell how much she is hampered by the foot, but it is also obvious that she is still capable of catching Jacks. She will just have to sharpen her aim.

This is the third year of bleak numbers of Jacks. It will be difficult to say the least, but we will give it our best shot.

Avalanche Trail

This trail is on the West side of the Park by Lake McDonald. I think its about 5 and a few tenths of miles round trip. We did it in the evening when it was cool. There are two parts to the trail, Cedar Trail and Avalanche Trail. The Cedar Trail is wheel chair accessible. The rest of the trail, Avalanche, is in the "natural" condition in that the only modification to the area is the trail its self. I can't imagine what the trip was like for the first person that stumbled upon it. The trees are all small for the most part with dead and dying all around them and a real tangle on the ground.

The creek on the bottom part is a narrow cut through the Rocks.

There is downed timber clogging the creek in some places.

The rocky cliffs are striking, and as you may have noticed, I have trouble discarding similar pictures of the same rocks .

This is the Water Ozal picking out a living. A lot of what they eat is the Stonefly nymph that attaches to the rocks on the creek bed. She is very hard to see, her camouflage is perfect.

This should give you an idea of what the forest was like.

My "Knot Head" picture.

I wish my garden was half as tenacious.

You can't see the whole picture here, but the canyon coming in from the other side of the forest is  Funneling  the wind across and directly into the trees on this side of the valley. All the trees caught in the sights of this valley are either broken off, or up rooted entirely. There is some serious wind coming out of there at times. Winds of 75 MPH are not all that uncommon for Glacier, this cut most likely focuses the wind directly into this hill side.

This rock face just captured my interest.

There was a pretty serious rise in elevation to this lake, and this is our first glimpse of it. I asked one guy coming out, that looked pretty beat, about the trail, when we first started, and he was a believer. Probably a flat lander and the high altitude kicked his butt.

This is the Bear that was scrounging on the other side of the lake.

I am forced to admit that I am a cynic, that has never gotten over his vow while in the Army of, "I will never wait in another line again when I get out". I also for the most part hate crowds. However I had a great time on this trip. I think I only met one grouch the entire week I was there. The people there were almost all up beat, happy and courteous, and damn glad to be alive. I think Connie exchanged information with at least two couples and included invites to visit us. The funny part is that I would not be surprised if they did show up. After all there were guided escorted trips offered to see the Steen's and other wonders of this part of the world. They were from Bend,Or.

I saw an article while doing a bit of research that stated that average cost for a four day trip to Glacier was $2192.00. I put 2100 miles on the car, took food from my freezer for us to eat while I was there, and total cost was under$400. and that includes dog sitting fees for my neighbor. Having a Senior pass for NP's didn't hurt either.

One of the things that amused me was how much encouragement and wonder that we evoked by just being able to walk those trails. Talk about Irony, I used to make sounds of wonder at old codgers that were still participating in life, and NOW I ARE ONE!

A tour of the rest of the Park

This one is a bit out of order. It was the first day that Connie had off work, and I wanted to see the rest of the park, before we did that much hiking. I came in on the West side and saw Lake McDonald. The other lodges were Many Glacier and 2 Medicine.

 This area is "Many Glacier", and North of Raising Sun .

 These Lodges were built in the Swiss style by the Great Northern Rail Road Company

I looked through the history of the lodges and they claim that the timbers and most of the wood came from the park itself. I found that interesting since no where did I see any trees as big as these.

Next Two Medicine area at the South end (generally speaking) of the park is where the Main Lodge and the Rail Road terminal are located.

We had to go through some road construction to get to 2 Medicine, it seems they are rebuilding the road to get there. As usual the Mountains captured my attention. I kept expecting to see a herd of Elk.

As I understand it this is the main Lodge.

The Rail Terminus is just across the road from the Lodge.

This is
Rocky, the mascot for the Great Northern.

This is the Guy who started it all and it is a bit like "legend" to me, since I spent 30 years working on the result of the mergers of all the Railroads, Starting with the original being Great Northern RR.