We went on, picking up Tami, and drove to the barn to try for some Ducks with Jessie. There was a pile of mixed Ducks on the pond below the barn, so I put Jessie in the air. She took a good pitch over us, but seemed more interested in flying than catching. We gave her several chances at Ducks, and she ignored them all. I finally called her down to the lure and she went into the box to wait for the Harris' to hunt.
I had managed to leave the Tee perches at home, so we all drove back over to the house to get them. When we were coming back I decided to see if the Jacks were in numbers enough to warrant hunting them where the Coyote had been. I thought that we could hunt and I could renew my search for the Coyote. We managed to jump two or three Jacks, but not enough to interest me, so we headed back to the truck. Yogi and Pud took off after a Jack that ran up the hill. Puddy came with us, but Yogi stayed. On the way back our path dissected where the Coyote was lying. We went on to the truck, but Yogi had not joined us. We could see her on the ground and she was hopping around, but refused to even come to the proffered lure. I drove down there and could see her hopping around with her wings out. As I closed the distance I could see that on her flight back, she had seen the Coyote and she was now attacking the thankfully deceased Coyote. She would feint, strike, then fly off and turn to do it again. I think I mentioned in an earlier post that she had apparently had some personal encounters with Coyotes when she was in the wild. She is the strangest bird.
We then loaded up and went back to the barn to hunt in the field that we had found so many Jacks before. We carried the hawks across to the field beginning to eliminate interference from a Red Shouldered Hawk that seems to think he owns all of that area.
Yogi did not want to be carried and was bateing continuously. We finally got close to the gate to the field, and I told Tami to turn her loose. There was the remains of a little overflow pond that was drying up by the road, and Yogi crashed into the water. Tami didn't know what to do about it and was as surprised as I was. I said that maybe she was thirsty, and walked back to see what was going on. She was running around and footing at something in the pond. I asked if there were minnows in the pond, and Tami replied that there was. I walked to the side that she was on, and tried to get her to get on the fist before she decided to bathe. I flushed the minnow and she quickly caught it and ate it, before I could get a picture. That's a new one for me.
We found a few Jacks and they gave chase, sometimes hard and sometimes not. We were not seeing the numbers that I would have liked and so we were trying different areas and seemed to find that the rabbits were choosing the more open areas to hide in. Puddy flashed off my perch and slammed into something on the ground in front of us. When I got there it was a Jack and she was on its head. It wasn't fighting, because it was already dead. I gave her a prepared chunk of meat and took the Jack to check it out. The eyes were clear and not clouded over at all, but the Jack was dead before she got it. No visible evidence of anything wrong, nose and coat were fine. I buried it and we went on.
After a couple more chases that were infuriatingly close, they flew after a Jack that slipped them both, and they took perches on some of the Sage. They both declined to come, and then I saw Puddy again take off and looked like she was chasing something on the ground. We went over there and she had found another dead one. Same appearance as the other. The fur was warm from the sun, but very tough to peel, and the flesh underneath was cool. I gave the birds some chunks of meat, and we left. I am puzzled and a bit spooked. I guess I will have to find somewhere else to hunt.
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