Jessie has been kept pretty low in weight, and her hunting has suffered because of it. I decided to fatten her up to see if things will improve. I took her out to the weathering area this morning and gave her a whole Pigeon. I fed her pretty heavily yesterday, but her weight was still a bit lower than I wanted, thus a Pigeon was what she needed.
Tami and I have been trying some new and more unproductive spots in the hopes that there were untouched havens of Jack Rabbits. So far they seem to be unpopulated havens instead. Oh well you never know until you try.
Today we decided to hunt the West boundary of the ranch. Some of it is in Greasewood, but it isn't that awful bad. The first place we tried held about 5 rabbits, but we could not get decent slips on many of them, and they came up empty on all of them. The girls were both giving it all they had, crashing into bushes both Greasewood and Sage with abandon, but not getting anything for their efforts. We had walked about a mile or more zig zagging back and forth trying to find where they were hiding, and came up empty for the most part. I finally decided to go back and get the car to try a spot over the hill that I had seen a fair number of Jacks earlier in the fall.
We loaded the birds into their boxes and drove to the new spot. We managed to jump a couple, but they seemed as scarce there as the other spot that we had hunted. We kept searching and walking, now in very sparse cover that was all Greasewood. I decided that it was getting dark so we headed back towards the car, that was now just a small speck off in the distance. About half way back Tami jumped a Jack right at her feet. Both birds were after it. Puddy was behind, gaining ground with every wing beat. Yogi and I were in front, with the chase coming our way. Yogi of course took off as soon as the rabbit moved, so the Jack was in between two converging Harris Hawks. His only course was to dive into a large Greasewood Bush, and hope that they couldn't get to him. Unfortunately the bush was too thick for him to force his way through, so he was stuck. As soon as he dove into the bush, Puddy climbed to about 10 feet above it and dove down onto him from the top. She couldn't get through either, but she could force her feet down into the bush and grab him by the head. Yogi was a split second behind and also latched on to his head. All of this took only a split second, of course.
Tami got there before I did, and the situation was such that I felt that it was imperative to clear the bush from the birds so I didn't take a picture. Tami and I both broke and cleared the Greasewood from around the birds bodies. I assure you it was not something that was easy to do. They were really in there, and the stuff was all around their wings and between their bodies and wings as well as between their legs. The stuff is really nasty with sharp spines all over and it is intertwined so that it is essentially one solid piece. We finally cleared them and I drug them out onto the pan.
Yogi was looking for her reward as soon as I managed to kill the Rabbit. Puddy always needs a lot more convincing and trouble getting her off. Grace and I cleaned and got their meals off the rabbit while they ate. Of course Puddy managed to choke down her reward and insist on taking the part that I was working on. We finally got her to eating the head and neck while I finished.
As we drove back the Sun finally dropped behind the Steens.
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