Number Five

Hope this morning weighed 944 Grams. After the last trip that she caught a Jack at that weight, I no longer doubt her. However the hunts are likely to last longer since that much needed desperation is missing. You just try harder when you are really hungry. No one to blame other than me, so better get on with it.

The weather is improving for one last fling before fall really sets in. It was still 46 degrees when I got in the truck, so I wore a vest. When I arrived at the field, I wisely decided to leave it in the truck.

I had no more than taken Hope out of the truck when several Jacks started running up the bare hillside about 200 yards away. Hope takes off after them and actually turned one of them back, but of course she was winded from having to fly uphill for all that distance before she could even try to make all the twists and turns needed to put one in the bag. He ran down into the Sage again. More of them began deserting the cover for the open and again and again she tried to catch them, only tiring herself out in the process.

We have had a female Prairie Falcon here at the House and at the Ranch that has been making her self into a pain in the butt. She is working herself up to being a Chicken Hawk. It doesn't help that my Old English Game Chickens are no bigger than a Hungarian Partridge. I had to scare her off yesterday to get her to leave them alone. Well she was hunting the field that we were in today. She was also strafing the Jack Rabbits when they got into the open.

One of the Jacks began running along the top of the cover, and Hope gave chase. It was another of those ridiculously long flights that she should have ignored. The Prairie started a power dive that I was afraid was going to actually hit her. She did not however, but Hope got the message, and was watching her. The Prairie showed no signs of quitting this little game, so I zipped her with a 22 bullet and she left. I found out later from Karen that she had gone over to the house to harass the Chickens.

Hope made a long flight after a Jack and had missed. She was sitting on a bush about a hundred yards away. I decided that I was still too hot, so I propped my Tee Perch in a bush and started taking my sweater off. Hope decided that she needed to come back and here I am with my sweat shirt half over my head. I ignored her and she detoured around and landed on the perch in the bush.

I lost count of the number of slips that she took, but we hunted hard for about 2 hours, making try after try. We had run all the Jacks out of the light cover that I felt that she had her best chance to succeed in, so I turned around and taking another line, went back through the cover again almost back to the truck. She had one chase that was below the level of the Sage, that she missed the Jacks butt by less than inches. Lots of them were oh so close. She never quit trying and trying hard. I circled back down towards the heavier cover and the Creek, with her missing two or three more. Some of these flights, she was getting back into the air again to make another shot. So she wasn't just going through the motions trying to find a cripple.

I combed through the heavy cover down at the creek and finally she started after one that jumped about 30 yards away. The Grease Wood was about three feet or more high and really thick. She made a feint at the Jack, then flew over and back into the large Grease Wood bush. Apparently the Jack was coming through a tunnel in the brush and she met him head on. They were buried in the Bush and I had to do some damage to my bare arm to get them out of the stickers.

I killed the Jack, and tried to get some pictures, but the little camera does not have a view finder, so I took lots of shots hoping to get one or two that I could use. I did, just barely.

This was all taking place in Alkali powder and I really didn't want her food covered in that stuff, so when the Jack stopped quivering, I offered her my tin cup of tidbits. I am pleased to see that she has no problem eating out of it. It also keeps me from having rotting meat in my cup when I go the next time.

This was the first tidbit that she had gotten in the whole two and more hours that we had been in the field. You see she doesn't require tidbits. She is concentrating on hunting. Good Girl! She promptly comes back to the Tee perch without me having to call her.

I fed her all my tidbits, and then gave her a front leg from an earlier victim as we walked back to the truck. When we arrived I set her on a wire spool with some food while I gutted the rabbit. I then gave her another front leg off the recent victim.

There is no doubt that she would find a way to kill sooner if I sharpened her weight up a bit more. About an ounce to be exact. However even though I have to work a bit harder for the same result, there is no shortage of rabbits to chase, and a lot of failure with her still getting a reward at the end of it has to be teaching her something. Make no mistake there is a lot to learn concerning Jack Rabbits. They are plenty smart. As long as she still chases hard, and tries hard I really can't complain about her weight. The abundance of prey this year is a real blessing. The odds are such, that sooner or later one will screw up. If I sense that she is stringing me along, be assured she will suffer hunger pangs for it. So as long as the aspirins hold out, i'm game.

That's what I'm talking about!

I was a bit disappointed this morning when I picked Hope up and weighed her. She tipped the scales at 945 grams. I tried every way that I could to get the scales to be more reasonable, but the weight stayed the same. Oh well, I need the exercise any way, perhaps, I reasoned, she will get lucky and find a young dumb one. I really didn't expect her to catch anything.

A friend from the Rail Road had come down to help me get a generator set up for emergencies, so we hopped in the truck and drove over to the ranch. After I got the truck stopped, I looked over and there was a young dumb one just 15 yards away, watching us to see what was going on. I eased out, ignoring the Jack and hoping that he would continue to sit there. I got Hope released from her leash, and picked her out of her box. I looked up, and found that it had moved. Not all that far, so I tossed Hope in his direction. The Jack ran, and Hope totally surprised, followed and took a shot at him, but he ducked and stalled her out. I remember thinking CRAP! this was all I needed, an overweight Hawk that is going to waste the trend that we had begun with the last hunt by giving her free rein with a whole Jack to eat.

You see, just like every thing else, success breeds success. Falconry is built on positive reinforcement. Success gives confidence, and success only comes with a Hawk that knows that she can catch anything and will not take no for an answer. That frame of mind comes from the falconer making sure that the Hawk has all the odds stacked against the prey.  A fat Hawk normally will not put forth the effort needed to catch a Jack. With almost any other hawk I would have bagged the trip, but Hope isn't acting like any other Hawk that I have handled, so I decided to give it a try. What the hell, I needed the exercise any way.

After she missed the Jack I turned and started across the field. She soon landed on the Tee perch, and we continued up the little rise in the ground. She peeled off back the way that we had come and made a fairly long flight after a Jack that had slipped out behind us. When she returned, she flew right in front of Dick, much to his amazement, and landed on the Tee perch. We walked a few yards more when she again took off in pursuit. I was surprised to see how far the slip actually was. She flew about 150 yards before she slammed into the brush, and a faint scream wafted back to my amazed ears.

I ran as fast as my old butt would take me, flushing another Jack as I ran. Dick thought that was the one that she had chased, but I knew better.

I was pleased to see that she still had the Jack, and then could see that she had a foot in his neck as well. He wasn't going any where. I killed him as soon as I could get my dropped jaw closed, and drug him into the open.

I pulled a front leg off and gave it to her as a distraction.  After I gutted it, I again gave the Jack back to her. Hell if she is going to hunt that hard weighing 945, I darn sure am not going to get stingy on her. This calls for a celebration.

She began eating on the neck, where I had pulled a bit of skin off when I killed it. Fine with me. I let her eat until she had severed the muscle surrounding the neck, then slipped a Walmart plastic bag over the rest of the Jack, and put it in my vest. I let her eat most of the head, and then began giving her the tidbits that I had prepared since they wouldn't last for another two days. Its nice that she will eat from the fingers without risking said fingers. She also eats nicely from my little cup.

I am having a bit of trouble with my back, so I soon got tired of standing around waiting for her to finally finish the head. I picked her and her head up and made my way back to the truck.

Since this is the dump, there are some benefits to hunting there besides lots of rabbits. Ahh, life is good!

Progress

The next day after the Bunny, I picked her up and she had gained insignificant weight from it. The wind has been howling and unfit to try to fly an inexperienced Hawk, so I decided that waiting until almost dark and trying to ambush one of the Jacks that trek through here in front of the house every evening was a much better idea.

The first evening she again was convinced that we were going to revisit flying to the fist training. She would fly to the hot tub, or the top of the house so that I could call her. It finally occurred to me that with the Tee perch she might get her thoughts realigned to hunting. It worked pretty well. She settled down and began watching. We had three or four flights but none of them matched the excitement of the Bunny flush. She also mirrored that lack with empty feet and finally an empty crop.

Last night she was 895 grams and was quite hungry. I brought her out on the Tee perch, but she again began thinking up ways to get me to feed her. She made a flight across the creek after something, I assume a Jack. She turned and flew back to me, and I gave her a tidbit. That turned out to be a bit of a mistake as she flew to the ground searching for any possible tidbits that might have fallen. She searched under the rose bush. Picked up a chicken turd and tested it for food value, gagging and finally giving up on it.

I, in desperation thinking that the wind might have died a bit, started out into the Sage behind the house to see if there was any thing there we could chase. She did chase another Bunny, but was unsuccessful with that one. It quickly got too dark for her to hunt so she went to roost with no food again. I was positive that I now knew that her real flying weight was around 900 grams and that tomorrow would be the day that she killed again.

We still had wind this morning, but it was at least manageable. At 10 AM I loaded her in the truck and we went over to the field that had been so good to us these last two months. Her weight was 902 grams.

I took her out of the truck and right away saw a couple of Jacks in some sparse Sage. I walked that way and they began hopping off. I threw her and she just landed on a pile of lumber. She came back to the Tee perch, another hopped out and as it topped over a small hill she went after it. She followed for quite a ways and then crashed into a Grease Wood bush. I didn't hear any screaming, so I continued on my way. Another Jack jumped pretty close to us and she took off after him, another jumped under her, and she broke off and flew after him. He gave her the slip, and although she got up into the air again, she wasn't able to catch him. The gang at the ranch rode into the bottom part of the field to gather the Cows in this lot, so I was glad that I had chosen to stay high in the field on a different tack that I normally ran. We walked on a bit further and again two Jacks flushed pretty close, and she flew one down in a matter of yards. Not enough cover for it to scrape her off. When I got there she had again grabbed it by the butt, but within two bounces had its head in the other foot.

I killed it, and put one jess in the swivel and tied it to my bag. She was still pretty stoked, so I gave her a couple of tidbits to rearrange her mind, then pulled off a front leg and gave it to her. She let go of the rabbit, and I retired to clean it. When I got back I again gave her the Jack. She wasted no time in reclaiming it and began eating the liver and other goodies left in the carcass. I left her to decide what she wanted to eat, and satisfied myself with taking pictures.

I had come to the conclusion that I had made a basic mistake that would have shortened the last period of her training. I should have on the first and possibly more "bagged Rabbits', have let her feed on the bodies until she was stuffed. This was a clear case of my favorite saying- "The hurrieder you go, the behinder you get".  I have long ago lost the urge to out do every one in the world that has a hawk. I would rather catch half of the game that every one else catches if most of my hunts are successful. I rarely ever try to take doubles unless I am flying two hawks in a cast. My reasons are that there will be more rabbits left in the field, and my hawk puts more effort in catching the first one because she knows that she will be able to eat all she wants when she does catch it. I want my hawk to know that she does not have to hide what she catches from me and that she can trust me.

By taking her off the Rabbits that she "thought" she had caught, and giving her a full meal off a previous rabbit, she came to think that the food only came from the fist. The Rabbits that I wanted her to catch were not as important as the fist was. Yes, she wanted to catch them, but not as badly as she would have if she had been allowed to get her fill of warm fresh bloody meat. Really, at my age, do I really want to go out and pound the hills to dust every day? Bad knee and all? Not likely, I will take quality over quantity at this stage of my life, thank you. If it takes her an extra day to get her weight back down, that means that I can do some of the things around the house that need doing before the winter arrives.

You will please notice in the pictures as she begins to eat, that she pays me no mind at all. She does not mantle and try to protect her food from me, she eats with her wings closed and tucked tight.

I mentioned that the Cows were being gathered to move to another pasture. They were going to go quite a bit away from where we were at, but as they got closer, she became aware of them and crouched down on top of her Rabbit. She didn't mantle, she just laid down on it.

This was a new one for me. She couldn't see them from her position, but she could hear them. After they had gone, I reached down and gave her a tidbit, and she stood up and began eating again.

As I have said before, she is going to be a good one. It was really nice to be able to see the flight and see that long leg reach out and snatch that Jack back to her. This is the beginning to a beautiful friendship.