Oct 13th - Hope

Tuesday would have been the day that I would have hunted again after her last success. However we had an appointment in town for a recall for the Subaru, so that day was shot. Wed I picked her up to go hunting and was surprised to find that in spite of not eating for two days she was still at 945 grams. I didn't think I had fed her that much, but apparently I didn't think at all. Oh well it's all good, and she has come through at that weight time and time again.

I went back to the field that I have been hunting in most of the time. It was a most interesting day! Hope performed at her usual level of competence minus the fact that she could not catch anything. She got so frustrated that she actually began hunting on foot after  missing rabbit after rabbit. In total she had 20 slips at Jacks with two of them being Bunnies. The level of pursuit at the Bunnies was really amazing, yet she came up with empty talons again and again. We had slips in heavy cover, and after I exhausted that area I went up the hill in the open and she had slips there that were nail biters, and oh so close, but failure after failure to get a talon on any of them. She had slips that she got up from a miss to strike again, miss and try again. She took slips that were in the two hundred yard range. She tried every thing she had learned and still wasn't able to make it happen.  After covering the field twice, an area of over a mile, I called it quits. She had gotten perhaps three tidbits the whole hunt.

This morning I went out to put Jessie on her day perch, and for the first time Hope was on the ground looking around the partition at me wondering when we were going hunting. A good sign. She rarely ever makes any sign that she wants any thing. She doesn't call, She doesn't bate. Its almost eerie that she doesn't act like any other Harris that I have had. Yet I have only to offer my fist and she is there.

This morning she weighed 925 grams. If you remember that is the weight that I consider to be her optimum flying weight. My only problem is that it is drizzling rain. The weather radar shows rain all the way to the coast, so I know that it is the best that is going to be right then. Hope, as with all Harris Hawks, is about as water proof as a pre-soaked drowned Rat, so I needed to choose well. The weather is also predicted to become much worse over the next 4 days, so its now or never.

I decided to hit the same field as yesterday as it was currently not raining here. 15 miles away it was raining, so I hoped that we could get it done before the rain came our way. Yeah, I know, but after all this is desert not the Willamette Valley. This is a big thing for us.

As always I try to keep the Rabbits off their game by attacking from different directions, so this morning I started in an area that I have never hit first. Karen dropped me off and drove to a vantage point that she would probably be able to see most of our efforts.

We had not walked more than 30 yards, when we jumped a Jack that ran down the hill into an area of very dense Grease Wood. She flashed up and over a big bush and slammed down behind it. The sounds of a Jack in distress followed. I hustled as fast as I could down there and around the big bushes into a little drainage that the Jack had obviously used many times before. The sounds were coming from inside a very large Grease Wood Bush. I carefully peered over the bush and could see a Jack straining for all he was worth trying to pull Hope off his hind leg. She wasn't about to give up, so I jammed my hand into the bush and grabbed the rabbit by the head, and killed him.

She had him by one hind leg and foot only. I was surprised that she had not lost him. I would say that normally she should have lost him, as she had quite a few times before. The Jack could not go further as she had a rear talon around a limb lying on the ground, that had stopped his escape. I think normally what scrapes them off is being pulled through a bush. I am often quite amazed that she doesn't hurt herself . These bushes are lethal, according to my bloody arms.  I broke enough limbs off that I could pull them on through and into the open.

Apparently she had either hit him as he entered the bush, or she had seen where he went in, and dove in after him, surprising him long enough to grab him by the butt. Half of his tail was missing, but when I saw her she had him by the back foot.

I pulled a front leg off after much effort, ( he was an old Rabbit and tough ) and gave it to her. She stepped off to eat it. I cleaned the Jack and pulled off a hind leg for later. Karen was still looking for me, and since I was down over a bit of a hill she could not see me at all. I eventually walked back up the hill to meet her. She was a bit disappointed at how fast it had all gone down, but I was all smiles.

I have attempted to explain the difference between flying weight and response weight. This was the perfect example of the two. Hope being an excellent representative of her species, demonstrates it perfectly. To all outward appearances  she was hunting hard yesterday and could catch nothing. She did hunt hard, and tried every thing that she could think of yesterday, yet in three hours of hard hunting, could not get her talons in any of the many rabbits that she chased. She has not yet learned how to fake it. As I have attempted to convey before, the effort that it takes for a Raptor to actually kill something requires a single minded willingness to go as fast and as hard as it possibly can. They may try and if the prey is not willing to make the same single minded effort to escape, occasionally catch prey when they are heavy. The main prey base for all raptors ( mostly) relies on the fact that some may not be in their top form. This of course is the "survival of the fittest" in its true form. To sum it up in its simplest form, a fat hawk is an exercise in futility. At 945 Grams, she would have broke off the chase when it ran under the bush. At 925 she went in after him. That is the difference.

Today would have been the perfect time to double her on Jacks. She killed on the first chase, 50 yards into the field. If it had been a Bunny I might have been tempted. You see lots of people with Harris Hawks that do that, some to extreme numbers of prey. They for the most part live in areas that do not have Jacks available to them right next door, or have large numbers of breeding hawks to feed. I have a freezer that is already full of Jacks for the winter, and I have rabbits in my yard, so I can concentrate on developing the best game hawk that I can. There will come a time in her life that hunting will be her primary drive. Right now it is eating, I can wait.

The winds by this evening are supposed to be in the 35 MPH range. Hope will be just fine until it clears up.

Number Six

It would appear that I have a "Made Hawk" on my hands. It also appears that she is one of the exceptional Harris Hawks as well. While the training that she has received plays a big part of my satisfaction with her, the raw material is there in abundance as well. Many of the things that contribute to her ease of handling can be contributed to me, but the desire to hunt and the gentle demeanor are the result of intelligent breeding. Its difficult to give up a good Harris to a breeding project. Much easier to part with one who is a pain in the butt to handle. Not all behavior is learned, some is inherited. Sure there are exception, but then again how often does an exception occur. Not often enough to make it worth the effort.

Hope this morning weighed 943 grams. Thirty three ounces to those who do not do grams. That's big. I know for sure that her keel bone is an "inny". She should not be catching Jack Rabbits at that weight. Perhaps an older bird that has been intermewed would, but not with the enthusiasm that she shows. I should have to walk to where she lands after a miss to pick her up. I don't. She does not require a tidbit to return to the perch. I don't have to call her. She gives it her best shot each and every time.

I got up this morning when there was just enough light to be able to see a bit. There were six Jacks feeding on the lawn right in front of Hope. Its been 48 hours since she has been fed. You have to know that her thoughts were of the tortured variety. Yet she stood there on her perch, totally quiet, waiting.

I gave Karen the option of going along this morning and she jumped on it with eagerness. Unfortunately Karen isn't able to walk well enough to participate in the hunts, but some of them can be arranged to where she can follow along in the car or truck. Its long distance hawking, but it is still Hawking.

I have been hunting this field for at least a month, and in spite of more than a hundred Jacks being shot out of it, it still has enough Jacks there to warrant a hunt. The upper edge is bare ground that one can drive along a two track parallel to the area that I hunt.

Jacks are smart! They see patterns just as well as we do. The last three hunts I have been successful by hunting the top half that has a lot thinner cover. However on the last hunt, I had to go down in the bottom to get her one to catch. The bottom part by the creek is bigger. Grease Wood bushes in a very soft fluffy Alkali dust. There are paths and tunnels where the Rabbits run and take cover. The way that it usually goes is the Jacks are hiding in "Forms," ( Little depressions dug under some of the Sage and Grease Wood. )  and if their cover is good enough they will wait until you are by, and then possibly slip out behind you.

For the first 10 or 20 times that I hunted over there, beginning with the time that I was wounding Jacks for her, I hunted down through the bottom. Yes, each time I still had slips, they were just further and further away, and of course fewer. I would see the Jacks in the lighter cover, and then when I would turn to go where they were, they could run up the bare hills to hide up there. That way most of the available Jacks were taking them selves out of the danger zone before I got any where close.

So I switched to the middle part, and was quite successful all three times that I hunted it. I was seeing lots of Jacks, and Hope was getting a chance at them. Today it was obvious that the Jacks had adjusted their game plan. I was seeing nothing in the middle area. There were Jacks still busting out of cover and running up the hill far in front of me. Hope made a couple of attempts, but flying up hill for a couple of hundred yards doesn't leave all that much in the tank for a serious chase.

After a bit we came to a little drainage that had some cover in it. I had seen several Jacks running up it from a distance, so I began climbing to get above it. One busted out about 75 yards away, and Hope gave chase. It was basically level, so she still had enough steam left to give him a run for his life. She was lined up when he made a sudden stop and turn that threw up a cloud of dust about knee high. She was making a grab for him at the same time, and just barely missed. She went to the ground, but came back up trying to close, but by this time he had way too much of a head start.

I kept climbing, and she came back to the Tee perch. When I got to the point that it petered out, I turned down hill. I could see all of the cover and didn't think we had any thing left in it. I was wrong however and one busted about 15 yards ahead of us. She burned him down in another 15 yards and rolled him in a cloud of dust. When I got there she had him with both feet to the head.

I dispatched him, and when he quit quivering I laid a front leg in between her feet. I then offered her the cup full of tidbits, and she ate all of the tidbits in the cup. She picked up her leg and, stepped off the Jack, and I retired to clean it. Once it was cleaned and bagged, I ripped off a rear leg for her when she finished what she had. Once she had most of the leg put away, we began our short walk to the truck where she finished her leg and was put up for the return home.

There are several points in a hawks training that are of importance. One of the most critical is the point where they are picked up off of game that they rightfully earned. There are more ways to do it badly than right. If you do it wrong badly enough it can result in the bird either carrying it off or at least dragging it away with her back to you and wings covering it.

A hawk when it has caught game, has put forth the ultimate effort to do so, and its natural instinct tells it that every other living thing wants it and will take it away if they get the chance. Now the falconer has just witnessed the very thing that he strives for, and he naturally wants to see it again and soon. He knows that if the bird eats too much it will not hunt again until the Hawk lose's that weight. How he takes it off game will determine how the bird reacts. Most Harris's will continue to do their best regardless of how clumsy he is. That doesn't mean that it is justified, at least not to me.

That is the main reason that I hunt every other day. It releases me from having to restrict the Hawks intake. As a side effect I don't burn out my hunting grounds, and I am old enough that the rest is welcome. Here in SE Oregon, the nearest fuel is about 50 miles away. My alternate hunting area is a 40 mile round trip.

Today was the easiest that I have gotten Hope off a Rabbit. There was a point that I needed her to have free access to a complete Jack so that she could realize where the food comes from. It doesn't take all that much of that, to get a Hawk to the point that she expects to have all of it and begins to drag it off to eat it.

A Hawk catching something as large as a Jack is really excited. Most will understand that if you help it goes much easier for them. Hope will concentrate on keeping her hold on a Jack's head. I grab the rear legs and stretch the Jack to break its neck if I can do so without endangering the Hawk. Once the Jack quits moving and the Hawk realizes its dead, they will recover, stand up and start looking for a place to eat in peace. I prevented that thought from forming by giving her a front leg from an earlier Jack. While she was thinking about that,  I stuck the cup with tidbits in front of her. She knows that it contains food, and she automatically began picking pieces of food out of it. It holds about an ounce of tidbits, so she transitions from escaping to eating without the nasty parts occurring to her. Since the rabbits head that she was standing on was a bit unsteady she moved off to the area in front of the rabbits nose to eat her front leg. I slid a Walmart bag over the Jacks head, and moved off to gut the rabbit. I pulled off a rear leg, put the rest in my bag. I then went to where she was eating and when she looked up, there was this great bloody gob of meat in my fist, and every one is happy.