It appears that winter is here.

We were supposed to hunt Thursday, but a rather nasty storm blew in Wednesday evening. It put down about 5 inches of fine snow.

The snow was very fine, but it snowed all day.

We had a bit of wind to drift what we had. Lucky there wasn't more.

  

At this point I was sorry that Hope was too heavy to fly.

There was a Jack that crawled into this roll of wire to spend the day.

That evening it began to warm up to 43 degrees and almost every thing melted by the next morning. There was water every where, and it was no use to even try to hunt, so I fed Hope a small chunk of Jack on the fist.

We had another storm blow in last night and again we woke up to about 3/4 of an inch of fine snow. The temps was in the low 20's, and it rained on top of the snow lightly. Just enough to put a glaze on every thing. 

The worst weather here is mid December to about mid Jan. When I was flying falcons, this is generally the time that I quit. Every thing is froze up and since I was flying a Tundra Peregrine, whose kin were all in the Bahama's where it is warm. Mine would refuse to fly when the wind chill was in the minus region. When it warms up to freezing I will take Hope out hunting again, but not until then.

Its been a weird day. First a Bald Eagle, apparently in its forth year was sitting 

down by the creek. 

Then I hear Jessie's "war Cry" and look out to see a juvenile Red Tail trying to get to her. Apparently hunting is pretty tough with all the snow. He might think about Jacks for a food supply.

I was supposed to help a friend about 15 miles South, but the wind was really whipping and it was snowing sideways at his place and he wisely decided to stay home. We had nothing here, not even wind. We are in sort of a pocket here that funnels storms around us. It will rain like crazy just 6 miles either direction from here. Since I am not dependent on rain or moisture, I like it. Neighbors not so much.

                                                           This was all we had left for a Sunset.

Dec 12th and 13th- #29

The sunrise and sunset on the 12th was pretty good. The lovely skies are a little more scarce in the winter, so they are worth recording and sharing when they occur.

The Sun just peeking over the Idaho Mtns.

We had to go in to Burns today to straighten up a problem with my drivers license, and it appeared that the Steen's is getting a bit of weather.

                                             Then of course the Sunset that evening was just as interesting.

I case you hadn't noticed, the skull is that of a wild pig that I found in N Nev.

The horns are a pair that I found by the Prairie nest where I got Leezard.

Tuesday the 13th

The temps were to drop below 20 last night so Hope got to spend the night inside. It was my intention to go hunting by about 11 AM to beat the storm that is forecast for later tonight. We are under a "Storm Warning" for tonight and tomorrow. We will see. I am sure that it will be pretty nasty around us, just not sure how much it will affect us.

It was my intention to get out around 11 AM as it would be the warmest and the least amount of wind, according to the forecast. I went out around 10 to do the morning chores and found that there was no water at the chicken pen. When I came in the house I also found that there was none in the house either. I turned on the cool room light to see what was going on and there was no power to the pump. I checked the breakers in the house and they all seemed OK. After getting an electrician headed out from Burns, I checked the output on the house breakers and all seemed to be in working order. I finally discovered that the power to the cool room is connected to a breaker in the Hangar, and it was faulty. Another one of the joys of a house built by amateurs. The cool room is connected to the house underneath the porch, but the power comes to it underground from the hangar. Any way, the power was back on, we had water, so I could go hawking.

I am still looking for somewhere to hunt here close to the house. I had been told that the well head a bit further down South was reputed to have a population of Jacks hanging out there. I had been putting off trying it for some time, but decided that today would be the day to find out.

I went down there and walked with Hope in a circle about a 1/4 mile across, and managed to jump two Jacks. Both of which eluded Hope. She got up at least three times on each of them, but they made their escape. I loaded Hope back in the car, and came back to Crooked Creek and tried the other side of the Creek. I saw one Jack. I loaded her up again and went to the "dump field" where I had entered her and had found so many rabbits.

When I got the the field there was a fairly large group of Cows in there. I drove past them in an attempt to not disturb or be disturbed by them. I have come to the conclusion that Cows have a guilty conscience. They just know that your only purpose in life is to mess with them, and the only way to combat that is to get in front of you and run like hell. Of course right where you don't want them to go.

I stopped the car when I was far enough past them that they had decided to run the other way. As I got out and was walking to the back of the car, a Jack got up in front of me and ran into the field. A good sign for a change.

I got Hope out and we were able to get him up again, but he snookered her, getting away and running towards the Cows.

I walked at least 1/2 mile down the creek without jumping another rabbit. Hope was getting so desperate that she was flying to the bushes with rabbit forms in them and poking around trying to find anything to chase. I walked all the way to the end without finding anything.  I turned around deciding that we probably were going home empty handed, and headed back to the car. I was trying to think where I was going to try next.

I was walking at the edge of the Sage, and looking over I saw what I took to be a pile of horse crap that had dried out. The only thing was that it was under a bush and didn't appear to have been able to fall there naturally. I stopped and took two steps in that direction when the Jack jumped and took off. So did Hope and she caught him in short order.

I ran up and decided to take a picture since she had him in the shoulder and he couldn't get up.

This is a rather convoluted grab on her part, and I hurried to help her. He managed to pull her foot out of his side and the rodeo was on. after 4 of my attempts to grab him in several of the bushes, covering about 20 feet. She was down to only the ankle joint on one hind leg. He made the mistake of trying to scrape her off on a bush, and I was finally able to corral him. I put him out of his misery and sat back to recover.

Hope ate her tidbits and I gave her a front leg off her last kill. She retired to eat it, while I bagged the rabbit.

At the top of the picture you can see my T perch. I am standing where the chase ended. I will not longer take any pictures of a live rabbit. Lesson learned.

Dec 11- # 28

I spent yesterday trying to find a way to mount my Virb video camera somewhere that it would produce a better video. On my head is fine except that it jerks all over with every movement of my head. The Virb does not have the same mount that is on the Drift, so I had to invent a way to secure it in a level mode.  I eventually took a Bino strap that fits over the head and arms to hold your bino's tight against your chest. I made a little cup that I could secure the camera in, put a 90 degree brace on it, and then pop riveted it on to the leather part that keeps the straps together. I also put a piece of lexan on the back to keep the camera from wobbling. I wear the bino straps backward. Not the best, but better than what I have been doing. The Virb is a much clearer camera than my Drift.

If you remember on my hunt around the house in the snow, I only jumped perhaps 4 or 5 Jacks.

  However this is my lawn. Those little spots are not M&M's. The Jacks come in here from miles around to feed on my lawn, and leave their fertilizer behind as payment. Perhaps I should consider hunting at night with lights.

Last night was warm, and it was 22 degrees this morning, so I left Hope out in the weathering area to spend the night. She called to me every time she saw me yesterday when I knew full well that she was over 1000 grams.

As you can see the snow went pretty quickly, leaving very soft ground behind. I wanted to explore the last area that I had hunted, and see if there was a good huntable population of Jacks further out the fence. The area to the left of the picture is where I have been hunting. The area at the end of the light brown spot in the distance is where I wanted to hunt first.

 It was still under 30 degrees so I felt that I could make at least one more trip out there in the car before I started tearing up the road. The ground here gets pretty queasy very quick. The last thing I need is to mess up the back roads around here.

I did manage to get where I wanted to go only sinking about an inch or so into the ground, but it was so squirrely that I will not do that again until the ground freezes solid.

I went past the area that she killed the last time so that I could have the sun and wind at my back. The wind had come up to about 10 MPH, which is almost too much to hunt successfully, at least with Hope.

We got a few chases, but all were way off and there really wasn't all that many. I was very disappointed, but the ground was greasy and Jacks don't like mud between their toes any more than we do, so I really wasn't all that surprised. I had expected higher more solid ground, but it was all greasy as could be.

I made a large circle back to the car without getting any slips that she had a reasonable chance at. I decided to go back to the upwind side of where I normally hunted.

She finally got a nice close slip on a Jack. He tried to turn inside of her, but she used the wind and towered up about 20 feet, and let the wind turn her. The Jack reversed direction but it was too late and she crashed into him about 20 feet in front of me. When I got there he was trying to climb up out of the Grease Wood bush. I started to reach into the bush to get him, but stopped when her foot lanced up through the bush to grab him in the face.They then fell out of the bush and I went around to grab his feet. I then killed him by stretching him until his neck broke. I will warn you that I did not mute his cries, so if you have never heard the "death song" of a Jack in the clutches of a Hawk, it may give you pause.

When he stopped twitching, I gave Hope her tidbits, then a front leg to eat. She stepped off with it, and ate while I gathered my stuff up. When I offered my fist she came to me and we walked back to the truck.

While Hope is still trying every rabbit that she can see, rather than hunting smart and only flying at those that she has a chance to catch. She has surprised me by learning very fast that Jacks caught in the butt are very hard to hold. Its always tough for most Hawks to learn that the secret to keeping a bucking and kicking Jack is to grab it as far forward as you can. Hope has only lost 3 or 4 Jacks total this year, and many of the ones that she catches, only have wounds in the forward part of the body. I don't recall any Hawk that I have trained, has learned that lesson so quickly.

The only injury to this Jack is this cut on his side. As you can see it goes all the way into the chest cavity. There was also some discussion with other falconers of the survival rate of rabbits that have been caught by a Hawk. I don't think "catch and release" would work that well with Hope.

While I am sure that some of the trauma to this rabbits neck was due to me, but not all of it and the bulging eye is not because of me.

This is likely the last video that I will do for some time, so enjoy. I did not narrate this one as it was done while we were hunting. The wind was a bit over 10 MPH, and was quite noisy.

https://vimeo.com/195223908  password  owyheeflyer