Dec 2nd

Sunrise, Dec 2nd

When I weighed Hope this morning she tipped the scales at 1063 grams. I decided to skip another day because she was so heavy. As the day wore on, it became obvious that tomorrow could well be a lot worse, especially the wind aspect. At 1:30 PM I gave up and started loading the car, thinking that at least we would get some exercise.

Karen agreed that we weren't in a hurry, so I detoured to check a spot that was fairly close to the house. There were  old faint trails in the grass, but the Dogs and I could not find anything at all. We moved on towards Rome and tried the area that we had killed a Jack and a Bunny. The dogs and I began going through the field. It looked good, but we only jumped one Jack. Hope tried to catch it, but the Jack was smarter. We found nothing else in the field, so we loaded up to go to Arock and our old standby.

 I reached into my bag to get a tidbit to put on the perch inside the hawk box, and found that I had none. Hope went exploring in the car and grabbed a foot full of the blanket that we put down for the dogs, hoping that there was red meat underneath all that cloth. I had to pinch off a piece of meat from the bunny front leg that I had reserved for her meal. This is the second time in a row that I didn't have any tidbits. The surprising part was that the little cup was as clean as if it had been washed. The first time, I decided that I had forgotten to get any, but I had cut some this time before leaving. Then the bulb went off. JOSIE! The little sneak had stuck her nose in my bag and cleaned up every thing that wasn't in plastic bags. Boy is she gonna be surprised the next time I hunt. She seems to have forgotten that the shock collar has more options than just a tone.

When we arrived at Arock, I changed up again and worked backward to the route that I had traveled before. The dogs put a Jack up down on the flat. Hope started after him. He stopped and jinked as she made a shot at him, got back in the air and tried again, but didn't make contact. I walked towards her and bumped another. She gave chase to it as well, but the Jack had such a start that it took her a long time to catch up. She missed him as well. She flew to the car. I walked on and she came to the perch.

I walked a little valley on one side going down, then turned and came back the other side. I had been pausing every 10 yards or so, or when a new vista opened for us. The dogs were working off to my left, Karen was on the little road that goes through the are just about 25 yards away. I stopped to watch the dogs and give them more time to cover the area. Hope flashed off the perch without warning and hit the ground about 8 yards ahead of me. At first I couldn't guess what she had grabbed, but then the bucking started and she had slammed a Jack that was hiding in a little bitty Sage bush. Not sure what she saw, but the Jack was still sitting when she hit him. She has always peered under each and every Sage that could hide a rabbit.

This one was another second year Jack. When I was skinning him I felt a mass in his abdomen. I pried it and the liver out. The liver looked good and healthy. this is the mass that I found.

Its obviously an egg sac

I have found these many times before in older Jacks, and I always assumed that they were tape worms. This is the first of them that were not under the skin. I have some inquiries out and will let you know what it was. The little white specs are the larva?

I asked a falconer- Scientist- Toby Bradshaw, ( you can be both) and this is his answer. - ( you can tell he is a scientist by the big words. :-)    All kidding aside, he is a great guy and a serious falconer.


"These are indeed larval tapeworms (metacestodes).  Rabbits are the intermediate host for the dog tapeworm (Taenia pisiformis).  The adult form of the tapeworm is only found in carnivores, which ingest the tapeworm larvae when they eat an infected rabbit.  The carnivore then expels egg-bearing tapeworm segments (proglottids) in the feces, the rabbit ingests the eggs from soil or vegetation, and the cycle continues."

When we had gotten home, we were putting things away and found that one of the little bucks that had been around earlier, had come back for what ever treats were in our yard, such as Apple Trees. I had pulled a bunch of weeds before the last fly-in and tossed them out in the field. Apparently an appetizer for him.

We ignored him for a bit, and then the next thing we know he is in the yard heading for the Apple trees. I sicced the dogs on him, but he came back again about dusk, and we had to do it again. Hopefully he will take the hint.

Nov 30

sunrise

The migration seems to be in full swing. Seeing lots of Prairie Falcons and the Eagles are coming into most of the areas that I hunt. The Jacks seem to be thinning out as well. We hunted in Danner this morning and we had a lot fewer slips than I am used to. Hope managed to catch a Bunny fairly early in the hunt. I gave her a Jack front leg, and kept on hunting. She had a few chases on Jacks, but couldn't make contact.

I was a bit surprised that she caught this one. I heard no scream from him at all. She had him by the head, so I guess that the best he could do was to hum. Its hard to scream with your mouth held shut. 

I went by Karen and the car and asked Karen to give the dogs some water. Hope thought that she might be giving out Rabbit steaks, so she got in line as well.

Catch and release, with a little help!

Sunrise this morning

Josie finally shamed me into getting out of my chair to go hunting this morning. She did so by standing on my chest and sticking her nose onto mine, thus finishing the process of waking me up from a morning nap. Dogs seem to have a highly developed sense of when it is time to go Hawking. At least Josie does. Its pretty hard to feign sleep when you are nose to nose with a dog that is standing on your chest. She was right it was time and the right day as well.

I decided to go to the top of the hill at Arock, and had just began a circle of the area before heading down, when the ranch manager drove up in his quad. He had come up to tell us that he had a set of "snares" set for Coyotes further out from where we were. It was very nice of him to go out of his way to tell us about them.

I invited him to join us for a hunt if he had the time. He thought it might be fun so we started back down the hill. I told him that Hope would likely only catch one out of 10 attempts on the Jacks, and really didn't tell him anything more, such as how to react if she did catch one. My mistake! We really hadn't gone very far when she zipped over a lava lump after a Jack, that she caught. He took off like a shot, leaving my fat old gasping ass behind.

He gave the Jack enough of a scare that he managed to tear himself loose, leaving a pile of hair behind. He was amazed at how Hope was crashing bushes and stuff in pursuit of these Jacks.

We went on, and had a couple of chases where in the Jacks managed to elude her. Then a close slip and Hope caught another one.

 He rushed up on that one as well, and it too tore away. I should have told him how to react when she caught one, but didn't for some reason. Possibly thinking that she was not grabbing them all that well, or even Not Thinking.

We went on a bit further and she again caught another Jack. This one he reached for and Hope just let it go, as she realized that she didn't know this guy. This time he understood what was happening, and apologized.

Hope this morning weighed 1014. About 5 or more ounces over her weight when I got her. Granted she is probably better muscled than most of the hunting Harris's out there, because she flies more. I can find her keel bone, but it isn't very prominent. The nice part is that she is starting to wise up to their tricks and escape maneuvers. She is making more contact, more often. They tend to be a bit more tenuous as a result, but that is OK. When I am by myself, our keeping rate is much higher. She is at least making contact. I normally do not feed her if she doesn't make a kill. Today she got her food, she earned it.

The wind began to come up as we were finishing. We have a "wind warning" for this afternoon. It is blowing at 34 MPH right now with a gust showing of 54 MPH. Timing is every thing.

Josie is under my desk, sleeping. I think I will wake her up.

Yesterday's Sun sets.