Day four since last kill.

I can list on one hand the number of times that I have fed Hope when she failed to kill. That is in the three years that I have had her. The times when I did she was low enough in weight as to not be able to catch a Jack. My memory is the shortest part of me by just a little, but it seems to me to have occurred no more than twice, and they were when I was starting her.

Raptors make a living by being able to correctly discern weakness in prey and there is plenty of evidence that weakness in handlers is also easily discernible. To be able to take that hard line with a Raptor you must be able to produce enough situations that the raptor could have caught prey if it had tried hard enough. I can do that. I have the luxury to be retired, and still be vigorous enough to walk how ever long it takes to be able to do that. If I see that the hawk isn't trying its best. I can sit down long enough that the hawk gets impatient with me doing nothing. If it doesn't pick up its game, I will take it home to try again tomorrow.

I rarely call my hawks, and I rarely "tidbit" them. If they don't want to come back to me. I sit down. If they continue to ignore me, I will call them back and take them home. If you apply your intellect to see what your hawk is thinking and doing you can produce a raptor that is a superior, more efficient hunter. You can bet that same Raptor isn't going to be screwing around if it was on its own. There is no reason for it to do so when it hunts with you.

When I brought Hope home yesterday, I had to almost scrape her off my fist and onto her perch. She wanted fed. I left her in the shop last night as the temps in the morning had been 7 degrees. That's a bit too cold for her light clothing. She was raring to go this morning and weighing in at 934. This is still 50 grams more than what I consider to be her "flying weight". The definition of that term is: Maximum muscle, least amount of fat, and maximum hunger.

I drove to Jordan Valley to get some fuel and came back to a field that I sometimes hunt on Danner Rd. As I got her on my perch, I told her to not screw around as the wind was coming up.

We walked about 15 steps before a Jack busted in front of us about 20 yards. Hope slammed into the Sage, missed, got back up again and nailed him within 10 feet. The Jack was doing his best to pull out of Hopes grip, and the bush was so big that I eventually had to break my way through it to get to him. Hope had a limb in between her legs that they had broken off of the bush. I sometimes wonder how the hell she manages to do the stuff she does where she does it and still comes out with nothing broken.

Josie was trying really hard to get in on all this action, but I was afraid that Hope would let him go if she got too close. I managed to eventually catch him and break his neck. I was then able to lift both of them out of the bush and over to bare ground. This time I held the cup for her to eat out of, then give her a leg to finish on her own while I cleaned the Jack.

You can see the limb that I had to break to get them out.

I put the cup by the Jack, but she was still centered on him.

I guess I can hand feed her every once and a while.

After I cleaned the Jack, she came to me packing the remainder of the previous leg. I gave her a new one to work on and put her back into the box to do so in peace. So for her troubles she got two hind legs of Jack rabbit.

This one had the tape worm packet attached to the inside of its abdominal cavity just above the kidneys. As I have said before, all the Jacks from last year are either carrying Bot Flies or tape worms.

This flight took almost 10 minutes from the catch to back in the car.

There are circumstances sometimes beyond our control, no matter how hard one tries, sometimes the odds are against you. That is what occurred to Hope these last few days. She always tries her best and flies as hard and as far as she can see, to try to catch Jacks. She did in fact have her feet on 5 or more Jacks, but for one reason or another wasn't able to bring them to bag. Josie was one of those problems.

 Life for a Raptor is one of hard lessons. You don't kill, you don't eat. In the wild it is the beginning of the end of lots of their lives. If they miss often enough they get too weak to catch food, and depending on the species can die within a week. I can prevent it from going too far with Hope, but the lesson needs to be reinforced, lest she get lazy. She wasn't lazy this last week, she just hit a streak of smart Jacks, and bad luck. In the wild if she had not been able to change her grip from the butt to the head, she would have lost all of the rabbits that she caught. They out weigh her by more than three times. So I can change the odds of her success with my intervention, but she has to get her talons into their hide for me to help.

Recap of the last four days.

Tuesday I made a trip to Burns to help my friend Pat put a roof on the mews that we got from Sandy and Scott. We had finished one side of the mews but had to stop since we ran out of panels to do the other side. Of course in putting it back together it would not necessarily look at all like the original, as Pat's needs would be different. She had done the extra work and now needed to put a roof on what she had done.

I brought Hope with me since she now had a place to stay, and intended to meet Connie at the last place we had hunted on my earlier trip. I was anxious to hunt somewhere else, and give my spots some rest. Hope caught a Jack that made the mistake of trying to run in the open.

I returned home Wed. afternoon feeling pretty good. I had helped Pat, did some "honey Do's" for Connie, caught a Jack. Pretty hard to top.

Thursday I went to Arock to hunt. Here are some pictures of the area that I hunt.

We hunted for about 3.5 hours there. She caught three Jacks, and lost two of them on her own, and the last was assisted by my over eager Britt- Josie.  Her weight was 994 grams.

After resting for a bit, I went back to trying to figure out what was wrong with my hot tub. I finally found that the intake at the filter was totally blocked with calcium. Once I poked it out with an ice pick, the hot tub began working. The best news ever, I really need that tub in the cold weather. Especially after hunting for three hours in the lava rocks.

Today her weight was 943. It was 7 degrees this morning, and she spent the night outside in her weathering area. The hot tub was at 103 degrees. Yippee!

I waited until time to get the mail and took her,  without the dogs, (Josie was a bit gimpy today) along with me since I intended to hunt at the ranch today.

She grabbed a Jack on her first flight, but when I got there the Jack had made its escape. This field is all Grease Wood and really nasty. I have no idea how she keeps from being injured in this crap, just happy that it is so. We had several slips on Jacks, but it just never worked out all that well. I saw her make a "dive" from about 20 feet into the top of one, and bounced off. They are that tight.

Crooked Creek runs through this field. and of course lives up to its name, switching back on itself over and over again. This time of the year there are bunches of Ducks that rest on it throughout its length. Hope has never really had a chance to catch any feathered quarry, and I was interested in seeing what she would think of flushing Ducks. I actually got within "Harris Hawk range" of a mixed bunch of Ducks. They flushed, hope took off, did a wing over from about 15 feet and SPLASHED into the water with abandon. I ran over picturing her with a Mallard busily dragging her to a watery grave.  Instead I found a confused hawk standing in about 6 inches of water in the middle of the creek. I would like to believe otherwise, but I am sure that she saw her reflection in the water and thought it was a duck.

She soon dried and we went back to the pursuit of the willy Jackrabbit. She pulled hair on at least two other Jacks, and got so desperate that she began poking into dark places and trash that had round objects that might be Rabbits.

Again she went home hungry. That is one of the good things about her hunting with extra weight. I do not feed her if she doesn't kill. When she kills again, I will be able to feed her all she can stuff down her crop. Since she was so heavy I can do this without having to worry about her getting too low in condition. The leaner she is the faster she becomes.  Tonight I put her in the shop. She should be a bit more comfortable.

Back to "normal"

I finally caught one of the Chicken killers last night. Of course it was the half grown Raccoon rather than the adult, but she will come back sooner or later. Its a matter of time.

Winds were predicted  yesterday due to a low front moving through the area, so Connie and I got out a lot earlier than normal hoping to catch a Jack before it had a chance to develop its full force. Harris Hawks have a low wing loading and as such do not do well in wind. Hope had actually lost an ounce of weight all the way down to 974 grams.

It was already pretty windy here at the house and beginning to sprinkle a bit, so we headed out to Arock. Its a bit lower and protected by the surrounding hills, so I felt that we would have a chance to hunt in semi calm conditions for a while.

Hope was really hungry and was very impatient, flying forward to be closer to the dogs. She was also taking flights so far off, that I had difficulty seeing what she was doing and at the same time hoping that she wouldn't catch anything that far away, knowing that I would need resuscitation when I got to her, if I actually did get there.

No worries on that score, as I have said Jacks can make and carry out a good escape plan if they have even half a chance. We had covered about a mile or a bit more with close calls, and the wind was beginning to pick up to the point that I had to turn her into the wind with the perch so that she could at least stay on the perch. The Jacks were sticking pretty tight for the dogs, but would flush when we paused, thinking that they had been seen. Most of the time they were still able to evade Hope. Lucky for us this one did not.

This Jack had about a 50 yard head start on her. She made a shot at him, but he turned and she hit the ground. She got up again and gave chase, climbing to see him, then doing a wing over into the ground and the Jack. I heard a muffled grunt, but nothing else. I noticed that Josie had run to the spot that she disappeared, and then came back out. When I got about half way there, Josie joined me, to my surprise. I have been a bit worried about Josie's desire to grab the Jack. She is a Rat killer of commendable skills and accomplishment. I have been worried that she might just mistake Hope's toes for the Jack, but I am beginning to believe that I worried for nothing. I noticed when Hope was eating her tidbits, Josie walked a bit close to her, and Hope flapped her wing at Josie, who turned away at that signal. Apparently they have reached some sort of an understanding.

You can see that Hope has it by the face, and it is stretched out, pushing with its hind legs trying to get away. My first urge is to grab it, and get the legs off of Hope. I had to force myself to stop long enough to take a fuzzy picture.

Trying to break its neck. Thankfully Hope seems to know what I am doing and doesn't object or grab me while this is going on.

She has her cup of tidbits, and is waiting for her leg of reward.

We were a long way from the car and the wind was beginning to whip. I decided to see if I could get her to follow on her own, since the wind makes it tough to carry an eating hawk on the fist. I picked up all my stuff and walked off leaving her eating on a front leg.

We had walked about 50 yards, when she began following along.

I have to commend her, its tough to fly with a rabbits foot blocking your vision.

At this point I decided to carry her, so gave her another front leg.

Since I am building a stock pile for the off season, I began preparing the Jack for the freezer, when I notice a bump on the side of the Jacks leg.

This is the final stage of the Dog Tape Worm of which Jacks are an unwilling carrier. They eat the tape worm after it has been passed from the Coyote, it bores out of the stomach and forms a pocket in the muscle. It is harmless to a Raptor, but I cut and clean all the eggs out.

I am quite sure that it affected his ability to evade Hope, but that's OK, and I am sure part of the plan. I can't imagine having that kind of growth on your leg, and in your joints.