Her last flight was about November 17th. I noticed that she was a little gimpy, then the foot began swelling. There was nothing visible, just swelling. I decided that it was a Stone Bruise and there was nothing to be gained by taking her to the vets, so I treated it as best as I could, mostly antibiotics driven in with DMSO. There is little blood flow in their feet and it is one of the hardest things to treat.
I kept her in for a long time, cutting off her cuff on that side. I then turned her loose in the weathering area for the rest of the hunting season as well as the winter. She favored it for quite a long time. It appeared to me that her ability to open it to grab something was quite a bit reduced. It eventually got to where she would grab her food with it and sometimes dropped it when she would try to take it to her perch. She however began to stand on it and the swelling has gone down completely. I wondered if she was going to be able to hold a fighting Jack Rabbit.
I began cutting her feed supply the middle of August, and it seemed as if she had suffered a brain injury and totally forgot where her food came from. It took more than a week and half of nothing to eat before she regained her memory and came to me for food. The only thing that I could notice about her foot was that she seemed to have difficulty opening it completely.
I had several Jacks and Bunnies taking advantage of the grass in the yard, so I knew that at least some of them survived the winter. When I began taking her hunting here around the house I could only find four of them and no Bunnies. Of course she was as flabby and out of shape as I am and the four that we did find were too cagey to be caught. I hunted here around the house for at least three times not ever finding more than 3 or 4 rabbits no matter how much we walked. Connie and I went to Arock to my "go to" spot and found that the dead grass was almost knee high and there was almost no Rabbit trails in any of it. You can tell the populations by the small little beaten paths in it. They are about 5 inches wide and are quite noticeable. We walked better than 3 miles that day and had 7 flights that she of course missed. With all the high cover and her weak muscles it was more of an exercise routine than hunting. Her memory had of course returned and was as good as she had ever been.
My friend Pat came down with Chilli ( another Harris Hawk, new to her ) to hunt this last weekend. She had been anticipating this trip for a long time. Unfortunately Chilli jammed a feather that was just coming in and still in the blood, and her wing hurt too much for her to be able to hunt. I had chosen to fly at another of my honey holes, that have always produced Jacks, but it too did not have any stupid Jacks in the few survivors that we found in 3 hours of tromping. I did not feed Hope anything more than the tidbits used that day. She had started the day at 927.
This morning she was 912 when I picked her up. Pat and I went back out to give it another shot. This time I tried another one of the great spots in the past years, and managed to jump one Jack. We changed to another field, that has shoulder high Sage in it. We jumped 3 Jacks and Brick, my Brittany even actually went on point. When I walked up to the bush, out came a Pygmy Rabbit that streaked out and promptly went down a hole. I was so pleased that I gave him a treat when we got home. Normally when a Rabbit notices that they have been seen, they bust and run. This one stayed long enough for the dog to point him.
After walking that field we went back to the one that Connie and I had hunted on Thursday. Pat and I had only walked about 50 yards when a Jack lost his nerve and broke to the right. We were close enough that he didn't have time to formulate a plan, and stayed in the open a bit too long.
If you look closely you can see that the right foot didn't totally open up and is barely sticking in the Rabbits head. The other however is strong enough to hold the Jack. I thought that she had grabbed one on Thursday, but it was over on the other side of a lava hump and I only heard what I thought was a short squeal. and she was sitting on a bush when I could eventually see her. So time will tell how much she is hampered by the foot, but it is also obvious that she is still capable of catching Jacks. She will just have to sharpen her aim.
This is the third year of bleak numbers of Jacks. It will be difficult to say the least, but we will give it our best shot.
Hope is beautiful
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