Dec 2nd, 2019

As I am sure you are aware, November closed out with some genuine winter. Our morning temps had been in the mid 20's. I woke up Friday the 29th with the nagging feeling that I had misjudged something important. I went to the dining room to check the outside temps and the thermometer read 3.8 degrees below zero. Holy crap! I hurried out to see how Hope was doing, and even though it was dark, she was talking to me. I picked her up and took her inside the shop. She was shaking from the cold, but alright. I turned on the heat to the shop and got her some hot meat that I had soaked in hot water, to warm her from the inside as well.

I always watch the Boise weather before I go to bed and they had said nothing about a cold snap. I counted myself lucky that she wasn't hypothermic. Harris hawks are not suited to Northern climes. They do not have any down to keep them warm.

So it snowed a bit over Friday and Saturday, and put down another couple of inches this morning. I was pretty sure that Hope wan't going to hunt in the snow, but I decided to give it another try, to see if she would.

She sure wanted to be fed, so I weighed her and she was within the weight that she had been hunting, so I cut some meat and went to get her. I started out to the gate to see if we could find some of the Jacks that live here. She started towards the gate, then changed her mind and circled back to the  tee perch.   Then flew to the gate post. I opened the gate and tossed some tidbits down into the snow. She flew down but seemed confused as to where the tidbits could have gone. She eventually found it after several more were tossed down. It was covered with snow, and she flicked it off like she didn't know what it was. I began walking up the road, she flew back to the Motor home. I called her, flicked some more tidbits, got her on the tee and she promptly went back to the Motor Home. I called it a day.

This afternoon my neighbor, down on the Whitehorse road called and asked me if I wanted any Jack Rabbits, as they were ganging up on his feed yard. I had hunted his property at least twice this year and walked my butt off trying to find enough Jacks to hunt. He had been telling me that there were some Jacks there, but we had a hard time finding any when the weather was good. I had told him then that Jacks would travel great distances for food, but their home territory was only about 2 acres. Snow changes the population density around hay stacks by a staggering amount.

I have nowhere near enough Rabbits to feed two Hawks till next Sept, so I grabbed my 22 and drove down there. There is about 4 inches of snow on the ground and the tracks were unbelievable. I parked in his stack yard and waited for them to come to dinner.

I brought home 23 Jacks. That is food enough for 11 weeks, so if the snow holds, I will try to make another trip or two. In case you are wondering they are all "headshot", and I used a solid bullet.
So the heads get tossed and there is no lead in any of the rest of the body.