Our fly-in is again finished and with Covid as well as smoke from the forests burning both in Oregon and California blocking out the sun, it was a smaller one than normal. We brave souls that attended still had a great time. After it was over I had enough leftovers to last me and the unfortunate souls that were still here, for a week.
In truth I have been much too busy to write anything in the blog. I just gave up and had a good time without thinking of anyone other than those in my immediate area.
I have been trying to get Hope in shape for another year of rabbit hunting. So far she has caught a young of the year Jack, and today a full grown Jack that was taken from her by "sweet little Josie" trying to help. Connie and I put in 2.5 miles this morning here around the house. Hope is still more than a little out of shape and a bit chunky as well, but she is still trying. Hope had just missed a Jack out in the open at the top of the hill, and returned to the tee perch. She flashed off the perch and slammed down in to the ground. I had seen a little blur just before she hit the ground and I thought that it might have been a bunny. When I got there I could see that she was at the edge of a Kangaroo Rat colony. She stood up looking at her feet, and realized that she had missed. As you can see she is peering down the tunnel where he disappeared.
Connie and I hunted the flats between the house and the road, where Hope had four or five chases, then up over the hill to the gravel pit, back down the hill to the end of the runway, where she finally caught a nice Jack on the other side of the fence. Josie went rushing in before I could get there and tried to bite the Rabbit, and I suspect that Hope turned it loose rather than wait to see if she was going to get bitten as well. Unfortunately this means that the dogs get to stay home now.
After this we made our way back to the house. Hope did get at least one more slip before we got home, but it too was decided in the Rabbits favor. I turned Hope loose in her mews to think about things.
As evening approached and after dinner for us, I picked her up again and we went to the road down by the airport that my friend Glenn Smith had told me about seeing a lot of Jacks when he was Antelope hunting a few years ago. I had looked at one section of it and found very little sign or Rabbits, but I was close to the Hwy when I did my survey. After I killed my Antelope on down that same road this year, I saw a fair number of Jacks crossing the road in the late evenings. I decided that I had perhaps searched the wrong area of the road, so Connie and I went down there again to try a bit further up the road. I found that there was lots of sign- rabbit cuttings and droppings, but the area was choked with old tumble weeds from years past. Connie followed along parallel to the road while I did the foot work. We did jump a number of Jacks, but the Sage was pretty thick, and while we had a few flights that were not successful and the wind was picking up to the point that it was pretty useless to continue. She only managed to catch a couple of Lizards for all her troubles.
We went back to the car and drove home again. When we arrived at the gravel pit, I again got out with Hope and walked down the hill. She got one more shot at a Jack, but he ducked her attack and we were done for the day. I checked my phone for the number of steps and found that I had walked 11410 or 5 miles yesterday hawking.
This morning I decided to go back there to the airport again and move a bit further back up the hill. Connie was due to go home, so it was just Hope and myself. Again the tumble weeds were a mess, but I was still seeing a good trail in the brush, so I kept on going further off the road, hoping that I could find some more positive signs of a good population. Finally a Jack jumped and Hope took off in pursuit. She followed low over the Sage and then pounded down on the ground. I waited for some sound to indicate that she might have caught it, but heard nothing. Her particular style of pursuit is low level direct flight. She does not pick her spot such as when it is close to clearing the obstacles, its just slam into what ever is there and hope that she can punch through, so she is not as effective as she could be.
This time even though there were no screams, she did not jump up on the surrounding brush. I began to hope that she might have actually caught him, but decided if there was no dust or screams she had either missed or he was unable to do anything about it. I was very pleased to see that the latter was indeed the case.
One would think that after all this time, three days without eating, (She still weighed 930 grams, two ounces over her first year flying weight) and about 6 or 7 miles of walking that she would be pretty protective over this one, but I killed the Jack, gave her her cup of tidbits, then a front leg from an earlier kill, and she stepped off without a fuss, and I was able to clean the Jack as well as get a hind leg for her later consumption.
This time I walked only 1822 steps a mere .83 miles, and we were done for at least two days.
Unfortunately it appears that this year as well will be a bit skimpy for prey items. It would be nice to have more Jacks, but if I have to keep walking that much to be able to catch something, I will at least be in good shape when I die of old age. :-)
Glad to hear that you had a good time "without thinking of anyone other than those in my immediate area". That's how it should have been....
ReplyDeleteDo you use the Jacks for your own food? When I was young, I would hunt with my dad in the winter. We would get rabbits, and large squirrel. Dad would take them to the basement, skin the catch, and Mom fixed it for dinner. Good food !!!
Glad you're back on the blog, and glad you had a good time during the fly-in.