Things are looking up!

 Yesterday would have been my normal day to hunt, but it appeared that as usual I was a little too liberal with her last meal and she tipped the scales at 970 grams. About 2 ounces over the last time she flew.  Too early in the year for that to be a viable hunting weight. I decided to just stroll around the Sage here at the house for a bit, because I was sure that while she tried to convince me that she was starving, investing in a lot of fuel to go somewhere else would be a waste of time, and fuel. Sure enough she had three good chances to catch one of my local Jacks, but she just wasn't putting her heart into bringing one to the bag. So she got to spend the rest of the day thinking about what could have been.

I am not sure if I have adequately explained the effect of weight on desire to hunt, so here goes again. In a nutshell the effect of weight- too much or too little, causes the same result. Too much and they don't need to hunt, However a good Hawk will try when it is too heavy (  "Fat" ) Just not all that hard. Easy "gimme" type, sure. However they will not really put forth all that much effort.    Not enough weight, (low) - the Hawk is too weak to expend the effort required to catch and hold quarry. With some Raptors the "weight range" can be as much as 2 ounces, or as little as 1/4 ounce. The goal is to have the Hawk in peak physical condition. The term is "Sharp Set", where-in the Raptor is all muscle, and ravenous to eat something. The real key of course is to have a Hawk that wants to hunt.

This morning she weighed in at 940 grams, and was quite anxious to get to me. I had an area that I wanted to check for viable populations of Jacks. I am having problems finding a good area this year. There are a few in most places, just not in any numbers, and all the areas that I checked this morning not even that. It is funny to me that the Fish and Wildlife call this area the "Sage Brush Sea", to all appearances it is all the same, yet Jacks congregate in some areas, and cannot be found in, to the eye, the same type of place. At least I am not smart enough to see areas the same way as the Jack Rabbit do.

We walked three areas this morning without seeing even one Jack, I looked at three others without her and could find nothing. I decided to come back to the house and go over to the ranch next door to hunt a area of Grease wood by the creek that does hold 4 or 5 Jacks.

Where yesterday she was pretty casual, today she was champing at the bit, flying ahead of me to try to find something to chase. Finally we jumped a Jack right in front of us and she was slamming and banging into the ground about 4 times before he gave her the slip. She was pressing him so hard that he tried to hide, but I saw where he stopped. I called her to me and we got him up again, and she again made about 4 shots at him, slamming into the ground and back up in the air to do the same again. We jumped him four times and she made at least 10 shots at him. The only thing that saved his butt was that we bumped a new one, and began the whole thing over again allowing him to slip off to the side.

In the meantime the new victim was one that we had run before and I knew the tactic that he had used in the past to make his escape. He hung around the creek and in the past when she had made her first shot at him, he would sneak back out to the point where the creek curved back on to itself, hiding in the large Greasewood bushes there. I called her back to me and began advancing on the point where I last saw him. He tried to break by on the left side, but she cut him off, keeping her altitude of about 10 feet over the brush. She crashed into the ground and grabbed him in the butt in one of the biggest and thickest Greasewood bushes in the area. I went to the noise and could see his head in the bush. I grabbed it, but there was no way to get Hope out of there, so I broke his neck, and began trying to find a way to get them out of the bush. There was no way to get her out as she was lying on her back with her wings all over the place, so I gave her a chunk of meat to eat, and when she stood up to do so I pulled the Jack on through, bagged him and went back on the other side to wait for her to come out on her own. Which she did after she finished her chunk of meat. I gave her the rest of her meal as we made our way to the car. I wasn't able to get any pictures, too thick, too busy.

I was surprised at her hunting today. She was thinking instead of reacting. Just what I have been hoping that she would do. It made all the difference in the world in how she flew and how successful we were. 3.3 miles today.

Tuesday 29th Sept.

 Things are beginning to come together with Hope and our reintroduction to hunting this year. Its always a bit of a struggle to reestablish our hunting relationship, and to build enough muscle to be able to catch Jack Rabbits. I tend to feed with abandon during the molt and thus they build up quite a fat reserve as well as independence. Once I get her to the point that she is coming to me for food again, she drops right back into our normal relationship. All that is left is to get back her strength so that she has a chance to catch one of these guy's. I have mentioned many times my admiration for Jack Rabbits, their ability to survive when every thing on the planet wants to catch and eat them. They can run up to 45 MPH, twist, jump, and turn inside of almost every predator out there. They are smart enough to be able to think of a plan for escape. They will use fences in the hopes that the winged predators get caught up in the wires. They will swim if they have to, and they will leave a less savvy hawk sitting on the ground wondering- "where did it go".

Today Hope showed me that she is getting there, in ability and even attempted a bit of thinking, which paid off handsomely with enough food in her feet to last another couple of days.

Hope was allowed to eat Sunday after three days of lots of hunting and no catching- thus no eating either. It all began on Friday. I hunted at Arock and we put in two miles with a good number of slips at Jacks and Bunnies all to no avail. Her weight that day was 925 grams. She kept doing the same thing over and over that mostly consisted of crashing into the brush where they had been, rather than where they actually were. We went home with no food other than the occasional tidbit. Saturday I decided to hunt here as there are just as many here as at Arock. Again I put in two miles, and we had lots of slips and she managed to miss all of them. Again- no food! Sunday I again took her to Arock, and we put in three miles this time. She had shots at Bunnies as well as Jacks and every thing out maneuvered her. I had decided that she again need to work a bit harder. Her weight was down to 910, but it seemed to me that she just wasn't thinking about what she was doing, so I headed back to the car to again go home empty handed. As we got almost to the car a Jack busted close and she caught him by the butt. I fed her a lot, all she could eat actually.

The butt catches are not a sure thing for her, especially after she hurt her foot a couple of seasons ago. For a long time she was only able to keep the ones that she caught by the head. It reduced our head count, but when she got her foot on one, she kept it. Last year she was better, and really didn't lose many at all. Her last two have been butt catches that she has held on till she could grab the head with her other foot. So it appears that she has recovered most of her use of the foot.

I didn't feed her Monday and decided to hunt here again, but this time hunt a lot further out rather than just around the house. I have about 7 or 8 Jacks that live within 1/4 mile of the house. I prefer to keep these for the days that I cannot drive somewhere else to hunt, so its in my interest to not unduly harass them to the point that they don't want to hang around here. Its very nice to have a spot that you can hunt when there is a storm blowing in. Sometime you only have minutes before the storm arrives, and its too late to drive somewhere. 

So as usual at this time of the year when I go out in my "hunting outfit" Hope is hanging on the wire trying to hurry me along. I put her on the scales and much to my chagrin, she weighed in at 948 grams. I had just starved her down to 910 and here she was a whole ounce heavier that I really wanted her. Sigh! That is one of the problems with being sentimental.

My frustration with her was ?caused? by having so many Jacks available her first year that she actually never developed a plan of attack that required anything more than a willingness to crash through the brush until she found one dumb enough to let her catch them. There were so many Jacks that she would sometimes have as many at 50 chances or flights at Jacks. Sooner or later one was going to screw up and she had her meal. In my zeal and wonderment as well as blissful over indulgence, I allowed her to just use brute force and repetition until one fell to her enthusiasm. I would have been much better off if I had limited her chances, and took her home after a certain number of tries. That would have encouraged her to do some thinking and planning rather than crash into the last spot that she saw one, hoping that he would still be there.

My normal guide as to how long I would allow a raptor to "waste my time" has always revolved around how hard they try. If the Hawk doesn't chase as hard as they are capable of, or turns down prey that gets up in front of us, I will almost always take them home to think about what could have been. The problem with Hope is that she doesn't slack off, she just does the same thing over and over. Its a bit harder to take her home empty handed when she is crashing the brush like she is clearing a fire break. However I should have. She hunts hard, when she should be hunting smart.

So anyway here she is a full ounce heavier than I wanted her, but the weather was good, no wind yet, although about 45 degrees. I decided I would see how she was going to do. Her recent success and full crop had her hanging on the wire as I walked out. No sooner had we cleared the yard when she whipped down towards the creek in hot pursuit of a Jack. He of course evaded her, jumping another Jack in the process that went out into the open field below the house. I noticed that she had no problem in flying up hill at a 45 degree angle to get to the tee perch. That was the first time she hadn't had to stop on the way to rest, so her condition was improving. She soon saw the Jack in the open and gave chase. He made it into the Sage prior to her arrival and she took several shots at him before I got there. I noticed that she made several moves to find the Jack in the heavy Sage and actually did make a couple of tries at him before I could get there. The cover was so heavy that she could see him occasionally, just not get a clear shot at him.

We walked on out into the Sage surrounding my  place and while she took several shots at the Quail that were running in the Sage, she did not pursue once they flew. As I neared a low hill a Jack broke cover, running up the hill. She gave chase and made a shot at him at the top. I saw two Jacks, one of which continued on over the hill, but she stayed on top of a Sage for a bit, then dove into the brush at her feet. A squeal announced her success.  I made my best time up there and she found that she had him by the butt. She was in the bush tangled up and he was doing his best to pull away from her. I got in front of him, and decided to try to grab him, ( this is where they generally get away) He turned toward her to avoid me, and she grabbed him in the face and of course then the fight was over. I put him out of his misery and she was waiting for her tin cup of tidbits. I found a chunk of back from her last kill and gave it to her. She stepped off to eat that leaving me the rabbit. ( that's one thing that I did right. She is a sweet heart about giving up her prey for ready to eat treats) I decided not to gut this one, since she had gotten impatient on the last one and caught me fumbling around. I took off a front leg and bagged the rest. 

I have to admit that I was surprised at our success today. I had expected her to be a bit sluggish, but she flew harder than she has so far this year. She also used her head for once. I would like to say that will be the case from now on, but I really doubt it. In retrospect I have given away birds that were too successful simply because there was nothing else to teach them and they became boring. Really, its stupid I know, I'm not all that bright either!