Dec 12th

 I have been "exclaiming" about the rarity of Hope's attitude and willingness to hunt at any weight for some time. Apparently I neglected to explained why that is so "amazing". I was asked recently why Hope was reluctant to get on the fist in the new mews. I hope the answer below will clear some of that up. Unfortunately by using "copy and Paste" the formatting has changed, so this one will not be the normal appearance that you are used to. Too tired to figure it out.

Hawks get used to a routine. If you change it up, they become cautious. Jessie would not stop screaming at me if I changed hats.- Cowboy hat-- ball cap. With Hope - an open enclosure- to a dark room with a little window to fly through.

Most raptors do not hunt when they are above a certain body weight- which is different for each Hawk. Most generally that weight would not be more than 10 percent above a zero fat condition. Hope's zero fat condition weight is 870 grams. Thus her ideal hunting weight should be somewhere between 870 and with a top response weight of about 950. Generally when a Raptor gets close to their top weight, they began to get independent and start screwing off.- not taking the hard shots- getting very selective about what they chase, and just generally showing a reluctance to put out any real effort to actually catch something. I look at it as a "checks and balance system". By not hunting when they are not actually hungry, the prey supply is only used to satisfy their hunger and nothing is wasted. Weasels kill for fun, Hawks for necessity. Great Horned owls will often get into a pigeon coop and kill everything in there, Hawks generally do not. Of interest to me is that Great Horned Owls are reputed to be one of the only raptors to have to relocate due to having wiped out their prey base.

Harris hawks are different from all other raptors in that they are a "social" raptor that will form social bonds with others of their own kind. The young of last year will often help raise the next year's clutch. They will cooperatively assist other Harris's catch food that they have little to no interest in eating themselves. The last time that Hope killed she weighed 1042 grams. That is an unbelievably heavy weight for a bird of her size to want to hunt. She could go for probably five or more days without eating before she would be getting to the point that it would be absolutely necessary to eat something. Harris Hawks like to hunt, and therefore under the right conditions will continue to hunt long after their hunger is satisfied.

So when I stuck her in a strange place, and then try to call her to me, it is perfectly natural for her to be very cautious and indicate to me that she isn't hungry enough to go hunting. Yet when I eventually do get her on the fist, by "hook or crook", nothing changes about her hunting style or result. She still wants to hunt. She just doesn't need to! If she was actually hungry, she would be hanging on the wire and on the fist as soon as it was presented.

Today is her normal hunting day. I hunt every other day, and when she kills she gets almost all she can eat. I could hunt her every day, most people do. If I did I would have to regulate how much she gets to eat. That would change her whole attitude about me and hunting. The important part is that her crop is empty, so a snack is not out of the question. This way, the hunts are the best thing that ever happens to her. It eliminates one aspect for her and that is the need to regulate her weight. Now, the only element that regulates her success rate is if she is trim enough to make the twists and turns necessary to bring a healthy Jack rabbit to bag. If she doesn't kill, she doesn't eat, and we would hunt the next day until she did kill. This to me is what Falconry is intended to be, a contest between two species at the top of their game. Its not fun if its too easy. Right now the Jacks that are still out there have been winnowed down to the point that there are little to none left that are dumb, slow, or just plain unlucky. Every thing is trying to eat them, Eagles, Hawks, Coyotes and Bobcats. They are athletes that are exceedingly smart and tricky. I noticed today that all the Jacks that I jumped did so after the Dogs had gone by, and I was past them before they jumped out to make a run for it. They are masters of "body language", and they can tell if they have been spotted. If I pause every 20 yards or so, they don't know if I saw them or not, and they will break cover. They always run into the wind and uphill if there is any chance to do so. Twists and turns that would make you dizzy. Their intelligence and ability to survive are pretty impressive. She doesn't catch them all, but today she managed to catch the 5th one that jumped.

She was a little better today when I went out to get her. I suspect that she is a bit lighter in weight. I didn't weigh her when I did get her on the fist. We just went hunting. The Cows are now all over the place here, and a brief "stampede" gave us our first opportunity. The Jack dazzled Hope with his foot work and disappeared through the Sage.

My driveway goes along the top of a hill and meanders down to about 150- 200 feet below the ridge line. There is an Alkali flat on the other side of the hill with a couple of acres of Sage down by the creek. I had never hunted it, but I could see Rabbit trails headed that way. Today I determined that I would see if there was a little group over there that I had not molested as of yet. The answer is " not so much". I jumped two Jacks on a hike that was pretty darn steep with little to show for it.

I decided to cross back over and go on the other side of the runway. As we topped over the hill, Hope thought she had seen something and flew in a long circle down over the hill and made a circle down about 300 yards by some Cattle. As she started back, a Jack lost his nerve and broke cover. Both of the dogs had gone by him, but my stopping near him, spooked him and he lost his nerve. He ran down the hill as Hope started back up. I think he hadn't seen her at first, but he soon did, and took evasive action. He made about four laps in a 10 foot circle with the talons just fractions behind his butt, eventually stalling her out long enough for him to beat feet to the bottom of the hill. I laughed out loud at poor Hope, standing there watching him go. She was too tired to chase him any more.

I crossed another fence and started for the second when a Jack jumped again after the dogs had gone by, but this time she was rested and pissed as well. He didn't make it.

I hope that I have cleared this subject up finally, if not ask and I will try again.

The weather is about to take a turn towards winter. I am going to try to keep hunting her as long as I can, at least until the Rabbits begin working on next years supply of new Rabbits. We will see what happens.

 

Dec. 10th

 Hope has been slowly breaking in to her new digs. She is a bit difficult to get out of the mews for what ever reason. She wants to get her tidbit, and then go on back to her outside perch. While I had her in the "weathering area" flying loose she was keeping her weight down. I can only guess that the mews is a lot warmer than the open weathering enclosure, because she isn't losing as much weight over night. The Hangar blocked the prevailing wind, but there was still some coming around ends of the building. I am also sure that a 20 foot heating cord wrapped around half of her 2x4 perch, puts out more heat than just a foot warmer. We have had night of 11 degrees and she is still not sitting on the heat side of her perch.

Tuesday I was going up to Burns to help Connie with her fireplace, so I decided to do a quick hunt here at the house, or rather backyard. The plan was to give her a turn of the back field and then feed her whether she killed or not. I had a hard time getting her out of the mews, and then found that she weighed 1071- 2 ounces more than when I put her in there. I was due to go to Boise the next day and I didn't want to leave her four days without eating, so I perversevered. 

After I weighed her I let her fly to the roof of the house while I went for her Tee perch. When I came back, I couldn't find her. Then I saw her :mantling" over something on the ground that looked a lot like a Rabbit. 

A couple of days ago I found a big pile of hair in the back yard. Not sure if you know it or not, but a cat will sometimes pluck the hair off their victim, prior to starting to eat. I was sure then that I had a Bobcat working the yard.

I believe that the " assumed Cat " had caught and killed this Jack and was interrupted by me letting the dogs out for their morning whiz. The Jack was still limber and not frozen in the 8 degree weather. It was missing the entire head,ears and all, and down to the shoulders. I admitted defeat and gave Hope a token amount, and put her back in the mews.

Yesterday Brick found a young Badger that apparently had designs on my hive of Bees out in front of the Cat house. In case you are wondering, there is no way for a Badger to catch a Jack Rabbit other than trapping it in a hole.  Prior to finding the Rabbit killed in the yard I had put out a trail cam to see if a Bobcat really was working the yard.  In the morning I discovered that there was 184 pictures of Jack Rabbits on it. After the Rabbit dead in the yard, I only got four pictures on the cam and they were all of me.

So today it was the third day after her last meal, and again she was evasive. I did snag one of her jesses and when weighed found that she was still 1041 grams. She isn't having as difficult time keeping warm in the Mews as I was worried about. I was happy that I had made the right choice in putting her out. Hopefully we won't have any minus temps this year. 

We went over to the other side of the ranch and seemed to be having a bit of a problem finding any rabbits. She did get two chases and though she tried hard, wasn't able to catch either one. She began hanging around where she last saw them and was able to wait them out and get another try at them.

I decided to try another area just over the hill that had been covered with Coyote traps. We met the trapper and he told me that he had pulled his traps, so we were clear to hunt since I had the dogs with me. 

We hunted an area that had previously held quite a few rabbits, finding almost nothing. I noticed a ribbon that he had used to mark the trap location with and I was curious as to how Brick would check it out. Without warning Hope bailed off the tee perch and down on the Jack that the guy had been using as bait. CRAP! I had to give her a much bigger chunk of meat than I wanted, to get her to leave the Jack. I stuffed him in my bag just to get him out of sight.

The attraction for this area is what is called the "Pothole field". It is an area of artesian pools that bubble up all over this field. The ground is either alkali, or dust, and the vegetation in the rough is Greasewood.

Finally one jumped up from just a few yards away and Hope caught him in 30 yards. 5.2 miles today. Man I need that Hot tub! 

Dec 6th

 The temps have been steadily dropping and I am a bit concerned as to how much cold weather she can handle. Of course she is much heavier than a normal flying weight and that helps, fat converts to heat, but I still worry about her. I have been putting her in the shop at night, and she appears to my ever active imagination to suffer from a bit of a shock to her system when she goes outside in the morning. The Shop almost always stays very close to 32 degrees no matter how cold it gets. Wind and wind chill is the real problem with a Harris Hawk, and the "weathering area" gets a bit of it, but not a direct wind. I decided that I needed to change things a bit.

I intend to hunt much later in the season this year so I decided to use my Hawk mews as her winter house. She really hates to come to the fist to be put inside the shop, so it's better to keep her where she can be protected without all the extra handling.

 I blocked the West facing window, from whence the winds almost always come from. I got a long heating cord and wrapped half of her perch with it, leaving half with no heat, in case it was too hot for her. That way she can get as much or as little heat as she needs. So far I have never seen her on the heated half, but it is there if she needs it.

Her suite is the one in the middle.

After our last hunt on the 3rd, I put her in the shop for the night. The nights were getting down to 7 or 8 degrees. I weighed her when I transferred her to the mews and she weighed 1071. So I deducted that by putting her in the shop where she didn't need to burn that many calories to keep warm was going to change our weight regime. When I was leaving her outside at night, she was holding pretty steady at 1021 grams, no matter what I fed her.

Saturday was supposed to be her regular flying day, but when I went to pick her up, she wouldn't stay on the fist long enough for me to get one of her jesses. She was obviously too fat to hunt. I tried her several times during the day, but she refused to hang around long enough for me to take her outside. The change in her housing had her a bit confused, but the fact remained that she just wasn't hungry enough to hang around long enough to go hunting. I checked on her a couple of times during the day to make sure she was OK, and on one of my trips out there, I couldn't see her, so I started in to see where she was. She flew up to the perch from the ground by the door. Then I remembered that there was a Mouse or a Rat hole gnawed in the corner that went into the other mews. I think the mouse population is in trouble. It was obvious from some debris on one of the perches that she had been scrounging around on the floor. Perhaps that was the source of her recent weight problem.

We had a warm front coming in and the temperature last night was only 22 degrees. I got everything ready around noon to go hunting. She was much more willing to stay with me this time. Three days without food does much for her ability to focus. Her weight today was back to 1021.

Today I went to an area that I had only hunted once this year. Its not very big at all and it varies from Sage to Greasewood, then to pasture. We had one pretty intense flight in the Sage, where she took four shots at him barely missing by inches before she quit trying. I really wasn't seeing that many Jacks in the Sage, so I went to the area that the greasewood was the prevailing cover, not finding much there either.  I then decided to hunt the edge of the pasture. To all appearances there was nothing there for a Jack to hide, but quite often they choose such spots when the heavy cover is hunted too often. The advantage of that type of cover is that they tend to wait until they have no choice but to flush because of your proximity to them. I had guessed right this time and one flushed about 15 yards to our right and she burned him down in 20 feet. Its actually pretty rare to be able to see the entire flight, it mostly takes place far enough away that the only indication is the Jacks death scream when she finally grabs them.  

I won't be hunting tuesday as I normally would and it is time for her to have a casting, so I gave her the head to eat when I put her back in the mews. That should hold her over for a few days.

"Castings" consists of hair, bones, and other nondigestible stuff that cleans the crop, and is regurgitated the next day. Raptors store the meat from their prey in their crop until the stomach is empty, they will then force it into their stomach to digest. The things that are not digestible serve to clean their crop when it is "cast " up the next day. In the normal course of events in the wild, they will cast every morning before they hunt for another meal. In captivity their food consists of raw meat with little to no wastage. Therefore it is necessary to make sure that they have enough "castings" on a regular basis to maintain their health. Since she does not feed on the actual kill, the food that she gets rarely has hair in it. Therefore I have to give her something that does have casting material in it. I prefer to "gorge" her once a week and the casting can be incorporated in that meal. I have found that the Jack's head is quite nutritious and serves that purpose. All the bones also serve to keep her beak from growing too long as well.