Falconry meet

Since Karen is a Director for Eastern Oregon, attending an Oregon Falconers meet in Madras Oregon was not an option for me. Quite frankly at first glance, I have outgrown this kind of foolishness. Its kind of an "old school" type of thing I guess, or my "curmudgeon" gene is out of control. Then I meet some of the young ones that just cannot wait for the day that they are old enough to take their falconry test. I personally would not have guessed it, but I seem to like giving what ever meager knowledge that I have gathered over the years. Maybe I just like an audience that is too young to know that I am full of it?

Like most journeys the possibility of problems always exist. The further north we went the worse the weather was. The weekend was forecast for rain and wind. Lots of wind!

I took both Jessie and Yogi with us even though neither was either willing or able to hunt yet. We did pretty good this time. The only thing that we ( I ) forgot was my electronic varmint call, and the thumb drive with the hawking videos that I wanted to show. I finally found a varmint call in Riley,Or. Our intention was to leave a day early and do a bit of night hunting for Coyotes around Bend,Or.

The wind and rain came up as we started on Hwy 20 East. I had Yogi in a Giant hood and Jessie was sitting unhooded on a portable perch on the bed of the fifth wheel. When we got to the spot that we were going to camp, I discovered that the "Escape window" by the bed had escaped somewhere along the road there. The window blinds were fairly seriously destroyed. I went in expecting to see a totally deranged Peregrine Falcon. Even though there was a lot of water all over the computer, TV and bed, Jessie just seemed to want to know if I had anything to eat.

It was still raining, and I was trying to get the fifth wheel set up. I closed the door to the truck and only later found that I had locked the keys in the truck. God, I love being an old fart. At one time my mind was as sharp as one gets, now it is just an adventure.

The key that I had hidden somewhere in the frame of the truck, either no longer exists, or I have forgotten where I hid it. Same result however. We did get lucky in that Karen had kept her phone in her pocket. We had a comfortable place to stay out of the rain while we waited for the AAA guy to unlock the truck. One good aspect of this misfortune was that I didn't have to worry about locking the keys in again, as Karen thoughtfully reminded me every time I got out of it.

It was simple to get into the truck. The guy just took a wedge, drove it into the top of the door, and then took a wire and pushed the unlock button. I am going to have to include a wedge in my camping stuff I guess.

I found that it did not matter that I had left my Varmint call at home, as there either were no Coyotes in that area, or I did not fool anyone with the call that I purchased at Riley.

The falconry meets are designed to give all the falconers in the state a chance to meet, hunt, and mingle. It is supposed to be accompanied by a business meeting as well.

Karen had gotten roped into hosting the meet although it was five and half hours away from us.( At one time I didn't mind the fact that she could never say no. Now it seems to be a bit different.) The club furnishes the main course for the evening dinner. We will normally have between 40 and 60 people attending. She asked me for ideas. This is the main fund raiser for the club for the year, so I suggested Burgers, and as a bonus I agreed to cook sourdough pancakes for breakfasts. So after we had made a trip to Costco to buy supplies, we went to Home Depot to buy some plastic and Gorilla tape. A half roll of tape later we were waterproof again.

A former apprentice brought his Harris hawk to the meet as well, so we went off to see if there were any Rabbits around. Yogi hunts well with other Harris's so that would give her some incentive to get with the program. We found an area that had not been overrun with other falconers, but the Sage was waist high and so thick that there were tunnels rather than trails. We did jump a couple of Jacks, and I swear that I heard a rabbit squeal for a short time after Yogi went in the cover after it. If so she lost it just as fast as she caught it. We went on for a bit, with Ron in the bottom of a little gully, and I had kept the high ground. His bird started a Bunny, but it cut back giving Yogi a chance at it. This squeal was short as well, but it only stopped because the Rabbit died just as fast as she touched it. That girl has some big strong toes. For a change Yogi got all the food that she could hold.

Our dinner went quite well. George Meadows, Tami's sisters husband, helped me with the grilling of hamburgers, and we had food on the table in short time. Everyone brought some item to accompany the meal, so we had lots, mostly in the form of Carbs, but what the heck- everyone needs a sugar high once and a while.

Our meet place was at the county fairgrounds, so we had a kitchen and a nice room for our meeting. They were also renting one of the other halls for a Mexican wedding reception, so along with colorful dresses, we had a whole passel of little kids running amok. I put Yogi in the giant hood and Jessie back in on the kitchen table for safety. I have a chunk of carpet that I use for her portable perch, and at night she goes on the table, and in transit she is on the bed. I apparently was in a hurry when I did so.

I do not know where this towel came from, but it went into the garbage after she finally gave it up. Bored hawks are a lot like bored kids. They generally find something to get into.

I had to give her a stuffed Bunny that we had found somewhere, to get the towel. I then gave her some Rabbit to eat in exchange for that. So in essence both of my birds got a Rabbit at the meet.

Oct 15- searching for game

I have spent three days looking at various parts of the Ranch next door trying to find a population of Jacks that I could hunt without having to drive to get to them. It can get a bit expensive here, with the scarcity of gas stations locally. Considering I would burn two gallons just coming home from filling up.  Not complaining you understand, just explaining. Anyway, it is obvious that I am going to have to travel to find game in populations high enough to make it worth the effort. I have also developed a bone spur on my right foot, so the higher the population of Rabbits, the less walking that I have to suffer through.

I made some calls this morning to re-establish contact with the Ranches that I have hunted on in the past, and loaded Yogi in the car to see what is actually there. I also put my Varmint calling gear in to see what the Coyote populations are where I want to hunt.

Yogi is down to 1045 grams, and seems to be ready enough to hunt. There is a patch of Lava owned by two different Ranches, that has had good populations in the past. I checked the first side and found that the rancher had put a very large bunch of Cows on it, so decided to go to the other side which is much more extensive.

We began jumping Rabbits within 80 yards of the car. Yogi acted as though she was going to catch one, but only if it made a serious mistake. Well Jacks do not voluntarily"slip the mortal coils of this life" quite that easily. In fact the darn things are downright hard to catch. After an extensive hike around several hundred acres of habitat, that seemed to hold a good number of Jack Rabbits, it became quite plain that Yogi was looking more for volunteers than victims.

Perhaps she thought that they came prepackaged. She showed a lot of interest in what this box might hold.

She didn't get all that much food, compared to the exercise that she got trying to see if anyone wanted to surrender. I will check her again Saturday to see if her enthusiasm for surviving has kicked in enough to try just a bit harder.

Once she was loaded I drove further out the ridge line to an area that should hold Coyotes, and set up my calling gear.

The Ranchers in this area hire a Helicopter each year to gun the Coyotes. They kill large number of them as you might imagine. There was also something else going on with the Coyotes, and one theory that I have heard was that Parvo played a large part in the die off of Coyotes. I do know that they were scarce every where that I hunted last year. Where you used to hear Coyotes calling from several different directions, there is almost total silence.

I called from my setup for about 30 minutes and saw nothing at all. Confirming to me that there is nothing to stop the Rabbit populations from booming in the next year or two.

Oct 14- progress

The weather is changing a bit. Beautiful sunrise's are one of the indicators that make the changes worth while. It also heralds the arrival of winds. That is good, for me at least. I need the wind to be able to exercise Jessie. The apparent scarcity of Helium handicaps her building muscle to be able to fly well enough that she will be able to catch the Ducks that will soon be legal to pursue. One cannot buy Helium any more, at least not without some serious coercion.  So if the wind blows, I can get a Kite high enough in the air to make her work to get high enough to be able to catch the lure.

If I just take her out and turn her loose, she will fly in a short circle and try to get me to toss her the lure. I don't like to "lure fly" her,  ( swinging the lure and keeping her from grabbing it, is a form of exercise) since what I really want her to do is to get as high in the air as she can. With a balloon or the kite I can make her climb as high as 800 feet to be able to get the lure. What makes a successful falcon on Ducks or any other game is the height that she will maintain over any game that we flush. The higher she flies, the more ground she can control. The speed of gravity is 120 MPH. The best speed a duck can manage is 60 MPH. Jessie pumps towards the ground, so her speed is multiplied. It is said that Peregrines can fly at 250 MPH. in a dive. The faster the closing speed the less the effectiveness of any evasive maneuvers. So for her to go up as high as she will is paramount to her success.

I first flew Yogi this morning over at the Ranch. She was finally down to a weight that made her a bit more amenable. I took her to the field that we had flown two years ago. It was lousy with Rabbits. That was then. Today I only found one Rabbit in the entire field. There was little to no sign on the ground that a Rabbit had even visited the area. However looking at the ground for sign has its rewards as well.

This one is a new one for me. It is made of "Chert". Very delicate material, and I was quite surprised that it was still in one piece. To my limited knowledge, it appears to not be "indigenous" to this area. Oh well, it brightened up my day. Most of the Indian bullets that I see here are pretty coarse and a lot smaller. What most would call small game or bird points, but I guess Rabbit points would be more accurate.

Yogi needed a refresher on the Lure, so the day wasn't a loss. I know where not to go, Yogi got some exercise, and now knows that the lure can hold some good stuff.

The wind came up more and more as the day wore on. It was finally hitting 17 MPH and a bit more. I drug out the kite anyway with some misgivings. I replaced the wooden crosspiece for the kite with a fiberglass one. Wind this hard will snap the crosspiece for the kite and makes a mess. The only thing that I needed to worry about now was whether the kite would be shredded by the wind.

Yesterday I put the kite up, had it baited, and went to get Jessie. The wind had been steady, but as soon as I took Jessie's hood off the wind died and Jessie flew out in a short circle and waited for it to hit the ground. ;-/  After she had taken the lure the wind came back up and lifted the kite nicely back to where it should have been. Sigh!

That was certainly not a possibility today. I put the bait up about a 100 feet, and went to get Jessie. I looked up before I went into the weathering area and discovered that the lure had torn away from the release clip and fallen to the ground. I went back and reeled it back in, refastened it and again went to get Jessie. The same thing happened again.

This time I decided to take Jessie with me, sit her on the quad that I was using for a kite holder, get it in the air and hopefully get her in the air before the wind whipped and snapped it loose from the release.

This time it stayed up, and Jessie, reveling in the wind, went for a good fly. She flew for about 10 minutes, mostly out of sight. She finally worked her way back and managed to grab the wildly dancing lure and brought it to the ground. A few more days like this and we can begin to build some muscle on the girl. Season opens this weekend, but she isn't ready yet.

Jessie's second day

Jessie is such a funny bird. I suppose that along with what she has been taught (sometimes inadvertently) along with the age she was taken from her mother, her behavior is a bit different from all the other Raptors that I have worked with. Most Raptors do not seem to have quite the personality that this one has. I can watch her as I approach her block and know that she is going to mess with my mind.

Above is the proof that she can be a serious and fierce hunter, but she has an independent streak in her a mile wide. She just can't help herself. This is our 10th year together, one would think that she would know the parameters by now.

Her serious flying weight is 870 grams. That translates to 30.5 oz. Big for a Tundra Peregrine. Most will hunt in the 26 oz range. When she killed the Goose above she weighed 32.5 oz. The weight range that raptors will still cooperate with their handlers is generally less than 1/2 oz. More than that and they have a tendency to not be serious and screw around rather than hunt. Attitude is the only thing that seems to work with Jessie.

This morning I went to get her and the routine go's like this. I wear my hawking vest that has all the stuff that I need, and she has seen it enough to know what it means. This morning she acted as though I was an intruder. I knew that she was hungry, since I did not feed her yesterday. She has been fed every morning for the last year, and she always meets me at the end of her leash to get her food. This morning she flew the other way when I began to reach down to pick her up. I let her go to the end of her perch, and gave her the opportunity to get on the fist and get fed. Nope! nothing doing. So I stand up and hang my glove back on the wall. Now she realizes that once again as has happened for 9 years, I am leaving and with me, goes her chance to eat, perhaps for the entire day. Now she wants me to pick her up, but of course that isn't going to happen. Like I said, she just can't help herself.

I came out later, no vest, no glove, but now she is begging forgiveness. Fat chance. I continue on to my exercise routine. I will feed her later in the day. Evenings are better anyway.

Finally around 4:30 PM I put on my vest and go into the weathering area. She is pumping her wings in anticipation. This time when I offer her my fist she steps up like a lady. I weigh her and find that she has dropped to 800 grams. She can go as low as 730, but I prefer not to. Weight is strength and calories is muscle. She needs all she can get, but we need to go through this dance every so often for some reason.

This time I am introducing our new dog, Brick, to the equation. We got him this spring and he is new to hawking. He is very obedient, and will learn very quickly what this is all about and how much fun it can be. Jessie has accepted him as ours, but being careful is warranted.

Its quite hot and it doesn't take Jessie long to decide that the lure is the place to be.

I call Brick to me, and give him the praise that he deserves. We watch together while Jessie eats her food on the lure.

A little praise and his enjoyment of the situation is quite obvious.

All Betsy wants is for Jessie to hurry up and leave the scraps to her.

This is her natural place to be when Jessie is on the ground. She is her protection until I can get there. Very necessary in a land of Eagles and Coyotes. Don't be fooled by Jessie's nonchalant attitude. She is better than a watch dog. Anything strange and she will voice her alarm and war cry. Her trust of Betsy has been earned and deserved.

As soon as Jessie abandons the Lure, Betsy is checking for the leftovers. Guts might not be what Jessie likes, but Betsy is not so picky.

After she is secured a trip to the shade is the next order of business. Frank the cat isn't about to be left out either, so soon the fam damily is gathered around the source of tidbits.

Yogi's turn

Today was Yogi's turn, and she had gained a bit of weight since our first time out. I guess that I am going to have to shoot a Rabbit or two to get us started. Apparently Coyote is a bit too rich for a bird with her metabolism.

I released  my frustration at not being able to hawk last year by Coyote hunting. Of course there is more to a Coyote than his fur coat. For instance one can glean 31 Harris Hawk  (molting) meals from an adult Coyote. It took a bit for Yogi to learn to like Coyote, but when you do not have a choice in the menu, one adapts. I am guessing that it is a bit strong, it does sure have plenty of calories in the meat. When I am only flying every other day, I like to reward my bird with a full meal. Apparently 4 oz of Coyote is a bit too much.

Yogi weighed 1150 grams this morning , up by 25 grams from Sunday. Since the object of today's exercise is to get some muscle on her, she doesn't have to be razor sharp, only fly a bit. She first checked out the Chicken pens to see if there was any easy stuff available. I finally had to drag out the lure to get her to join us.

She did make a couple of passes at Jacks that jumped in front of us, but she is nowhere ready to catch anything yet. She also made a pass at a Coot on the Creek, but she decided not to go swimming for him.

While we did not accomplish anything other than to reestablish the fact that we will now be hunting and reconnecting with us in that regard. We now need to get a lot of muscle built up on her so that she can catch one of these fleet footed critters.

Beginning conditioning.

It appears that there will be a hawking season this year. It is still very dry and almost none of the ponds have any water in them, but there will be hawking this year. It just remains to be seen what the quality will be. There is always the ditches for Jessie, who will be 10 this year. There appears to be a good number of Jacks this year, unlike 2013. We have about 15 that are helping with the lawn trimming. Last year I was afraid to kill even one Jack for fear of slowing the recovery of the species.

I picked up Jessie for the first time on Saturday. Her weight was about right at 835 grams. I just need to get her back in the groove of flying. After all she has sat for two years now without any real hunting. I put her on a creance to call her to the lure for her meal, and she did quite well. Of course she hates the hood, but that is normal. I let her eat her meal on the lure and then called her to the fist for the rest of her meal.

I picked up Yogi on Sunday, and Karen and I stood about 20 feet apart and took turns calling her back and forth to each other. She did very well when she discovered that there was a tidbit involved in each flight.

She is of course very out of shape, and didn't take long to land on the chimney to rest. She did quite well. Once she regains some of her normal strength she will be her normal rascally self.

Its been a fairly interesting year so far. We have hosted two fly-ins, which were a lot of fun. I did not work any this summer. The fires were such that they had enough crews to handle them without calling the company that I work for. That was good and bad, but I will live.

I seem to have a bit of "old age" creeping up on me. I have something wrong with my right foot, such as a bone spur, that is causing me a lot of pain when I try to walk. I have an appointment this Friday to get it checked out. It won't bother me with the falcon, but would be a serious problem with hawking Rabbits.

Finally, Spring is here.

Spring seems to have finally arrived. While we have had a pretty mild winter, with little problems other than a relentless wind. It still seemed to take forever to arrive. Perhaps it only seemed that way because I have been looking forward to this year with a bit more than my usual impatience.

The first event that seemed to never get here was the arrival of one of my childhood friends. My father was a minister in Sandlick, W.Va. for four years. Bill Lynch was my main friend and mentor the four years that we lived there. We moved away and lost track of each other until a few years ago. He had gone to Michigan and I to the West.

I began to think of him more and more, and finally decided to contact him. I found his email address and after a few telephone calls, invited him to visit. Karen and I just returned him to the airport yesterday. We had a great visit, and it was as though 57 years had not passed since we had last "run" together. Our relationship to me at least, was as comfortable as it had ever been. However the contrast between what I remembered and reality was pretty funny. Two old codgers trying our best to even wade a creek without falling down, and all the time the pictures in our minds were of two graceful fleet footed rascals jumping from rock to rock at a full run in the creeks of rural W.Va.

 Somehow the weather got better and the wind stopped for a while, just as Bill arrived. All of a sudden sunburn was more of a threat than frost bite. We took advantage of the change by visiting one of my favorite fishing holes. The water year here is down from what is perceived as normal, so the River was low enough to fish.

                                            15 inch trout

We caught Trout, Bass and Catfish all in the same hole. The trout are a bit thin, but the Catfish and Bass were fat.

                                Bill's first Western Channel Catfish.

                                This one measured 24 inches exactly.

Bill has a bad back, so I got to clean the fish. Actually that is normal. I always clean the fish. We had enough for a nice fish fry and enough left over for five additional meals.

We had a great visit, and hopefully we can do it again. It would however be nice if those two sun browned boys that my mind sees were a little closer to reality.
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Each year here in the high Desert is an adventure. I guess that is one of the attractions for me. It is never boring! This year it is Mice.

Every thing seemed to be "normal" at the beginning of August last year. We had Jack Rabbits all over the place. The Quail were plentiful. Then it was as though we had stepped into another dimension where there was no wild life at all. The Rabbits and Quail disappeared. All wildlife seemed to have died. There was little water, so few of the Ducks even stopped here. It was bad enough that I fed the hawks up and did not hunt them for fear of killing the few critters left that might eventually bring forth the next generation. Well I did not need  to worry about the base layer of the food chain. The Mice are booming.

We have two house cats that spent most of the winter with little in the way of distractions. Well that has changed. I first noticed the increase in Mice during our trip in the fifth wheel, and set a few traps. We changed the mattresses around from the Motor home to the Fifth Wheel, and I spent a night in the Motor home to check the comfort level. The Mice had discovered a roll of toilet paper and unraveled most of a roll on the floor for various new beds and nests. It was still in the holder on the wall too. I bought some poison and some traps to try to get them under control.

It soon became clear that the poison wasn't working all that well, so I bought traps where ever I could find them. The full reality of the situation finally became clear the morning that I found a pile of shredded papers from the side pocket in the car. Then I found mouse crap on the seat of my plane. That was the final insult. The war is on.

I began an all out assault on the rascals. So I set traps in the car, Motor home, Fifth wheel, and the plane. I caught 8 in the car, five in the plane, and about 14 or more a day in my various traps.

                                                The nights catch.

                                          Some of the trap line.

                                                The water trap.

I use ultra sonic devices in all the places I can, such as the attic and behind all the refrigerators and freezers, and while they don't nest there they do traverse those areas. The water trap works quite well, and I caught five Mice in it last night. I have to remember to replace the Peanut butter trail to the jump off point each night. The dogs like Peanut butter as well as the mice.

I had been feeding the Mice to Yogi, the Harris Hawk, just to get rid of them. Plus they are a natural food item for all hawks. Since I was not really serious at that time, I only had enough to supplement Yogi's normal food. Jessie being a bit of a Princess, was only getting Quail. I noticed that she was acting as though she wouldn't mind a Mouse or two as well. So when I got serious about the Mouse problem, I had more than Yogi could eat. I offered one to Jessie and she thought it was great, so Mice are now on her menu as well. I am saving about $2 a day by feeding Mice to the birds. Its not quite lemon aid, but one does what he must.