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.

Dec 2nd Still gaining weight!

 We have been getting colder and colder with each night that passes. Harris Hawks in their home territory rarely have freezing temperatures to worry about, and thus they are really not suited for this country. It dropped to 10 degrees last night, and will be getting colder. Hope has survived 15 degrees so far, and of course the higher body weight gives her fuel enough to combat the cold. I decided the last time I flew her that it was time to go inside at night. I do not need a hyperthermic Hawk. She of course does not understand why she cannot have the full run of the weathering area. I need to tie her to a perch, so that I can bring her in at night. She has been holding 1020 grams while spending the nights out. I started bringing her in the shop for the last two nights. The shop maintains 35 to 40 degrees.

It warmed up to 20 degrees by 11:00 AM, so I picked her up and put her on the scales. I had given her no more food than I always give her, but today she weighed 1041 grams. I guess she was burning a bit more to keep warm. I keep wondering what is her top weight? When will she just sit on the fist and watch the Jacks disappear into the sunset? Well apparently we haven't found it yet.  

Sue, ( my fishing buddy ) texted me, wondering when I was going hawking. I wanted to check another area to see if it was worth hunting, so after Sue arrived we drove out another dirt road at the ranch next door to see if anything lived there. After walking three different spots on that road, it became obvious that it wasn't worth the effort, so I drove closer to the ranch's hay fields, where I knew the Jack's frequented. I do not like to hunt the same field more than once a week if I can possibly keep from it.

Hope had been getting more than a little restless and tending to go off to see she could find some Jack's on her own. So when we got close to the ranch, we began to see a Jack or two. She had three slips in a couple of hundred yards, but wasn't able to connect due to the thickness of the greasewood. She kept getting knocked off course by her wings hitting the bushes. Then we found one that was in a bit more open area. He didn't make it.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                    

A paltry four miles today to get her dinner, and he was a fat one too. I may have to either compress the "Trophy tails" or get a longer piece of string.

  The string on the left is last years "trophies".

Nov 30

 Although I have done so before, it was quite a long time ago, so I will explain the difference in hunting styles of Falcons and Hawks.

Falcons generally hunt from  altitude in an interception style of flight. Peregrines "generally" ( quotes because there are no hard and fast rules.) hunt from high above. Their vision is such that they can be out of our human sight, or the prey's sight, and still be able to see easily any prey flying below. By flying high the element of surprise can be used successfully. The link below should give you some idea of how a falcon is hunted.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=emlJH0_tKQE

A Hawk however is hunted from the fist, a tree or a tee perch in Hope's case. 

https://vimeo.com/295275937                password-  owyheeflyer

I generally am too busy to take any pictures, so I have been depending on Bruce to take pictures for me. That is great, except for the fact that I didn't get the ones from Friday until today. So you will get two bunches of pictures today.

I had walked off and left her with her leg, and she came looking for me.

It was pretty cold today with a Cold Front was right over us when Bruce and I went out to hunt his falcons and I, to hunt Hope. The wind was honking right along.

We flew his old Falcon first on an artesian lake. The Ducks tend to go there in the middle of the day to rest, and while there are almost always Ducks there. There is not a good way to check for birds on the water and You never know what you are going to get until you show yourself. We have been trying different approaches to setting up the hunt, and have yet to settle on a good one as of yet. The problem is that we are so far away from where the falcon will come down with a Duck. The first time we flew her there, she attracted the unwelcome attention of a Golden Eagle. Both the falcon and Bruce are pretty nervous when we are there.

So we tried something different today in that Bruce went wide, while I stayed on top so that I could flush. The falcon had gotten to a good pitch and was circling the pond, when apparently some of the Ducks got nervous and decided to depart the area. Bruce had not even had the chance to get in position, and didn't know that his falcon had already knocked a Mallard down on the far side of the pond. The wind was howling and he couldn't hear me yelling, so I did my best, 76 year old run, (stumbling- bumbling ) around the long way to make sure that she had some protection. I found her in a small ditch wrestling with a Drake Mallard. 

After we got her fed and put up, we got Hope out and began working the Sage just down from the pond. I wasn't able to bring the dogs this time as a trapper is working the area, and there are traps all over the place.

The wind actually slacked off a bit as the front was mostly gone to the East. There didn't seem to be as many Jacks as I would have preferred, but we did find a couple. They were flushing pretty wild in front of us. We crossed the road going into an area that I really had not hunted very much. A  Short Eared Owl flushed about 20 yards in front of us, and for a while I thought that Hope was going to catch him. I am not sure if he just out flew her, but I suspect that she slacked off when it wasn't running on the ground. I was just as pleased that she didn't get her feet into him, because she would have been grabbed right back.

I have not taught her to fly birds by design. There are not enough opportunities, no Pheasant any more,      ( Not recovered from West Nile) and only this year am I seeing any game birds at all. So there didn't seem to be any point.

After a short mile and half walk, we got a fairly close slip at a Jack, and though she chased him a long way she did catch him, and I was off again doing my "Leap over tall Sage brush" routine again. (yeah right!) Hope was so deep into the Greasewood that I only found them by the Jacks screams. I broke his neck and started the process of getting her out without breaking something. I tried pushing the Jack back through the hole in the Greasewood. ( Jack Rabbits will dig out a tunnel under these thick bushes to hide in and to use as an escape route. Squirt through one of these bushes and the pursuer is stuck on the other side) Only this time he just wasn't fast enough. Hope got her hooks in him before he could get deep enough.

I went back to the other side and pulled him out, gave her the cup of tidbits, and collected the Jack to clean. I kept the liver and heart for her as well as another leg.

 

Nov 28th, Trifecta!

 Bruce Haak has been coming over here to hunt a couple of times a week. He has a 10 yr old Tundra Peregrine as well as a passage Tundra Peregrine that he is just starting. I have introduced him to Hope and a totally different falconry style. Bruce has always flown falcons, and to my knowledge has never flown a "short wing" ( Hawk ) Of course the styles are as different as they could be.

Both of us are officially "Old Farts" and as such, need to exercise as much as is possible. Walking is boring, but Hawking is not, so this is beneficial as well as a lot of fun.

It warmed up enough this morning around 10 AM to go outside, so we loaded Hope in the car and drove to Arock to begin. I had hunted there earlier in the week, and I wanted to give it another try. I had a field that I had not hunted in a month or more. I thought that more Jacks might have moved into the area, as it always seems to hold Jacks even when they are scarce everywhere else.

Connie is here for a couple of days and joined us. With Bruce on one side, Connie on the other and the dogs running in front we began our sweep of the countryside. Unfortunately we saw few Jacks and all of them were from a distance as they were flushing about 100 yards in front.Hope tried almost all of them, but she was at a disadvantage, and they all ended up with the Jack disappearing over the hilltop. We went about 2 miles up the hill in the one "Pasture", actually all Sage and Lava Rock, and other than a couple of exciting flights on Brush Bunnies, we never got a decent flush. The Bunnies are so fast and devious that she was not able to catch one of them before they went underground. 

One of the Bunnies flushed a good distance from the Lava, was really hot footing it to his Lava home, and it looked to me as though Hope had him by the next jump. The little "bastage" slammed on the brakes, reversed the field and jenked back. Hope at full flight actually turned a complete loop, no bigger than two feet in diameter, and continued after him on the same trajectory. He made it to the Lava and disappeared. When I got there she was about two feet down in the hole. I spoke to her and she managed to back out. She had spider webs all over her head. She looked a bit like a Goshawk with the spider eye stripes. She was really grumpy!

I changed fields trying to get a bit closer to the Alfalfa fields, hoping for a bit more action, and only got into more Bunnies. Now, Hope is probably the fastest female Harris Hawk that I have ever seen, but these Bunnies are really hard to catch. They really turn her on, but damn, they are tricky and fast as can be. They also don't seem to be in anything other than big Sage, so she has a problem finding a clear spot to get through to make a grab.  She went subterranean several more times, and had to be coaxed out of the cavern system that a Badger or Coyote had created in one spot. 

Eventually as we neared the end of the second field just down from where we started, a Jack jumped about 20 yards in front of us, and she burned him down in about the same distance. We were about 400 yards from where we started, but we walked 4 miles to get there. She got a full crop and was a happy camper.

When we arrived back at the house, Connie stayed home while I went with Bruce to fly his birds. We went to the lake that spawns Crooked Creek, and his old Tundra killed a Drake Gadwall in a nice stoop. After feeding her, we went back to the ranch to see if we could find something for the young bird to hunt. We had tried her yesterday on the creek, but messed up the flush and she didn't stand a chance of catching one. She really tried her best but she couldn't overcome the head start that the Duck had. Ditch hawking is the toughest and the most frustrating thing you can ever try. They are never where you thought they were, and they never get very far from the water and dive back in the first sign of interest from the falcon.

I had a different spot that I wanted to try, so while Bruce was getting the bird suited up to fly, I did a little scouting. There is a little pond no more than 30 feet in diameter in the Sage at the South end of the ranch. I had assumed that it was frozen, but while I was waiting for Bruce to get set up, I watched a Duck fly into that area. I went ahead and "snuck" up to see if there was actually a Duck there. A little spot at one end was open ( It was about 10 degrees this morning) and I could see a Ducks butt, I backed out and was lucky that he did not see me.

We got into position and put the bird in the air. When she was in position we rushed the pond and a very surprised drake Mallard flew up trying to clear the Sage. She slammed into him, did a quick throw up, turned and slammed into him on the ground.

I have "entered" (first kill in captivity) many Hawks and it is a rare thing when it all works out  without some sort of screw up. This was perfect, and she will be well on her way to becoming a serious Game Hawk.

Seven miles today on our "Hawkatron". Crap, I need my Hot tub!

Nov 26- Happy Thanksgiving!

 The weather has been just perfect, bad weather- wind, snow, etc on the days that we don't hunt, then nice when we do. I like it! Quite unusual however.

Connie was supposed to have been here yesterday, but she wasn't able to make it yesterday, so Hope and I went hawking by ourselves.

 

The morning was nice and clear and the Steen's were glowing.

 I had decided to go to Arock to see if any of the local Jacks had moved into the area. It is Lava and Sage and near to some alfalfa fields, so it generally holds more Jacks that any place around.

I had asked Sue, the lady that found Jessie's body, if she wanted to go hawking with us, and she readily agreed. Sue was also going to share our Thanksgiving meal later in the day as well.

From the tracks in the small amount of snow on the ground, the population looked quite promising. There were lots of Jacks, but all of them were as wild as "March Hares" even in November, so all the slips we were getting were all long range. We also put up quite a few bunnies, generally when she was somewhere else, and she got very few good chances to score.

This one just barely beat her to the rock pile. She of course went in after him, but I am sure that he squeezed himself into the farthest corner that he could and pulled the hole in after him. 

We had covered parts of two fields in our quest to get a decent slip. She had crashed into many bushes, towered up as high as she could all to no avail, Then one of them finally screwed up and didn't get enough bush in between it and her. It was also the only close slip that we got. No time to plan, and she was too fast for it.

I had to untangle them to get it out to a point that I could put him out of his pain.

 The older more muscular ones are hard to kill. I try to stretch them enough to break their necks, as its less likely to break the Hawks toes or legs. This poor guy had to endure several attempts. 

We walked 3.4 miles total, and I lost track of how many Rabbits we saw. We also jumped three coveys of Hungarian Partridge in our travels.---Turkey time!

Nov 24th

 Last Sunday I went to Burns to help Connie clean her garage. I took Hope along so that I could also go hunting with Pat. Unfortunately the wind was howling ( only a bit of an exaggeration ) . There were quite a few Jacks in the field, and they almost all flushed a long way off.  Hope always went after them, Pat and Chilli were off somewhere else and it basically turned into my version of a cluster ****. 

Chilli was able to take advantage of a miss by Hope to snare the one Jack that gave us a close, decent flush. So, with Chilli getting a rabbit, I picked up all my marbles and went to clean the garage. Hope was carrying plenty of extra weight so she wasn't hurting for food. I hate hunting in the wind, it just adds another dimension of difficulty, and I try to avoid flying in wind that is in the teens. Harris hawks are just not suited to that type of flight.

Yesterday was also pretty crappy, so I didn't hunt then either. Today however was better and it was time to get out and catch some food.

The temperature was in the teens this morning with very little wind. I noticed a week or so ago that the rabbits seemed to be a little thicker close to the house early, so I put on some long johns and we tried the field by the house. I have taken quite a few of the residents there, but hadn't hunted it for a couple of weeks. We only found one Jack in there this time and he gave her the slip, so I came back in the yard and out the other side to hunt along the runway.

We weren't seeing much there either, but I was committed this time. I walked a big circle and she chased two Jacks, that were able to avoid her. Both were long slips and she was unsuccessful with both of them. I began to think I was going to have to get in the car and try some distant pastures, when one jumped at the edge of an opening, close to us. She nailed him in about 15 yards.

I was too busy taking care of the rabbit to take pictures, so we did our "Hero shot" after we got back home.

I wish you all a happy and safe Thanksgiving!