# 25

The morning dawned cold and colorless for a change. It was 9 degrees with a wind chill of -4. It would appear that I am going to have to put Hope inside at night. She seemed fine, but she isn't designed for it.

Karen and I have agreed to do a Raptor count in this area for Dec,Jan and Feb. each year. We kind of enjoy it as long as the gas isn't running 4 bucks a gallon. We decided to take the Dogs and Hope along with us. The Dogs because we would be gone most of the day, and Hope because it was another hunting day. Dare I say two birds with- Nah!

The snow has been hitting all around us, and the Mountains are lovely.

Steen's Mtn.

South Mtn. Idaho 

Owyhee Highlands, site of the fire last year.

Our route takes us through Jordan Valley, and around some of the side roads there. It is a 159 mile trip. We saw 64 different Raptors, Red Tails, Golden and Bald Eagles, Rough leg Hawks, Prairie Falcons, Sharpshin Hawks, Northern Harriers, Kestrels and two Great Horned Owls.

There were a lot of other critters, especially Deer. Karen counted 120 in just one field. If I was to guess, we saw well over 400 Deer today.

Just outside of Burns Jct the two white feral Horses were feeding.

This is the first time I have been able to see them without the plane.

They normally stay behind the Hill that you can see in the background.

We were able to get a picture of a Coyote mousing in one of the fields.

Just outside of Danner I took Hope out of her box to see if she could catch something today. She weighed 964 grams when I picked her up, so she should be able to turn with the Jacks today. We walked for quite a while and while she had many close calls, she could not get her toes into anything.

After walking over most of the area that I normally hunt, I put her in the box and we went on with our count leaving her to think on the reason that she was still hungry.

We continued our count into Arock and stopped at another of the fields that I have hunted in the past years. They have over grazed the property and it doesn't hold as many Jacks as it used to, but the Bunnies are thick and there are a few Jacks left there. ( Its private property, and I guess they can screw it up if they want to.) The Jacks and Bunnies were still holding all the cards, and I was wearing out. I made what was intended to be one last swing through some stuff that I hadn't hunted yet, and a Jack made the mistake of running across the open. When pressed he tried to take cover in a totally inadequate Sage. She grabbed him by one hind foot and held on. She was in behind the main stem holding him with her left foot. When I came up he swerved to the right and she grabbed him in the head with the right one, and soon transferred both feet to the head.

I was close enough on at least three attempted strikes from a height, that I could see her get stopped by the Sage limbs just before her toes would have made contact. Her aim was right on, but the bush was too thick. Ah well if it was easy, there wouldn't be any Jack Rabbits.

Swing and a miss

December here seems to be to coldest month for us. I personally find that strange since every where I have been previously, that month is Jan. Last Dec. was bitterly cold and below zero most of the nights, or at least it seemed that way. We have been below 20 degrees most mornings of the last week, and I think we are supposed to get colder than that for the next week or two.

We had a bit of snow yesterday. Just enough to see it in the seams, but Jordan Valley was reported to have 2-4 inches. There is an upside to all the rains going around us, since the snow does as well.

The really striking sunrises and sunsets tone down a bit in December as well. These were from the last day of November.

This is the Sunrise 11/30/16

I had intended to make this into a panorama shot

but gave up when I couldn't find the correct program.

This is looking East. We normally don't get all that much

color to the East at Sunset.

The sunset took a bit to develop. This is looking West.

The Deer coming back after feeding all day on the runway.

I picked up Hope this morning and found that she weighed 1003 grams. I guess I will get my wish concerning her top end. The last Jack she caught, she weighed 974 grams. Its colder than a well diggers butt, and she still can't digest all the food that I give her. Apparently I am turning into a soft touch in my old age. Some one should invent a Harris Hawk with a fast metabolism.

I was due to visit the fields at Arock today. They have a lot more cover than where we hunted at the ranch. Hope does better with shorter cover. There just aren't as many hiding places there. Arock however is just the opposite, and it always takes us longer to find one that screws up there.

While she did not pursue as energetically today as she did at 974, she still managed to catch a Jack for a little while. It however managed to get away from her before I could get there.

We put in four hours today and came home with an empty bag. Oh well, that means that I get to hunt again tomorrow.  

Number 24, again!

The weather yesterday was just too much to hunt, so I made Cinnamon rolls instead. Not a bad alternative. I'm not sure if that is what they meant when they said " Its an ill wind that blows nobody good".

                                         The storm front had blown into Idaho by this morning.

Karen had a dental appointment, so I decided to go back to the ranch to hunt after it warmed up a bit. It finally warmed up to 27 degrees by 11:00 AM, so I went out to get Hope. She weighed 980 grams this morning, the highest that she has ever been so far. I have decided that with the weather this cold, I am not going to worry about her weight. If she gets to where she is too fat to chase Jacks, I will consider taking her weight down. She was very anxious for me to pick her up, so she wanted to go hunting.

This is what the Mt looked like when we arrived.

We walked the length of the road, jumping a rabbit here and there. She had a couple of close calls that left hair hanging in the air, so I couldn't find anything wrong with her weight. After traveling the length of the area that holds Jacks, she began to get restless, sometimes moving out a bit in front seeming to hope that there was something there to chase.

I have always so far hunted the area close to the road and fence, as Jacks generally, for whatever reason, hold close to a natural dividing line whether it be a road or fence. This time I decided to go a lot further out, with the logic being that in my past hunts I had not gone out further than 50 yards, and while the cover was a bit thinner, the pressure applied by us was not present, therefore the rabbits would have noticed that the area had escaped hunting pressure by us. The rabbits were noticeably not as thick as they had been, so they had to be somewhere else. Logic indicated that they might be holding further out from the road. Nothing to lose, plus the cover was a bit more scattered, which would favor Hope.

I walked at least twice as far out than I had hunted before, and turned North towards the truck. With the scattered cover, the Jacks were jumping a bit further ahead. Hope was still giving chase, but a rabbit with the time to think, can generally escape. We had covered about half the distance when one jumped fairly close and Hope gave chase. It wasn't long before a scream announced a catch.

There is a Jack and a Hawk in this bush.

I put him out of his pain.

Not sure if you can see, but she is lying on her tail

I pulled her out of the bush, gave her the tin cup of tidbits, and picked her up to feed her. After filling her up, and putting her in the Giant Hood, I took the rabbit out to clean. I discovered that this was not the first introduction to Hope that this poor rabbit had.

He had only half of a tail. The bone had fallen off as well. There had been at least one or two who had lost their tail, but retained their lives, at least for a while.

This is what it looked like when we left.

another storm coming in.

Hope performed as well if not better than she had in any of her flights. We will see how much weight she can carry before she loses her desire to catch.

A rare day when every thing came together

Ron and Joyce, friends from Klamath Falls came over to do a bit of Rabbit hunting. They now live in McMinnville and no longer have access to Jacks very often.

Ron unfortunately seems to be coming down with the Flu. Of course that did not become obvious until they had arrived. Karen and I have both had our flu shots, so I guess we will see how effective they were. He was pretty sick the first night. They slept in the fifth wheel, and at first every thing was fine. The temps dropped down to 19 degrees overnight. When Karen and I changed the sheets in preparation for their arrival, we actually put what I thought was too many blankets on the bed. We told them they could throw them off if it was too warm. Well they didn't have to worry about that since the propane tank went empty sometime in the middle of the night. The fan continued to run while the heater tried to warm the trailer, but in fact was making it colder. Joyce came in the house feeling a bit like an ice sickle. I went out, changed tanks and finally got the heater running again. They were warm underneath all those covers except their heads and faces. Of course it was another matter getting dressed.

While we were waiting for the temps to come up a bit so that we could go hawking, I peeked out of the window in the dinning room and there was a Coyote standing about 50 yards off. I opened the window as quietly as I could and shot him with my 17 rimfire. He took off going towards the creek. The dogs and I went to see if we could find him. We crossed the fence and found him about 50 yards up the creek. So I spent the early morning skinning a Coyote in the hanger.

After I finished we loaded up the birds and headed over to the ranch to do a bit of hunting. I flew Hope first and it didn't take long before she was off chasing one in the distance. She made a couple of shots at him, but couldn't make it happen. She returned back to the perch and we continued on. In total we jumped 5 Jacks with her catching the 5th one flushed. Unfortunately I managed to forget to take a camera. Her weight this morning was 954 grams. She worked and tried a bit harder this time. She is improving day by day.

Ron was able to drive alongside us while we were hunting, so he got to see the whole thing without exhausting himself. When she finished her meal, we put her up and got Ron's Harris,Chili, out.

I had never handled her before and had only seen her once before in a hunting situation. She had also never flown from a Tee Perch. It took her about 5 minutes to see the advantage of the height, and she rode quite well. We finished what Hope and I had not covered, getting a few slips. She had one that she ripped a double hand full of hair out of his butt but he still got away. When we got to the end, we crossed the fence and began walking back. We had another flight at one a long way off, but ended up by the truck with no rabbit in the bag. Ron was flagging pretty badly by then, so I told him to wait by the truck while Joyce and I made a foray out a bit further. About the time that we had traveled maybe 10 feet, Chili took off and a cloud of dust and a scream followed soon after. Joyce being the fleetest of foot got there first and managed to stop the Jack with her foot. Chili wasn't letting go, but the Jack was dragging her along a bit.

I killed the Jack about the time that Ron arrived. I stood up and Ron bent down to take her up from the rabbit. He covered the rabbit with his vest and asked for the tidbits. I had transferred them to my tin cup, so when he got them he set the cup out from the vest. Chili wasted no time walking to the cup and began eating out of it as though it was a normal event for her.

I took Joyce to look at the Artesian spring that spawns Crooked Creek. 

We came back to the house and had a bit of lunch while I finished taking care of the Coyote that I had shot. When I came back in Ron wanted to have Joyce get familiar with his new Glock pistol. There was a Deer lying down in the field near the Sage, and I wondered what she would do when we began shooting. The answer is nothing. In fact several more came out of the Sage to see what was going on.

If you look close to the left of the Deer, you can see the Coyote coming across the field.

When we finished and came in the house I looked out in the field and all of the Deer had come out of the Sage and began feeding. Now we had shot about 25 rounds of 9 MM shells which are not quiet at all.

I got the camera and took a picture of them, and then noticed that they all were looking off to the North. I looked in the direction that they were looking and saw a Coyote walking towards them. I again opened the window, but the Coyote wasn't stopping even when Ron Whistled at him. She went into the Sage at the bottom which was out of my firing vision, so I went out to the shooting bench. she obviously knew where she was going, and came out of the Sage onto the path. I had the 22-250 this time. I finally decided that she wasn't going to stop, so I led her and touched it off. She disappeared and a loud whack from the impact followed. The Dogs and I got the quad and drove down to get her.

The dogs and I had surprised the first one nosing around by the weathering area, the other morning, so I was very happy to be rid of that one, but this female was a total surprise. All in all a pretty fruitful day. Its a rare thing worthy of celebration when anything goes right, much less every thing going right.

Ron and Joyce decided to sleep in the house tonight.

Thanksgiving 2016

I was supposed to fly Hope Yesterday, but the wind was ripping, and Harris Hawks aren't designed to catch Jacks in the wind. Jacks are much too smart to put themselves at a disadvantage by running with the wind. Since the top speed of a Jack is about 40 MPH, and a Harris about 45 MPH you can see that you will be bucking the odds. I gave her a bit of Bunny to let her know that I still care.

Dave and Tami as is usual had invited us over for Thanksgiving dinner, and her dad Ted, who I quite like, was going to be there with his wife. I email him and inquired as to whether he would be interested in going rabbit hunting with us while he was here. He informed me that he would, so we had made arrangements to go on Friday. However since I had skipped Wed, I had no choice but to take Hope out on Thanksgiving. He agreed to the change, with the stipulation that he had to be back by 11 AM so that he could start the Turkey. I assured him that we would not make him late for that job, and I would come by at 9 am to get him.

The Sunrise this morning was not disappointing.

Ted and Thayen posed for me.

I got Hope out of her box and we began our hunt. She flew a Jack that jumped quite a ways off, and flew him twice before she lost him and returned to the Tee perch. We had walked another 15 or so yards when a Jack jumped in front of either Ted or Thayen and took off for the fence.  Hope caught him in just a few yards. They were buried in a large Grease Wood Bush. She had pulled his tail off about 5 yards in front of the Bush, and apparently managed to grab him again higher up before they crashed into the bush. The bush was right up against the barb Wire fence, and I had to dig them both out of the bush. I had a bit of a problem killing him because he was so long that I couldn't get enough leverage to actually break his neck.

When I finally managed to put him out of his misery and he quit twitching, I gave her the cup of tidbits, and covered the Jack. I offered her the rest of her last Bunny, and she eventually stepped off the Jack. It was nice to have someone there to put the Jack in a shopping bag and in the back of my vest.

Hope was really cold this morning as it was 25 degrees when I picked her up. I put her on the scales to weigh her and she had a foot drawn up trying to warm it. I don't know if that was the reason that she wasn't fooling around this morning or not. If so I will be sure to go early in the morning the next time I go out. What ever the reason she wasn't taking no for an answer.

I kinda felt bad for her, she had just caught a nice hot blooded Jack and I give her refrigerated Bunny as a reward.

For whatever reason she is reluctant to give up the glove when

we finish up the hunt. She generally holds on to it the whole trip home.

I at least gave her the  still steaming liver for her vitamins for the day. Even with allowing her to finish a Bunny from the bottom of the rib cage and one rear leg, we were done and back to Tammi's in 50 minutes. Not bad at all.

Happy Thanksgiving to all!