I didn't feed Peg yesterday since she was still carrying a bit too much weight from the Jack that I gave her on Wed. I took the airplane flying instead.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MeYlQW5gwmI

This morning I woke up about 5AM and couldn't go back to sleep, so I gathered Peg up and took off for the Danner area. It is a 40 minute drive and I arrived there just at first light. There are lots of Jacks and lots of Bunnies, so I was hoping to find a dumb one that she could manage to catch.

Peg, while a sweetheart, and very nice, is just not what one would call an over achiever at this stage of her life. She could and should develop into an adequate game hawk given enough time and exposure, which I hope to give her. She of course is very inexperienced and makes mistakes that always cost her the chance to kill some of these Rabbits that jump up in front of her. Harris Hawks generally learn their craft from their family group, and of course all she has is an old fat guy. She is bound to be handicapped.

We were jumping Bunnies around every rock outcropping, and she was trying, but you need to be quick and take any and every opening and chance you get, or they will go down one of the numerous holes that infest the area. For the most part she ignored the Jacks because they were jumping up pretty far ahead of us, the close Bunny slips were what triggered her chase impulse. She did make a couple of good tries at close Jacks, and managed to pull hair from a Bunny, but mostly it was an exercise in frustration for the first three hours. I was watching for her to get discouraged and quit chasing as hard, but she was still as game as ever, when the Gods finally smiled on us and put a half grown Jack in our path that waited just a bit too long to run. It jumped no more than 10 feet in front of us and she caught him in less than that.

I pulled up a rock and rested while she did her best to eat as much of him as she could choke down. When she finally calmed down, I picked her and the rest of her Rabbit up and we walked back to the truck. I tossed a leg into the box which she willingly followed, and we trundled on home. When we arrived home she was still eating. I finally got her out of the box and tied her up on her perch for the day. It may take three days to get her back down to weight. She had eaten enough that she couldn't hold any more.

I of course forgot my camera, so there are no pictures of any of this.

Karen and I are going to Christmas Valley this afternoon to pick up the other bird. I have been thinking about calling her Sue. Whadyathink? Kind of rolls off the tongue naturally doesn't it? Peggy- Sue!