Birch Creek Quad ride

Thursday John Hauck and I decided to try to ride to my "Fish Camp" to do a little sight seeing and a bit of fishing. The original trail that we used last year is pretty rough and of course we wanted some new scenery. I had wanted to fly the trail to make sure that it was possible, but somehow never got the chance. The problem of course was that the trail started in Birch Creek, which is a BLM (Bureau of Land Management, or known by most of the west as Bureau of Lazy Men) managed camp ground. Now you might think that wouldn't be a problem, but I have found that most of the things controlled by the Gov. seem to be ruled by the "Fun police". If it could be fun, you are not allowed to do it. This area was no exception, there was a gate across the trail and a sign that said No fun allowed. I suppose that I should be glad that they don't allow travel there because if they did, there would be a lot of people going in there, as the area does get a lot of Chukar hunters in the fall.

We unloaded our quads at the top of the hill going down into Birch Creek. The view going in is quite nice.

The drop is almost 2000 feet.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The river is quite nice, and full of Carp, finning on the top of the water. There are plenty of fish in the River, but none of them were hungry enough for lures. Holding out for worms, I guess.

 

 

The rock formations that have been exposed by the river and subsequent erosion by the elements are very pleasing. Kind of makes one wonder why every one gets so upset by erosion in the first place.

 

After we left the river, I took John up to Jordan Crater Lava flow. The flow has been dated at 2500 years ago by the lichen on the sides of the crater. 

 

The Lava has not taken on the broken and jumbled aspect that much of the older Lava Flows that one finds in other areas. The hole that you see is about 50 feet in diameter and I estimate 20 to 30 feet deep. Most of the lava is just a hollow crust. 

 

 

This was one of the spots that the Lava flowed out of or one of the last domes that were built up.

 

 

Even though the "Fun Police" foiled our plans, it was still a good trip. 

Peg, I am afraid just isn't getting it. I have been out every day since her last kill, sometimes spending two to four hours walking and trying to find rabbits for her. I have counted and she has had at least 100 opportunities to catch either Jacks, Bunny's or Pheasant and has not been able to connect. Mostly the problem lies in closing. She just doesn't take the opportunities that she is presented with to make a catch. Mostly she pursues, and when she gets close, the rabbits stop or hide, and she lands on the ground. Weight does not seem to have any effect on the problem.

Lee Mann called the other day and has offered to loan me one of his experienced hawks for the season to show her the ropes and to offer a bit of competition in the hopes that she will understand what it takes to be a hunting hawk. She is handicapped by her foot and her size. She is hunting at a smaller weight than one of Lee's males. I am not sure when we will be able to make connections to pick up one of his birds so in the meantime I am going to fly her to the balloon where I will be able to put some weight and muscle on her.

We had some friends stop by on a visit and Peg of course was the entertainment. I gave the ladies a glove each and Peg flew back and forth between them to their great delight.

Peg Strikes again.

I took Peg out yesterday, but because she was a bit ?fat?, I walked around the house looking for some of our scarce Jacks. We actually managed to get several slips, and she tried pretty hard, but was unable to make contact. We jumped a juvenile Black Crowned Heron down by the creek that I thought she was going to catch, but he luckily was able to keep at least a foot distance between his butt and her talons until she wore out. She didn't get much in the way of tidbits, so she was ready to go again this morning.

 

Perhaps a bit more ready than I was. We had covered quite a lot of Sage and it was time for a rest, there happened to be an arm Chair Lava rock handy just for that purpose, so Karen and I stopped to let the sweat cool. 

When we started out again, she missed a Bunny in a rock pile. We started on again and she flew after a Jack that was loafing along in front of us. She closed the distance, with him possibly unaware that she was coming. She did a hook back around a clump of Sage, and we could hear the Jack squealing. This time she had him with both feet. Since they generally end up in Sage at least this thick, Both feet means the difference of keeping or losing the Jack.

To make it better, she had him by the front end rather than in the butt. They just beat the crap out of a hawk that is holding them by the butt.

 

This makes her seventh kill and her forth Jack. She is showing some faint signs of improvement both in tactics and performance.

Quad trip to Three Forks

John Hauck arrived on Thursday evening and after resting a bit, we decided it was time for a Quad trip to Three Forks. I had previously scouted (with the Kolb) a route down in there from this side of the Owyhee canyon. This allowed us to park the truck at Rome and proceed on Quads rather than drive all the way around to Jordan Valley and come in from that side. So we loaded every thing that we thought we might need on the Quad and hit the dirt.

     It was about 42 miles down in there and I only got turned around once. I was telling John that if there were only two choices, I would choose wrong 75 percent of the time. I am going to have to learn that my second choice is generally the right one. :-/ It wasn't too much of a detour however, just off to a stock pond on the other side of Mouse Trap Butte. ( I would like to know what occasioned the name.)

 

The road drops down only 1.8 miles from off the top of the mesa to the river. It however is rougher than a cob, and not at all suitable for even a four wheel drive truck.

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=42.5271,-117.1828&ll=42.5271,-117.1828&ie=UTF8&z=12&om=1

If you cut and paste this link to your browser, and click on Satellite you can see the map of where we were camped.

We looked over the area for possible camping spots, of which there weren't many, and there were a lot more people there on a Sunday than I thought would be. We settled on a gravel bar that would supply some afternoon shade. It was actually pretty hot and both of us got a bit of sun and were actively seeking shade. We unloaded all of our stuff and went back up to the "Hot Springs", which turned out to be more of a warm Spring than hot. The water comes out of a little canyon that you can see just in front of our Quads. There was a bridge there at one time, but now it is clambering over very slick rocks.

    We did a bit more sight seeing and gathering wood for a dinner fire, as well as a bit of fishing in the river. ( Its full of Small Mouth Bass, trout and some Squaw Fish as well) Then when it cooled down we decided to go to the hot springs. I wanted to wade across the river and up to the springs rather than over a pretty nasty rock pile on the quads. John wanted to leave his boots on to cross the river, but I shamed him into wading barefooted across the river. He cussed me all evening and especially while we were out in the river limping, staggering and cussing all the rocks on the bottom of the river. He thanked me this morning however when he didn't have to put on wet boots. There was a water fall with places to sit while the river beat you into relaxation, unfortunately I didn't take the camera and missed the drowned rat look of John sitting under the water fall.

     After our bath we made our dinner fire and relaxed just watching the sun go down, and listening to the Chukar calling across the river.

 

  

 It cooled off nicely during the night, although it was a bit windy. My little "Micky Mouse" tent was hammering me pretty good all though the night, You can't get one of those little wimpy little tent pegs to do any good at all on a gravel bar.

   This morning when we got up, it clouded up and began sprinkling rain. There was a really nasty spot that was nothing but sharp undercarriage scraping rocks that we had to negotiate. That spot had me stuck and backing carefully down last night and we wanted to get over it before they got wet and more difficult. We did make it over that spot with out trouble and once we got on top of the Mesa it started raining again, this time pretty hard.  We stopped at a line shack to clean my glasses and rest a bit before continuing on.

   On our way in the day before, we were both amazed at the amount of Snake tracks crossing the dirt road. All the ones that I saw were made by Bull Snakes (Pacific Gopher Snake). If we saw 10 tracks we saw 50 or more. On the way back, I surprised a Coyote with one in his mouth, He ran off, but he didn't drop his snake. ( Food is hard to come by here)

   One of the fences has a large wooden gate across the road. When we went through the day before, John pushed my quad through while I held the gate. I wanted to save him the trouble this time and left my quad in gear, and after I opened the gate, I intended to goose the throttle and have it run through on its own power. ( I put a twist throttle on it along with the thumb lever. It is a bit sticky and I use it as a "cruise control" when my hand gets tired) Instead of goosing it, I twisted it, and off goes the quad at a pretty good clip. John is sitting there with an amazed look on his face as I am running out across a ditch and through the sage after my runaway mount that is happily roaring over the smaller sage brush in its way. It finally hit one large enough to slow it down enough so that I could catch it. When I got back to John, he swore that he could be trusted to keep quiet, but in my opinion, if you can't laugh at yourself, there is something wrong with you. I will take humor where I can find, or provide it.

 

A bit of a surprise.

When I picked up Peg this morning she weighed 724 grams. Heavier than she has shown serious interest so far, but it is time she got the relationship with catching something and eating, so I decided to take her out to see what she would do. If you remember at 742 she really did not ever start at anything, but she also didn't get fed either. It has been three days since she last ate, and I expected that to goad her to at least make some effort. It is in both our best interest that she be as heavy as she can tolerate and still catch stuff.

I felt that there was a good chance that it might be a wasted effort so I went back to the Rome area to hunt. Karen can follow in the truck, but there is a lot of Grease Wood and the sage and the other weed and nasty growths are very high. She got two chances at Jacks there, and we found some Bunnies hiding around the buildings and junk there, but we couldn't get a good shot at anything. Always too close to cover.

 

  

This is the way that they used to make the corrals. Two posts are set in the ground in the shape that you want and willows are cut and put in between them. It made a good fence out of materials that were ready to hand.

 

I decided that since she seemed to be interested in catching something that we would go to the Arock area where the terrain is a bit more amenable to chasing Jacks.

She got a couple of chances at Bunnies there, but they all managed to give her the slip. Karen was trying to break in a new pair of boots, and they were eating her ankles up, so she went back to the truck, leaving me and Curly to carry on. I made a big swing out through the rocks and the brush getting one more chance at a Jack. Again inexperience reared its ugly head, and she missed. I headed back to the truck again across a little peninsula of Sage and rocks. We jumped a Jack and she made a terrific cut at it, but missed once again. As I walked up to her to pick her up, she made a short shot at a clump of Sage. I thought that she was after a lizard or something. She made a grab into the bush and a Black Bird started screaming and tried to bolt out of the other side. Peg was faster and caught him in about three feet. I was both amazed and a bit chagrined, but a kill is a kill to her and will be to me as well. As long as it isn't a lizard or a Chipmunk. I was a bit concerned about the health of the bird, so I gave her the Jack front leg that I carry for a reward when she does catch a Rabbit. After closer examination the bird gave no appearance of any flaw other than stupidity. Apparently Peg's chase after the Jack pinned it in the Sage clump and it was trying to escape notice by hiding. Another piece of evidence about the wonderful vision of the Harris Hawk.

 

 

  I want her to hunt Chukar eventually so it was not a bad deal all in all. She has tried Quail occasionally, but not seriously. Perhaps now she will be a bit more interested.

Peg and Jessie

 

When I weighed Peg this morning she still weighed 742 grams. Much too heavy, but I had a new area that I wanted to look at for future hunting when she finally gets her act together and actually becomes a serious threat. This way I could check the area without screwing up her chance of catching something and still reinforce the lesson of " you don't hunt, you don't eat". If you look closely at her right foot you can see that it isn't on the leg right.

 

Karen was going to drive the truck around, meeting me on the other side of the field saving me a lot of walking. I was right that Peg was too heavy, as she watched all the Jacks that we jumped stroll off into the sage with not a sign that she had seen anything. We did see a fair number of Jacks and I think it will be a good addition to our hunting areas. There are good Alfalfa fields there and the sage surrounding them should hold enough Jacks to make it worth while. It is a lot closer to home as well.

Jessie!

I have been curtailing Jessie's food consumption for about a week with the thought that I would pick her up out of the mews so that we could get a good start on her conditioning before Duck season opens the first week of October.  

 

I was able to get her on the fist two days ago and feed her half of a quail ( her favorite) before she decided that she was scared again. Today I went out and she came to the fist and allowed me to put her jesses in her bracelets and hook up the leash. I brought her in the house and she finished her meal with the dogs attending just in case there were any left overs. I had intended to sit with her on the fist for a while, but she really didn't want to do that, so I took her out to the weathering area, got a block and stuck it into the ground. She jumped for it before I could get my knee off the top. I then filled her a bath and left her with Peg trying to get loose so that she could get her. Peg just doesn't have any idea how mean that girl is.

When it was time to put them up for the night, she chupped at me and stepped on the fist as though it was just yesterday. She tried to fly to her perch from halfway across the room. She remembers well the routine, and I am very pleased and anxious to get started with her. Her feathers are a long way from being finished, but with my short season, (ending when the ponds freeze) I cannot wait for her to finish her moult. I am hoping that I will be able to keep her fat enough that it will not impair her feather growth.

Serious at last!

(Sorry about the font change, I will try to prevent this type of screw up in the future)

Peg got to spend the whole day yesterday thinking about why she was so hungry. When I put her to bed she weighed 714 grams. This morning she had only lost 7 grams. This tells me that she doesn't have any more fat to lose, only muscle. Not where I want to be, but where she will find herself if she doesn't get serious.

When I went to pick her up, just after daylight, she was sitting on the edge of the ledge as usual, anxious to get picked up. I normally pick her up from the ledge and put her back on the block to remove her leash. I then offer her a tidbit, and take her to the scale. When I take her off that I give her another tidbit. This morning she was so anxious that she jumped on the fist before I could get a tidbit. She knows which hand gets it out of the bag and I was a bit concerned that she was going to go directly to the tidbit rather than wait on the glove. I didn't give her one, and she looked at my bare hand, then at the fist, then she looked me in the eye as though to say, "What the heck is going on"? She has never done that before. I laughed at her all the way to the truck. She did get her tidbit however.

We went to Arock this morning, because there are more Jacks there, than at Danner. I really wanted her to catch a Jack if she could, and actually, she has a better chance at Jacks than at Bunnies. The little rascals are fast and don't stay above the ground very long. I really needed her to catch something today as her cut up food is beginning to spoil, not to mention I needed a boost and she needed some positive reinforcement.

I told a falconer friend that if she wasn't my hawk, I wouldn't waste the time in the field, and in all actuality she is pretty dismal at this point in her life. It takes a lot of time, failures and disappointment at this stage of her life to become a proficient hunter and to reach her full potential. He said "Nobody's are worth the trouble to go watch in September!!!!!!  In September you need to focus on making sure that you can provide spectator sport in November!" He is right of course, and I have been putting a lot of miles on the truck to get her to the spot that I think will give her the best possible chance. One of my fields is 82 miles round trip the closest is 62 miles.


We started our hunt by going where I knew a Bunny lived, in the hopes that she would be able to put something together. Today was a desperate day. I really needed her to kill something today, other wise she could get discouraged and rather than get better, give up. I didn't need that at all. So much of the process of entering a Hawk to game and hunting relies on just plain good luck. Sometimes it happens, often it does not. How good the bird ends up, depends on this phase of its life. If the falconer makes it too easy on them, they can end up lazy. Too difficult, and they can quit trying. It is a thin line that you walk and requires maximum effort and attention to detail. There are lots of areas that have rabbits here, but not in the right type of terrain, right size of sage and especially the amount of rabbits for luck to actually give you any kind of an edge. You have to jump a lot of rabbits to find one that will make the right type of mistake so that a bumbling novice hawk can actually take advantage of the situation.

This area has a lot of that gnarly Lava that is full of holes, crevices and cracks, that the Bunnies really like. Curly was down by the road and Karen was a bit behind us. Peg was on her Tee Perch being carried by me. Karen yelled "Bunny coming at you". I turned and Peg started after the bunny, which dodged her and ran at me. I jumped forward trying to turn him back with the tee perch. I snagged my left foot on a piece of sage and could not recover. My left hand went into a badger hole, and I banged my right temple on a nice soft piece of lava. I think the ear piece of the frame of my glasses saved me from a nasty cut. There is a ding on the titanium frame. I saw them fall down in the hole along with a nice display of stars. While I was hanging in the hole with half of my body below the surface, the thought crossed my mind," Well my days of grace and poise are behind me, its all down hill from here".

 

Curly was helping me retrieve my camera.

I ended up with a small raspberry on my temple, and banged both knees. Of course the damage to my self esteem and pride are not measurable. When I was a kid in W.Va. I could run the rocks in the local creek at pretty much full speed, never make a misstep and never get my feet wet. Oh well, nothing lasts forever. :-/

Peg was beginning to worry me, she wasn't really trying on the bunnies that we were jumping, or if she was, it wasn't very hard. I began to worry that she was weak, rather than hungry. We covered most of the field and really wasn't seeing any Jacks. When you start walking the fields, they are all over, but as they begin to watch your pattern, they go to the areas that you don't normally walk, such as the very edges, or out in the open and start to hide. That was the main reason that I started taking Curly with me, since just by nature, he covers much more of the ground than I ever could. I made a swing to one of the edges where we hardly ever go to, and asked Karen to wait where she was as a blocker. I would come back by her and we would go to another field. We jumped another Bunny and again, she couldn't make anything happen. As I was approaching Karen's position, I motioned for her to come on up. Curly was with her and working the heavy brush in front of her. He busted a Jack and it ran towards us. Peg started as soon as she saw him, stroking hard to close. He cut through a Barb wire fence, and I was relieved to see Peg flare over it. She then used her height to dive right up his butt and grab him by said appendage. I cannot begin to convey what that meant to me. It was exactly just what she needed, at exactly the right time with the right type of prey. Lots of hawks, (especially Goshawks) that are fast enough to catch Bunnies, find that they prefer to catch them, because they don't fight that much, and will ignore Jacks. Jacks in a lot of ways are easier to catch, since they don't go down holes usually, but once caught are fierce in their fight to survive.

 

She caught him in the weeds to the right. During the fight she ended up where she is shown in this picture. If you look at the light tan weeds beyond her and to her right the ground is covered in a stiff little dry weed that I am sure interfered with the Jacks ability to see, because his eyes were right in the middle of it and were being assaulted by them as he ran.  Normally they build "runs" in them that they follow, but with her hot on his tail he had to take what ever avenue he could, to try to escape. This is manufactured luck, but luck none the less.

Now that she had caught it, I was faced with the decision of what to do, go right in, or wait for a while for the Jack to give up a bit? There is nothing like a wild eyed falconer with grasping fingers to spur that desire to get away. I chose to wait. A mistake. I thought that she had him by the head, she did not. He finally got his hind feet free and drug her under the truck. She hung up on the bed for a while, but he finally drug her through the hole and under the truck. Thank goodness for the "rubber" feathers that Harris Hawks are blessed with. Anything else would have been a mess.

 

If you will notice there is a couple of inches of space between the ground and the bed. He kicked enough to knock her transmitter and a few feathers off.

 

By this time, I am trying to get some way to help her, but he drug her around under the truck some more until she hung up on the rear end pumpkin on the axle. At that point he was exposed enough that I could get to him. She, at this point was down to holding him by one front leg, down by the ankle. Bless her extra large heart, she hung in there no matter what. I was able to finally get her extricated from the undercarriage of the truck. I pulled off a front leg and gave it to her to eat, I picked the Jack out from under her and took it to the front of the truck to clean. I kept the head and neck for her to finish her meal with and was squatted down showing Karen her feathers and the transmitter where the struggle took place, when Peg flew over and landed on the fist to finish her meal. I had no idea that she was even close to finishing her leg.

Curly and I posing for the "hero" shot.

So today, battered though she may be, (no real feather damage that I have seen yet) her crop is full, and hopefully she will remember what it takes to be successful.

 

The other flyer

Peg has been taking up most of the time that I prefer to fly the plane. Since I really don't have to be anywhere, I don't take "Dart" up when the air is cranky, so my air time has been reduced.

Some time ago John Hauck suggested a fix for the tail wheel post and brace. It involved a brace from the tail wheel bolt to the collar on the tail boom. I should of paid more attention.

On the morning of Sept first, I was intending to go check the neighbors cows in the Pot Hole field to make sure none of them were bogged in any of the sink holes. Saves them some trouble and time and gives me an excuse to go fly.

As I was doing my preflight I noticed that the tail wheel assembly was wobbling. Sure enough the aluminum tube at the end of the steel collar was broken and the tail post was broken where it was connected to the collar on the tube.

I have 500.6 hours on the plane and most of it was on dirt, not grass, Dirt! Here it is soft and the worst side loads on the tail wheel are right in front of the hanger.

I now have it repaired, and this time I applied the side braces that John recommended.

I sleeved the tube and welded the tail post. Of course the problem is the fabric repair.

These two little braces are easy to make and install, the repair is a pain in the butt.