The light shines through.

I did not add to yesterdays post, that I took Peg out by herself yesterday afternoon to see if she was going to do any better. We hunted my butt off for about three hours and even though she did get a touch on two jacks, we still came home empty handed. There were some neat moments as in when she ran a Jack into a hole in the lava rocks. I checked and decided that it was a loss, but Peg would not give up, so I went back and tried again. I apparently poked the Jack a couple of times and he decided to evacuate the hole. He got stuck for a bit and screamed a split second until he got loose. Peg managed to grab him in the butt for a bit, but lost him. I limped home to the hot tub to recover.

Today in an attempt to understand what is going on with Jessie, I decided to go back to evenings and to fly the Harris's first about 1:30 PM for a much shorter period than we have before. I have been pushing Karen much too hard, so the sessions are going to be limited to no more than two hours each. While the drive to make Peg into some kind of a hunting hawk is strong, It is just too hard on Karen.

The idea was to hunt the Harris Hawks for a couple of hours and then fly Jessie on Ducks. The whole thing would ideally be compacted into a three or so hour period, rather than 5 hours as it has been.

Sylvester was bumping 700 grams, which for him means that he is going to catch something for sure. We were also sharing the field with a Golden Eagle, which thankfully left, but not before scaring the crap out of the Jacks.

Sylvester did catch a Jack in pretty short order as it was trying to escape over a lava lump. I went up there as soon as I could and found that Sylvester was lying on his back with the Jack almost lying on him. Sylvester had him by the head and Peg was standing watching, as there was no place open for her to grab the Jack. (Be sure to enlarge the picture and you will see what I mean.) I was really pleased to see that even though she was hungrier than she has been for a long time she was still respectful enough to stand back. After giving both a reward, we walked back to the truck. We had a few more slips on the way, but no body connected.

The pond that we normally hunt ducks in that area was screwed up by the ranchers putting a pile of cows in that pasture, so we decided to come on back home, pick up the dogs and go over to the ranch next door and fly at the lake. Even though daylight saving has gone, we had started early enough to be able to do that with a comfortable cushion. The lake is a blind proposition as the only realistic approach is over the top of a hill, and there is nothing to hide behind. You are also far enough a way that it is hard to tell is there are ducks on it before they spook, since they are generally close to the reeds.

I turned Jessie loose and we began our approach to the lake. Jessie was flying behind us, and we stopped to let her take her pitch over the pond. She appeared to be going to do just that thing, so we started on again. By this time we were in full view of the lake, and I couldn't see any ducks. Jessie turned and started flying hard back towards the truck. I asked Karen if she could see what she was after, but neither could see anything. She turned still pumping hard and came back towards us, turning to go back around behind us again. At that point the ducks decided that it was time for them to leave since she was quite a ways behind us. She tried but was unable to catch up to them before they dumped into the ditch below the lake.

I didn't see her come back up and since it was all behind the trees I assumed that she had caught one of them. I walked down there to find her and discovered that she was still flying. I continued on, thinking that she would come over me in preparation for me to flush again. She surprised me by strafing me. She expected me to give her a quail. I knew that she liked them, but that was a wake up for me. She kept strafing me trying to get me to give her a quail. I finally tore off a leg and held it up in my fist. She was slamming my fist trying to rip the leg out of my hand, but I had seen that routine before, and I didn't like it the first time. She hit me about three times surprising me at how hard she was hitting. Even through the glove it hurt. Imagine how a duck feels. She finally decided that I wasn't going to let go, so she landed. After she finished the leg, I hooded her and went back to the truck. This was the first time I had ever flown her more than once in a day.

We were about 8 miles from Appendix point, so we hustled up there to see if we could do any better.

I turned her loose and she landed on the hill. We sat down. She took off and picked up a fair pitch. We walked up to a point that we were visible to the pond. She was still staying wide and three Mallards at the far end of the pond flushed. Jessie started her stoop and momentarily grabbed a Mallard in the air, but she "lost" him. They wasted no time in leaving the area. She sat down on the cliff. There was a small flock of Buffleheads at the far end of the pond. She eventually took off and though we tried to get the Buffles to leave, it just wasn't going to happen. We hustled them from one end of the pond to the other with nothing to show for it. I had a dead duck in my bag, thanks to Curly finding and catching one in the shallow end of the pond, so I tied a string on it and threw it down for her. I let her eat the whole thing, since it was a small Bufflehead.

Now I admit to being a bit slow, but today I made several discoveries. One of them unfortunately is for the second time, which is a bit sad.

Some of the discoveries are quite funny, such as "Jacks grunt like little pigs when they make sharp turns at full speed".

Disney had it right in his cartoons when he named the Bunny "Thumper". Bunnies when they run, make more noise than the Jacks, other than the grunts that is. "Bunny feet are noisy".

The sad one is: "The hurriered I go, the behinder I get".

Last year when I flew Jessie, and she killed, I let her eat everything she could hold. As a consequence we only had something like 14 or so head of game before we were frozen out. This year I thought that I could get away with trading her food that she likes, quail, for the duck after she had fed on it a bit. I had thoughts of catching enough ducks to make it worth while and help on the winter food bill for the birds. Well it seems that she decided to cut to the chase. She would hit a duck, and I should give her a quail. Yeah, I know, they aren't that smart. I would be inclined to agree under most circumstances, but the fact remains that she has knocked down something close to 8 ducks in the last four flights and has not kept any of them. She doesn't seem to be able to wait for me to offer her a quail. I know that this seems to be a bit of an unlikely supposition, it seems so to me, but the facts and her actions seem to bear out that conclusion.

I realize that I spoil my hawks, and I would be a lot better off if I used the Patty Hearst syndrome to my advantage, but it is not natural for me, so she has learned how she should be treated and seems to insist on it. By trying to catch more ducks, I end up having to reinforce the whole reason that she hunts in the first place and that is to eat what she catches.

"One should be smarter than what you are working with." See above paragraph for the reasons behind that statement.

Oh yeah, one of the other ones is: "Hawks are not capable of gratitude": I give her a duck that she didn't catch to eat and she bites me for trying to secure her Jesses. She only managed one bite, but she tried four or five times.

In spite of it all, it was a great day, and I am very grateful to be able to share some of it with you.