Nov 6th

The sunrise this morning was outstanding as it usually is when a storm is coming in.

I haven't fed Jessie since our last episode, and she is hungry! She has done her best to get me to either take her hunting or feed her. All of which I have ignored. I wanted to fly her yesterday, but a storm was coming in and the wind was howling. This morning she was light enough that I needed to either fly or feed her, so we loaded up and went to Appendix point.

Upon our arrival the leading edge of a squall was closing in on the pond, and a flock of ducks were flying. We had not flushed them, since they could not see or hear our approach. We waited to see what they would do, and at least four of them landed again, while the rest continued gaining altitude and disappeared to the South. 

The dogs and I made our way to the top of the cliff. I turned Jessie loose and waited for her to get into position. The wind at the top of the cliff was pretty strong, but she wasn't having any trouble with it.

When she was overhead I went up to the edge of the cliff and could see nothing on the water at all. Finally by throwing stuff, I was able to flush them out of the reeds where they were hiding. They cleared the water and Jessie began her stoop. Of course they saw her and turned back to the water. She hit one of them and knocked him down a few feet off the bank. Miss "dainty toes" strafed him a couple of time, but he made it back into the water.

Betsy saw and heard the strike and she was going nuts, whining and running to try to get there as fast as she could. Of course she didn't beat the duck to the water, so she was running all around the bank, whining and making all kinds of high pitched sounds. Curly in the mean time had run the other direction and I could see him about 60 feet from the dam swimming along the cliff edge. There is no place that he can climb out of the water until he either goes back the way he came or swims another 125 feet. I was sure the "dumb shit" was going to drown. I couldn't watch, so I started down to the reeds on the far end of the pond, thinking if he ran out of gas that would be the closest place to him. I was relieved to see him run back over the top of the cliff. (Not as dumb as I thought) I saw the duck that Jessie had hit, swimming out in front of the reeds. Jessie was still holding position over us, so Curly and I started looking for him. We found him at the narrow end of the reeds, but it was apparent that he wasn't able to fly, and he went around the reeds. Curly jumped in and much to my amazement Betsy, across on the other bank also dived in and was trying her best to catch up as well.  ( Betsy has never went swimming without being forced to do so. She was very scared of the water, but Karen and I put a leash on her this summer and forced her to swim in the pool. She would, without a leash, but it took a lot of encouragement on my part to get her to do so.)  I was so desperate that I took off what ever extra that I could shed and went out there with them, but none of us could find the duck again.

We walked back around the pond to the side that Karen was on, and Jessie was alternately holding position over me or stooping me as I walked. I ignored her until I got to the far bank. I tossed the lure with a pigeon leg on it, and called her to the fist for another. It is my intention to go out again this evening. Hopefully the storm will have passed by before then.

Karen had thoughtfully brought a towel in the likely event that one of the dogs would get wet. Curly likes to be dried, so he leans into it.

Apparently I am going to have to make a couple of sacrifices to the falconry Gods. We took Jessie out this evening at 4PM and went to the lake. I have never seen it without ducks on it, especially in the evening.

Both Betsy and Curly are all attention when Jessie's hood is removed, and they will stay on point until she begins to fly.

The lake is one spot that you cannot check without flushing any ducks that might be on it. I turned Jess loose and she went up pretty good, there were no ducks at all. Apparently the storms have moved the ducks South. Will have to wait for the next wave I guess. I fed her a half of a Pigeon breast. Will have to see what tomorrow brings.