Sue's first kill!

We got a fairly good start today. Karen took pity on me and put the mosquito spray in the car. I'm not saying that I would have left it behind, but I'm not betting against it either. Apparently she had her doubts as well.

Sue's weight was in an acceptable range, and once we started walking, she was all eyes. With one exception, Jack Rabbits. Several flushed out in front of us, and while she saw them, they didn't merit pursuit. I found when starting Peg, that a Jack flushing at our feet would trigger a chase, but more than 20 yards away was ignored.

There is a lot of water there, as flood irrigation is used to water the Wheat fields that border the Sage. This is the reason that there are so many mosquito's in the area. This time with the exception of a few spots between my eyes that I missed with the spray, I was immune to the hordes of the little buggers.

Sue made a couple of good serious chases for Bunnies that flushed in front of us. For the most part she rode the fist quite well, and only made forays for tidbits a couple of times. In the picture above, Sue remembered the spot that she caught the Bunny that I shot for her, and flew down to check and make sure that there wasn't something left there for her to eat.

After cruising through the sage, she came for a tidbit, and we walked through the rest of the little strip hoping to find another one. She decided to go exploring again and hopped into the sage for another look. A hen pheasant took that opportunity to make her escape. I called Sue back to the fist just in case there were more. She sat for a bit and went back to exploring. As soon as she hit the ground a poult Pheasant about the size of a large Quail flushed out of the weeds. She of course didn't see it. I called her back and walked all through the swamp, finding nothing but water and Mosquitos. I decided to traverse the other side just in case there were some there. A small rabbit bolted right at our feet and Sue was off in a flash, slashing through the heavy Sage after it. The screams of the rabbit gave testimoney to her resolve and success. I stood for a bit amazed at our luck. That kind of stuff never happens. Most generally it is like pulling teeth to get a young hawk started. Poor old Peg never got any sort of break like that. What ever, I'll take it.

After I crawled around the other side, I could see that it wasn't a Bunny as I had thought but a small half grown Jack. Sue handled him quite easily and killed him without my help.

I let her come back to reality, they zone out for a while after grabbing game, then tossed her a hind leg from the last Bunny and removed the Jack while she ate the leg.

Once she finished the leg, I offered her the other one to eat while we made our way back to the car. I will grant you that the poor little critter was not in the trophy class, but its sacrifice and the resulting influence on Sue and her hunting is much larger than I can explain in print. Thankful, and humbled at the experience we made our way back home.

You may wonder that I didn't let her eat the Jack that she caught. The reason is parasites. Almost all the older Rabbits will have tape worms and other parasites in their stomach and guts. At a certain point leaving them with the game is necessary especially on the first few, but I try to limit that as much as I can depending on the raptor, and the food type.

Again I was struck with the amount of road kills while traveling to the hunting area. There is at least one dead rabbit every mile, sometime many more. The Ravens and Eagles had all filled their crops on fresh rabbit. I checked the two Eagles that I saw sitting on poles along the road and all were bulging with food. Even the Vultures were eating fresh meat in Arock. The predators will prosper this year.