Puddy Tat continues to amaze!

There is a weather front moving through today and overall its pretty miserable outside. Jessie was up to 876 grams, which is her low flying weight, but the wind is steady out of the north at 14 MPH and I just didn't want to fight either the Balloon or the kite, so I opted to feed her a Sparrow and wait for tomorrow. She should lose a bit of weight, but I at least fed her something.

Pud weighed in at 855 grams, which is higher than I have ever flown her, and with the wind, I didn't feel like a trip to Arock was warranted. I felt that she would be too low if I held her over another day, so I decided to fly her here at the house and give her enough that she would still lose down to what I consider her flying weight which is about 830 grams. Harris Hawks are not built for the wind, so I was sure that with the small amount of rabbits that I would find we wouldn't get anything done at all. Pud had been calling every time she saw me, so I knew that she thought she should be fed.

There are anywhere from 25 to 30 rabbits, both Jacks and Bunnies that mow my lawn every night, but they apparently come from a long way off because the best I have done walking through the Sage here is about three Jacks. I didn't think that we were going to get anything other than exercise.

The wind was so strong that she had a hard time sitting with her back to the wind, so she rode the perch looking over her shoulder, facing into the wind. We did jump a Jack on the bench outside our fence, but with the wind she didn't get much done. I dropped down over the rimrock and ran into covey after covey of Quail, but she made no move to chase any of them. I know she caught one on her first flight, but it was running rather than flying, and I am sure she thought it was a lizard.

I skirted the rimrock thinking that we might jump a Bunny, but there was nothing other than Quail. We crossed the creek and did find one Jack, but he soon gave us the slip by running into the wind. I decided that we were pissing (pun intended) into the wind, so I started back. I crossed the creek again and walked towards the rimrock down there hoping that I could find something for her to chase. She took off and made an effort after something that I never saw. I kept the perch down so that she would stay there rather than come back to me. She turned and flew up on the short rimrock that skirted the Sage. I walked all around, beating the bushes trying to flush whatever it was. I had not seen anything leave the area, so I was pretty confident that it was hiding in the Greasewood and Sage. I had just about beat every bush, when she took off again flying up over the rimrock and the fence at the top. She lost it again and sat down on the rocks. I went up there and she took off again flying back the way she had come and really slammed into a Greasewood bush at the bottom of the rimrock. The sound was a lot like that a bullet makes when it hits something. I stopped to listen for the scream, but there was no sound other than the wind howling over the rocks and Sage.

I made my way down to where she had gone in and was very surprised to see her in the middle of the Greasewood bush on a Bunny's head. No wonder he couldn't make a sound.

As you can see my mouth is still hanging open. She now has 4 Jacks, and 4 Bunnies. As I have said many times before, Bunnies are much harder to catch than are Jacks, yet she continues to catch the rascals.