New bird

About a month ago I received a call from a falconer in Southern Utah concerning my post to the lost hawk forum in NAFA ( North American Falconry Assoc.) When he was describing the bird it was pretty obvious that it wasn't Peg. It seems that the bird, a mature female, had gone up to some campers and was begging for food. They apparently fed it some Ham. This occurred in Northern Arizona which is not Harris Hawk habitat. Justin is also a rehabilitator, and the Arizona F&W apparently call him for problems with Raptors. He was asked to check the situation out, and although he looked, he could not find her. The next day she apparently "treed" some (more timid) campers in their trailer and wouldn't let them out to cook Breakfast. This time Justin found her and offered her some Bunny on his fist. She flew to him, and he put her in a box and took her home.

Justin asked if I would be interested in her. He had tried to find her owner, but could find no one that had lost a Harris Hawk. She had no band, or any "furniture" on her legs at all. When he picked her up, she had not moulted all of her juvenile feathers, so he thinks that she is a second year bird.

I of course told him that I could not take her without a band on her legs, but if that could be resolved, I would take her. She had caused enough problems for the Arizona F&W that they called me, and agreed to band her with a fed band. I sent Justin a crate and she arrived in Boise today.

We put jesses on her, clipped a transmitter receptacle to her tail, and weighed her. She weighed 1317 grams, 46 ounces. Compared to Puddy's 29 ounces. She is a monster. She doesn't appear to need to take off that much weight to get to flying weight. She tolerated our handling quite well, and accepted a Jack Rabbit leg to eat afterward. She however is upset about the dogs. She will get over that in time.

Since she was harassing campers and their food baskets, I decided to name her "Yogi". 

As soon as I got her squared away it was time to fly Jessie. The wind was howling again, so I left the kite at three hundred feet. That would put the lure at two hundred. She had to work at it. The wind was whipping out of the South at 20 MPH.

 The above picture is what it looks like and the bottom picture is trimmed so that you can see a bit better.

  Unfortunately I had my finger over the lens when she grabbed the lure and began to bring it down.