Yogi and Jasper

We took Puddy out today to hunt and she was at weight, but for whatever reason just wasn't putting much effort in her chases, so I got pissed and took her home with no food.

I picked up Yogi and her weight was 1260 grams. I activated her telemetry, and we took her out here at the house to see what she knew and was going to do. She is not familar with the Tee perch. She rode the perch until a Jack jumped quite far out, and she gave chase, but when he hid, she flew back to the yard and took a seat on one of the trucks. We whistled and called, and she flew the 150 yards back to us. She is very much out of shape, and not very strong. She stopped at least twice on the way back. She gave chase to every Jack that we jumped, but they had no real problem evading her. We walked quite a bit, and she was quite interested and into hunting. Just going to need to get her in shape so that she can catch some of these rabbits.

Yesterday Karen and I called her back and forth for tidbits, and when I felt that she had flown enough, I threw the lure on the ground between us. She did not hesitate at all and landed on the lure. She was a bit protective of it, but not that much. Today I called her again to the lure by throwing it high in the air. All in all we were both very pleased with her actions and reaction today.

Tami brought Jasper over about 5PM, bringing her husband Dave and ranch hand, David with her. Dave has been hearing about how Jasper has been doing and finally came along to see just what was up. He was pretty sure that he would jinx our hunt by coming along. Apparently Jasper didn't feel that way, and took a stand by the Chicken house. A Sparrow decided to evacuate and Jasper gave him incentive to fly fast, chasing him past the other Chicken house and down towards the Creek. Jasper finally decided that he wasn't going to catch him, and turned back towards us. He went into a hover over the chicken house, then turned over into a steep dive after a Sparrow hiding by the rock fence. There were a bunch of Starlings inside the Chicken pen that suddenly wanted to be somewhere else.  Jasper decided that a bunch of Starling was much more interesting that a Sparrow hiding in the rocks. He took off flying towards where they were trying to get out. I went into the pen to flush one out for him. The next thing I know he flashed past me, inside the pen and grabs a Starling that is trying to squeeze through the wire. This summer I put one inch chicken wire over the pen but there are some areas down low that are not covered. Jasper knows how to get in the pen, and apparently has no problem remembering how, even during hot pursuit.  He had reached through the wire with both feet and had both of them around the Starlings neck. He was hanging upside down holding the Starling and the Starling was screaming bloody murder. I reached up and grabbed the Starlings legs. Tami came in and unwrapped one of his Jasper's legs so that I could pull the Starling back through to our side of the wire.

Unfortunately none of us was carrying a camera to record this. While I was holding on to the Starling, Jasper was busy sticking his head through the two inch mesh and killing the Starling. He was not about to let go of anything for any reason.

I believe that is number 7 of unassisted kills for him.