All Jasper today.

I knew it was too good to last. We actually have a storm blowing in form the Southwest today. The temps jumped up to 54 degrees, and the wind was gusting to 24. I had intended to fly the Harris's but with this wind, the best thing was to feed them enough to hold them over to tomorrow.

I had two Starlings in my trap, so I wanted to get Jasper started on the kite. I got the quad out of the doors to the hanger, but didn't see the need to go that far away since the wind was blowing away from the hanger. The only thing that I didn't take into account is that the wind shadow from the hanger was going to make for some squirrely wind. I got the kite up in the air, and once it reached about 50 feet it turned over and slammed into the ground breaking the rod that makes up the spine. Time for plan B.

The wind was still screaming, and Jasper really had to hang on to the fist to keep from being blown away. He first took a perch on the free Chickens house, but the Starlings and Sparrows were all over to the captive pen. He soon zipped over there and the usual mayhem ensued. He was here, there, chasing this one, missing one in the rocks. Off again after another, then we were out of Sparrows and opportunities. Just as we were about ready to go to a bagged Starling, a batch of Sparrows flew back in and the chase was on again. Once again, he frittered away all the opportunities, and Tami, who was outside the pen started to go through the fence, flushed another Sparrow. This time he was determined to catch it. The last I saw of him as he disappeared around the loafing shed, was just about a foot in behind the Sparrow. He didn't come back, but a large group of Sparrows that had taken refuge in front of the house lifted off and came to the pens to hide.

We waited, but he didn't show up, so we started a search for him, sure that he had caught something. One of the big problems with him is that he is hard to see if he is more than 50 yards away or down on the ground. If he was the type to be secretive, she would have lost him long ago.

 I finally found him on the ground by the back of the house, almost under the eves. The flight had gone more than 100 yards. This is the first time that he has really pressed the pursuit. The hardest part of flying any kind of game is to convince the hawk that if they keep pressing they can generally force the quarry to try to take cover. He has been discovering the consequences of not catching anything, and he hates it. Tami says that he is restless all night when he misses.

 Well he won't be restless tonight.

 Tami offered her fist to him, but the wind was still howling and if he had turned around he would have ended up on his beak. He is looking, but held his ground.

 When she reached down to get him, he still didn't turn around, but sidestepped up on the fist.

We retired to the shop to get out of the wind so that he could eat.

Yogi, catching up!

We first gave Jasper a chance to catch a Sparrow, but unfortunately, he was unable to make it happen. As soon as he opened his wings, the Pigeons all flew, and with them the Sparrows. We has some good chases, but no cigar. He once went up about 150 feet and was circling over top of the Pigeons. I kicked the wall and flushed out a Sparrow. Jasper turned over and was just about a foot behind it when they went around the "cat house". Unfortunately the Sparrow took cover and the flight ended up right in front of us in another rock wall.

We ended up calling him to the fist and letting him sit in the box to contemplate his failures while we hunted the two Harris's.

I loaded them into the back of the Subaru and drove down to the end of the runway to save us a bit of an unproductive walk. Puddy was up to 887 grams while Yogi was down to 1100. Not sure whats up with Puddy, since I consider 840 to be her flying weight, but I am having trouble getting her down that low. Yogi sheds weight like crazy and I have to watch her weight, so that it doesn't get too low. Perhaps it is just that the girl has put on muscle.

I had expected Puddy to be a bit sluggish, but she was anything but. The first Jack that jumped, Puddy was after in a flash and a quick wingover brought a squeal from the Jack. Unfortunately Yogi wasn't close enough to help and the Jack made his escape. We walked quite a bit before we got another chance at any of them.

After a rather lengthy search we had a couple of close slips, and Yogi was really trying hard, but she still has not perfected her technique and although many of them were extremely close, she still wasn't getting it done. Puddy also was burning up the Sage, slamming into the brush and the ground equally. Finally one busted out fairly close to us and Puddy crashed into the ground just on the other side of a Sage bush, followed by Yogi. After Yogi went in, the rabbit screamed once, then the screams were cut off abruptly.

 The one that gets its feet on the rabbit first is almost always on the rear end, since that is the closest thing to grab. That leaves the rabbit momentarily with the front end scrabbling to pull free of the demon on its butt. The other hawk will grab the head quicker than the rabbit can say "Oh shit", which makes the screams quite muffled.

 While this looks like a wreck, and an extremely dangerous situation, it has not been so far. Those feet are flying faster than a rabbit or a man can begin to react, but the accuracy is just as amazing as it is fast. So far neither has so much as scratched the other, but they are a tumbled mess to all appearances.

If you enlarge the picture above you can see that Yogi has ripped a four inch slash almost down to the bone in the Jacks leg. She has one of the Jacks legs on her left side and her right leg up between the Jacks legs and into his belly. In the meantime Puddy has both feet and all eight talons buried in the Jacks head.

I attempted to give Puddy a front leg from an earlier kill, since the Jack rightly belonged to Yogi, but Yogi volunteered to take it. She walked off a couple of steps to eat her reward, leaving me to convince Puddy to let go. To my great pleasure, she did so with little encouragement. Reuben and I went off a bit to clean the Jack. Reuben kindly offered his knife to clean it with.

We gave both birds all the rabbit that they could eat. Yogi, ever the Lady, daintily ate her food on Tami's fist, while the youngster bolted every thing she could get down her throat as fast as she could.

Jasper - #20

Tami and Isabel came over today to hunt Jasper and help me with the girls here at the house. Jasper has had a dry spell, due to Dave's injury and our education program for the Sparrows here at the house. However one made a fatal error in judgement today. It hid under my old Ford truck, and I saw it hide. Tami rousted it out and it tried to scrape Jasper off on the fence wire that you see between Jasper and myself. It failed to understand Jasper's knowledge of fences and his determination. Tami got over the two fences between us and called him to the fist. He happily carried his Sparrow to her.

We have not hunted him very hard, averaging 3 to 4 flights a week. Of course lately there wasn't even that for at least three weeks. Perhaps now we can hunt him a bit more regularly.  If we lived in an urban setting it would be easy to kill something every time we went out. It would merely require a car trip to the local fast food place, roll down the car window and pick him and his kill up. Fast food joints are a bit scarce around here. If and when the wind picks up a bit we will start some kite training for him just to learn how, and to see how much more efficient he can be from a height.

Puddy was a bit heavy today after all the food that she stuffed down at the end of our last hunt, but she would still try. Yogi was about right, so when Jasper finished his Sparrow, all of us started for the Sage on the other side of the fence. They have progressed to the point that they are a lot of fun to fly. Neither one expects tidbits to come to the fist or the perch. Yogi shows her wild influence in her ability to see rabbits. Puddy will chase whatever jumps up, but once she misses it, she will soon return to the perch to wait for the next chance. Yogi often "goes on point". She knows if they are hiding or if they have left the area. If she is left on her own, she will stay there until she finds it. I generally prefer to try to find another one that might not be so smart, but have found that I had just as well go see if I can push it up for another try. So far we have almost always jumped them, but have yet to catch one on the the second or third try, but what the heck, it is exciting as all get out.

Yogi is slowly evolving in her flying style. Puddy goes straight for the rabbit following every twist and turn and slamming into either the ground, a bush, or the rabbit if she gets an opening. Perhaps if she learns to take a bit more care of her tail, she might be able to make some of these 90 degree turns that the Jacks are pulling on her.  Yogi cuts them off and has been making slams into the ground at right angles to the fleeing rabbit. So far she has missed, but I bet there are a lot of them with all the hair scrubbed off their bellies. They counter this attack by squatting. She has also been experimenting with the throw up flight when they go to ground. Unfortunately so far she hasn't consistently gone high enough or learned to look over her shoulder as she climbs. She is getting there, and will either perfect this technique this year or the next. These rabbits are the toughest, and smartest of the bunch. All have survived constant predation by Golden Eagles and  Coyotes all year long. They are rolling in fat, and are big, strong and very smart.

Karen walked with us for most of the hunt, and we all had a great time. Unfortunately no rabbits were harmed in this exercise. Well Puddy pulled a patch of hair off one of them, but nothing serious.

Finally a chance to go hunting.

 Sunrise over the desert.

Things have been a bit screwed up over the holidays, and I just holed up rather than try to work out the logistics of hunting by myself. Tami and I have hunted Jasper a bit recently here at the house, but the Sparrows are wise to our tactics, and so far it has been a draw. We are in the process of getting some more sites usable, but haven't had a lot of free time to get them operational yet. I really want to explore some kite training for the little guy, but the wind has been so calm that it will not support a kite. I know, hard to believe, isn't it? I thought that I would be able to fly it the other day, so I drug every thing out and started running the kite up in the air. I got up about a hundred feet and one of the walls of my reel came off and we had a 1000 feet or more of kite string to untangle. It only took about 3 hours.

Tami and Grace assisted me with the girls here at the house two days ago. I am finally doing some hunting on the rabbits that have spent the fall mowing my lawn. We went out in the Sage north of the house and found a few Jacks. Puddy even pulled hair on one of them, but there are no dumb ones left. While I haven't hunted them, the Eagles do on a regular basis. Dumb ones are scarce this time of the year.

Tami was off to Boise to get Dave's staples out today, so I asked Karen to go with us here at the house on a rabbit hunt. She agreed, and we picked up the girls and climbed over the fence. There is a bit of a hillock or hump in the ground about a 1/4 mile out that seemed to hold the most Jacks the last time Tami and I went out there, so we made our way there. Tami spoils me a bit since she is so fit, while Karen with her heart afibs isn't getting enough oxygen to keep up. I made her promise to remind me when I forgot and went too fast. She mentioned that she had forgotten to bring a camera, and I told her that we were now guaranteed to catch something.

We were doing pretty good, and had a couple of chases where the girls where taking some pretty good shots at the fleeing Jacks, but nothing connected. We started our way up on the hump when the girls both took off after different rabbits. Yogi landed on a Sage bush quite a way out, but Puddy came back to me and landed on the perch. I started that way as I was sure that one of the rabbits had hidden somewhere near where they had lost him. I had covered about half the distance when one of them lost his nerve and broke cover. Puddy gave chase, and Yogi much further out, started an interception course and was climbing all the way. Puddy made a shot at him, but missed. Yogi continued on and then folded into a twisting dive and soon the welcome sound of a Jack Rabbit in pain floated back. Puddy whipped up off the ground and went in to help.

I got there as fast as I could and saw the front end of a Jack straining to pull away. I grabbed him and broke his neck, then began to look for the other hawk. I could only see Puddy. She had a limb between her legs and the branches in her face. I reached up to attempt to clear it and found that Yogi was under her wing, but they both had the rabbit in the middle. There they were, their heads side by side and their feet were also side by side. Karen was a bit surprised that they were working so well together on the kill without fighting.

I gave Karen a front leg, that I had carried just for this type of situation, to give to Puddy. She for once willingly let go of the Jack to consume the leg. Perhaps it was the fact that she was stretched way out of shape, or perhaps it was the Sage bush stuck in her eye, but whatever, she was quite nice and better than she has ever been.

I gave Yogi another one and she stepped off the Jack. I took it out of the way and cleaned it, cutting off both hind legs the feed the girls with once they finished their other pieces of meat.

I asked Karen which hawk she wanted to carry, Yogi or Puddy which is about half a pound lighter. She chose Puddy, and we started the almost half mile walk back. Pud is lighter, but she is much more clumsy, and difficult to feed. She has no clue the best way to eat on the fist, or for that matter what her feet are doing. We stopped and laughed at her quite a bit before we got back home.

Its a shame, Karen is finally getting to the point that she is able to hunt a bit, but she is scheduled for a hysterectomy the 12th of this month. That will take care of the rest of the winter for her. Since she has never had children, the easy way to do that is out, and the recovery time is 6 weeks or more.

 Sometimes the sunsets and sunrises are just too much to resist.

Time for an update.

Well Christmas is over and the New Year is approaching. I guess it is time to bring things up to date.

Dave was able to come home from the Hospital the day after his hip operation. Dave is of course Tami's husband. I was very surprised that they let him out so soon. After all they reconstructed his hip socket. I guess Buckaroo's are tougher than the rest of us. Tami at least was able to be overwhelmed at home rather than driving back and forth about 260 miles a day. Just one of the perks of being out of the rat race. Overall worth it.

As you can guess our hawking has gone into a holding pattern for a bit. Karen quite frankly isn't up to the rigors of Harris Hawking, and I can't handle two Harris Hawks by my self. The problem is Yogi and her default setting of hunting on her own. Pud would be just fine, but Yogi has a tendency to go off on her own, and is too big to share a T perch with Pud. It is just easier to not take them both hunting. I have tried Yogi on her own and it hasn't worked out. She tends to go off on her own without Pud there to focus her attention. The last two times I have tried it, she has ended up hunting Voles by flying off to any fence post around.

I did take Jessie out for some ditch hawking with Karen, and it too turned into a fiasco of the first order. The chance of getting the first flush right to the point that Jessie can get a Duck over land is fairly slim, and that day was no exception. She was a bit more selective, in fact to the point that I felt that she was refusing chances, but it is hard to tell. She could have just been waiting for a good opportunity. She finally ran out of steam about the same time I ran out of Ducks, and landed on the far side of the creek. I thought that I still had three Teal on the creek in front of me, and was prepared to wait, but she got up off the ground and flew as though she was going to remount, but she turned over and flew into the Greasewood. It was a bit strange as it looked as though she was after something, but I had not seen anything. I walked around for a bit, and then decided that I had better check on her.

When I crossed the creek and got to the fence, I saw her duck into the brush. When I got there I found that she had ground sluiced a Coot.

What a great flight that had been. Oh well, they all count one, especially to her. I went up to her, and she was on the fight, attacking me with beak and talon as soon as I bent down. I am not sure what was on her mind, but she was obviously feeling guilty and protective.

She really didn't like the taste of it either, and after trying pieces of it all over decided that she would rather eat the Pigeon that I had.

The weather after that got really cold, with the temps getting down into the single digits most mornings. My primary water source, a Frost free? faucet got so cold that I pulled the rod off of the buried operational part, so I am back to carrying water, until I can dig it up. The water line is about three feet down, so I was surprised that I had problems with it.

We have all had our Christmas, and a grand one it was too. Karen and I joined the ranch for Christmas dinner. It was quite a treat, with 5 kids, 9 adults and all the wrapping paper needed to make a Christmas for kids. Reuben had asked Santa for a BB gun, and Tami decided that was a good idea and got one for me as well.

Along with enough BB's to eliminate most of the Pack Rat population.

After Christmas we had a storm blow in that brought the temps up in the 50's, but it also brought a lot of wind. We had gusts yesterday at 36 mph.

It calmed down enough that I decided that it might be wise to use the down time to reacquaint Yogi to flying to the fist. The last time we flew her near the house she ended up at the Chicken house trying her best to become a Chicken Hawk, so I decided that I would fly her on the creance. Not a big deal. I was preparing stuff while she was sitting on her perch in the weathering area. I found a nice creance that was secured to a piece of PVC with shot in it for weight. I had already fed Pud and left her in the shop so that she would not be teased by me calling another bird, and not being able to respond.

I decided to fly her in front of the weathering area as the hanger blocked a lot of the wind, and we were out of sight of the Chickens. I got the creance and tossed the PVC part out, unwinding the string. Yogi saw the PVC and bated at it. I knew that I was in for trouble, but what was done was done. I got her out, tied her to the creance and started to walk to the fence to call her. She stood on tippy toes and took off over my shoulder and onto the creance. She would not leave it. She walked around with it in her feet, tugging and looking for the meat that just had to be there. She came a couple of times to the fist, bringing it with her, but would not leave it alone. I finally got Karen out to help me untangle her, and Karen kept it in her vest so that I could get something out of the lesson.

Today the wind again died down and I prepared to fly her to the fist again. I set her on the fence and turned around to walk back a ways and she zoomed past me to grab the creance again. I had not tied her to it this time, and I had not moved it even so much as a twitch, but it didn't matter. I had tossed it out a couple of days ago and that was good enough for her. The only thing that works is to let her decide that there was no food on it, so I walked into the house to get my camera, leaving her stumping around on the ground with it in her feet.

http://vimeo.com/34357369

She had gone to the fence by the time I got outside. When she went under the fence with it, I went back into the house to drop off the camera. By the time I got back she had gone up to the chimney on the hanger without it. We finished her flights with no more problems.

Jasper- Jessie - Dave.

Tami came over around 2PM to fly Jasper. We have been discussing establishing some different areas to hunt Sparrows as the ones here are showing the effects of being hunted too often. They are learning, and with knowledge comes survival.

We did our best here, but most of the Sparrows had abandoned the area when Tami showed up, so we were left with a bagged Starling. Jasper was keeping vigil over us as we walked into the field in front of the hanger, and when he was in position, I yelled and tossed the Starling. He wasted no time in binding to it at about 35 feet and took it to the ground. Tami helped him with it and we retired to the shop to let him eat a bit, while I got Jessie's stuff together for her hunt.

I went over to the ranch at about 3:45 P and Tami, Reuben and I went down the creek to see if Jessie could come up with another Duck. Again she smacked two ducks, one of which was propelled into a large patch of Greasewood. She went down to try to get it, but could not get through the brush. I went to the other side of the creek to see if I could help her, but I wasn't sure which bush it went into. I had to resort to my telemetry to locate her, and by then she gotten impatient and thought that I had the duck. She made several circles around me, whiffing me with her wings, and once landing on my shoulder. I could do nothing to help her however.

She went back up, and although we tried, nothing worked out. About half way up the creek, Grace came running up yelling that Dave was hurt. Tami went to be with Dave and administer assistance. I walked back, gathered up Jessie and fed her.

When I got to the ranch house, Dave was in a chair, and in great pain. He had been working a horse, and his Dog apparently "heeled" the horse as he was going around the arena. As they came around again, either the horse remembered, or the dog did it again, and the horse bucked Dave off onto the frozen ground. This had occurred around 3:45 PM. He had lain on the ground for an hour or so before he could get to the fence. Every one was gone, but finally Sam got close enough that he could get his attention. They were able to get him on the tail gate of Sam's PU. Sam and Isabel got him into the house and in the chair. I got there around 5 PM. Tami had of course called the ambulance, but it was at least an hour out. Dave's dad, and a neighbor from Rome had also came in response to the kids call for help.

We were waiting for conformation that the Ambulance was on its way, when Tami got a call and was told that the "Life Flight" chopper was near the house, so we went out and used cars to indicate a landing zone. They were finally able to set down and the two Paramedics got him on a back board and we carried him to the chopper. They were soon airborne to  St Alfonse in Boise.

He apparently blew out the socket on his thigh breaking his pelvis in three or four places. He still hasn't had surgery, should be soon however. Prognostication is good, but he won't be riding for a year or more.

With all that has happened and the necessary loss of my main helper, I will suspend the Harris Hawk's hunting for a while, and probably will not hunt Jessie until after Christmas.

I would like to wish all of you a Merry Christmas and Happy holidays. I thank each and every one of you that follow this little blog for your interest and patience.

Puddy 16, Yogi 7.

Sometimes it seems as if there is someone looking over my shoulder, checking to see if I am keeping to business. Probably my imagination.

Tami brought over Jasper this evening at about 1:30 P, but the Sparrows are getting too smart to be trapped in the Chicken pens and giving Jasper a chance to get after them. So after exausing all of our possibilities, we tied him to Jessie's perch in the shop with the intent to try to fly him after we got back from hunting the girls.

We took the girls to Arock to see if we could catch a couple of rabbits. The Jacks are either getting scarce with all the Eagle depredations, or they are getting smart. Both are probably in play. We found quite a few of fur piles, and the Jacks have started hiding, hard. Finally after a few chases that did not pan out, Puddy launched herself off Tami's perch and slammed into a Jack hiding in his form. Yogi joined in and secured the head.

You will notice that Puddy's wings are pinned by the bush. I had to pry the bush apart so that she could move up on the Jack.

This is a rabbit " Form", they will clear all the grass and sticks and sometimes they hide them inside a Sage Bush, but this one was in a clump of Sage. It just wasn't enough cover to keep Puddy from seeing it. It never got a chance to run. The interesting part of the whole thing is that this Rabbit had had a run in with a Harris Hawk last year.

That is his right ear, and as you can see it is split for about two inches. Either Sue or Peg got hold of him last year. You can run, and you can hide, just not forever.

After we fed the girls a bit, we started back to the car. It was pretty sparse for rabbits in the area that we were moving through, and we didn't see anything until we were right in front of the car. We started a Bunny and Pud slammed into a bush hard enough to make us all wince, but missed him. Yogi had stayed behind on a pile of rocks, and was far enough away that she could play no part in the chase. She finally caught up, and I decided to go just a bit further around an outcropping just in case.

As I neared the outcrop, Yogi took off and cut a sharp circle around the rocks. Pud went to the top of them to watch. When I got on the backside, I could see Yogi down in a crack in the rocks with her feet stuck in the hole and grabbing again and again at the Bunny. I looked in the front part of the rocks and could see the Bunny. All it took was to stick the end of the perch in the hole, and Yogi had something to hold onto.

She drug him out, and we had our second double where both of the birds caught something. We fed them up and made our way back home.

We took Jasper out again and got a fair number of chases, one of which, he caught a Sparrow in the rock pile, but lost him while trying to work his way out of the rocks. Tami had to feed him some cold Sparrow, the first in a long time.

I fed Jessie some Bunny to hold her over until tomorrow when we will try for Ducks again. Sometimes there just isn't enough hours in a day to do every thing that you want to do.