Raptor Run

Karen and I have done a Raptor count for the East Cascades Audubon Society for the last 6 years. We enjoy a reason to get out and do a little Raptor watching. We normally start in Nov and do them each month ending in March. I finally got a Digital SLR, so this trip was a bit of an introduction to the camera. The run is 158 miles and takes us about 5 hours to do it.

Don 't forget, to see the pictures full screen, click on it to see, back button to resume reading.

Of course a picture of the Steen's is necessary for the beginning. Then we have the wild horse that has been hanging around the Hwy. on the way to Burns Jct. I am not sure where he gets his water. There is none anywhere visible. Sam, next door, keeps various tanks full of water, scattered around the area here.

The Great Horned Owls are setting on eggs that should be hatching soon, The females on the nest are easily sighted, but the males require some effort to find.

Redtails are the most numerous Raptors on the route, but some of them do not exhibit the normal color phases.

 I am sorry that I did not take any pictures of the "normal" color phases, so you will have to look it up if you want to know what they normally look like.

 There are quite a few Pheasants in Arock. (a small community, on our route ) The plentiful game that can be found here is one of the main reasons that we decided to retire here.

There was another Great Horned Owl nest by this pond. The Cinnamon Teal and the Mallards don't seem to be bothered by them. The Ground Squirrels (Beldings Ground Squirrel ) are around but not in the numbers that they are sometimes found.

We even saw a Rock Chuck, but there was no chance to even get a fuzzy photo of it. I believe that sighting is the second that I have seen here in the four years that I have been running around this part of the country.

The Chukar is another of the upland game birds that can be found here. This one was in a gal's yard on our route.

The Swans are on their way back to their breeding grounds in the Artic.

Antelope abound in the area. There are Deer in certain secluded areas, but the Antelope can bee any where.

Sandhill Cranes are starting to come in to rest and feed in the fields before continuing on their way back.

We also saw the first Turkey Vulture of the year just outside of Jordan Valley.

Finally here is a picture of the "Pillars of Rome" and the final area that we survey on our trip.

We counted  36 Redtails, 4 American Kestrals, 1 Northern Harrier, 3 Bald Eagles, 9 Golden Eagles, 8 American Rough Legs, 1 Prairie Falcon, 1 Sharpshin Hawk and 5 Great Horned Owls.

The Raptors are moving back into their breeding areas, and cleaning out nests, establishing breeding territories.

Second Childhood

The weather has been almost good enough to do things and I have gotten in a little tumbleweed burning and herbicide spraying on the runway trying to prepare for spring, it is still not enough. So while we were in town yesterday I picked up a little toy to keep me amused while in the house. An E-flite MCX micro helicopter. If you are interested do a Google search for it. It only has 7 inch wide blades total and is totally maneuverable. A real kick in the pants and what I have always wanted. Since I am entering my second childhood, it just the thing.

Spot tracking

Things have been pretty quiet, the weather has been a bit too unsettled to do much more than catch up on my reading. Now my eye strain is bad enough to make an effort to get out and do something, anything!

I have always been very aware of the worry that Karen goes through every time that I go flying by myself. The country here is the least populated in all of Oregon, I am sure that it ranks up there with some other parts of the US as well. I installed a base aircraft radio to help and while the range is as much as 60 miles it requires one to be pretty high to accomplish that kind of range. I prefer to be within a hundred feet of the ground, so it means that if I decided to do something other than what I told her before leaving, I need to climb up high enough to talk to her. Wastes gas something awful.

I bought a Spot Messenger last year, but I did not get the tracking feature. Too cheap! It seemed to work somewhat, but the lack of a permanent placement in the plane caused it to be of limited use. I decided to purchase the tracking feature this year. I could say that it was for Karen, but some of the places that I go are really hard to get there from here, and I don't like walking all that much. We will just say that it seems like a good deal for both of us.

There is a "Gap Seal" between the wings of "Dart" that is made of Lexan, so I made a holder that would keep its antenna pointed to the sky. It worked sitting in front of the hanger, but it needed a flight to really give it a good test.

Today the weather seemed to invite flying so I rolled her out, dressed warm and took off for Arock. It was apparent that the wind was blowing at about 10 MPH from the West when I got up out of the wind shadow that shades the airstrip. The temps at 5000 feet was 40 degrees, so I wasn't sorry that I had put on my warm clothes. The plane and engine preformed flawlessly although I will put some tape on the oil cooler the next time I fly. The temps never got over 130 degrees, a bit cool for proper operation. I stayed at 1000 feet agl and checked some of the ponds and rabbit spots that we hunted Jessie and Peg on this fall.

In all the trip took 74 minutes and I burned 3.5 gallons of gas. I covered a bit more than 60 miles and even though I was down to 50 MPH coming back, I still averaged 60 MPH.

The wind was right for the short cross wind strip and I had drug it and rolled it, so I was interested in how it would feel. My landings are sometimes a thing of wonder. (wonder how anyone who has the hours that I have, can land so crappy. ) Except the first ones after a long lay off. My Golf games are like that too, the longer I play or fly the worse my landing get. I can't explain it, unless I just get careless. Any way I started letting down about a mile from the strip, did just like my instructor had told me so many times and depending on my position either gave it gas, or allowed it to bleed off altitude, and made one of those landings that no one ever sees, a perfect three point landing with so little roll out that I had to give it gas to get to the turn off to the hanger. It is only 320 feet from the fence to the hanger. Oh well, someday I will be able to do that every time. Yeah, right!

I was pleased with the results of the test, I had nine tracking points, that should make life or life flight easier.
http://share.findmespot.com/shared/faces/viewspots.jsp?glId=0siAoTNYTZD6KPbiDncNLfKZruRqx5nUO

The last hawking blog of the season.

The regular duck season ends in this zone this Sunday, but for me and Jessie it ended on the 16th. For whatever reason the ducks and the hawks have all gone somewhere else. I assume that due to the longer days they are returning north to eventually arrive at their breeding grounds. Yeah I know, in February they will be so thick here that I will wish for the sight of Jessie in the air again, waiting for the flush, but that will have to wait for next season. The winds forecast for the rest of the week, the soft condition of the roads to get to flights, and the lack of game, just doesn't justify the effort. There are for all practical purposes no upland game to fly here, so it is time to regrow feathers that have been damaged by fights with Geese and cranky Prairie Falcons.

We have had a great season. The totals are nothing to get excited about, but falconry is not about large numbers of bodies for the freezer and table. It is about the flights, the cooperation of man, dog and hawk. It is about the eagerness of the falcon when she steps to the fist in anticipation of the hunt. The eager wing pumping when she sees you step out of the house wearing your hunting vest. We brought to bag a total of 20 birds this year. Eighteen ducks and two Geese. For the first time in a long time I actually ate something that Jessie caught. Normally I make her eat the ducks. I would rather have a spam sandwich. Nothing goes to waste, but I got tired of ducks long ago. I can recommend smoked Goose however.

Peg supplied us with a lot of fun and exercise this year. She caught 12 head of game that included Jacks, Bunnies, a Black bird and of course a Bullfrog. She learned a lot and will do better this next year. We intend to get a hunting pardner for her and her maturity will improve her abilities a lot.

The weather was pretty darn good this year, there was water in the ponds and the ducks came. Upland game is making a slow comeback, but it will be many years before they are in numbers that are huntable. Until then we will depend on the ducks.

This has been Jessie's 6th season. She has again improved both in temperament and style. I do not know how much longer I will have her to enjoy. Life is tenuous at best for a Falcon. There are so many things that can go wrong besides disease. It only takes a whim from an Eagle, a fence wire, or just a slight miscalculation to end every thing.

It may be a while before I post anything again. Falconry for sure will not start before next July or August. The posts between now and then will be about fishing and flying. Again, if you do not want to read these musings, you have only to send a request to remove you from the email notifications, and I will gladly do so. lcottrell@fmtcblue.com

I have included some of my favorite pictures. 

Sat 16th, round two

Our UPS Lady, (who has the supplements for the dogs) and her husband Dan, were coming today to see Jessie fly. I agreed to film a testimonial for their product, as it has helped Indy, our 16 year old Setter more than I can say. I had earlier thought that I was going to have to put her down because she was in so much pain. With the addition of the supplements, that time has not yet come. She was sleeping all the time, and in a lot of pain. While she isn't out working with the other dogs she is much more aware of her surroundings and has enough of a reduction in pain to enjoy life again. Dogs have few enough days in the sun as it is.

When I set this up, I had intended to fly at the ranch next door, but the gun hunters had been there for two days, and I was unsure what kind of an effect this would have on the duck populations, so I rolled Dart out of the hanger to see if there was anything left over there to hunt.

It has been a long time since I have been able to fly, and I would not have gone today due to the soft ground, if I did not need to know what we were going to find over there. The weather has been fairly dry for the last week so I had hopes that the ground had set up enough to not do much damage. I walked the runway with the dogs this morning and it seemed to be OK. The temps were in the mid 40's so I rolled it out about 11:30 and did my preflight, adding a half quart of oil, and fired it up. As you can see the clouds are low, and there was a slight cross wind.

Randy and I had hunted the place pretty hard, and rousted the ducks off the ditches pretty energetically.  We had no problem finding ducks and even having them come back into the spots that we had just flushed them out of. We didn't have guns though, and that seems to make a lot of difference.

You can see the creek and potholes in this picture that the ducks like to hang out in, but today they were empty. The Lake also only had four Coots on it. I did not see any Geese at all, so there would be no use to hunt  here today and quite likely for quite a while.  While I was disappointed, it was nothing compared to having put Jessie up over an empty pond.

Teri and Dan showed up and after a bit we loaded up to see what Arock would have to offer. The pond that was still frozen two days ago, had an open spot that was so crowded with Mallards that there was no open water at all. Jessie was a bit lower in weight than I prefer. Still well able to fly, but likely to be a bit more anxious than is good for success.

We parked and climbed over the fence to get into the right field to get into position. The Hay field has been grazed by lots of cows, and there are lots of apparently irresistible, at least to Curly, cow pies lying every where. Curly was running around like crazy with his nose to the ground, much like what you would expect if it was bird scent that was filling his nostrils, rather than bull shit.  It will be several days before I let him lick me again. At least he was particular, not just any cow pie would do, but some were definitely irresistible. I in turn was frustrated by the fact that while my shock collar call button would work, the red one that makes him pee down both legs was on the fritz.  Oh well, who am I to denigrate his pleasures.

Jess circled the pond a bit lower than I would have preferred, most likely due to the lower weight that I mentioned earlier. I was very pleased to find the little com radio lying on the ground that I had apparently lost the last time that Jessie attacked me. It had apparently fallen out of my vest and had been lying on the ground since Nov 18th exposed to the rain and snow. I turned it on the batteries were still up and it worked just fine.

We did our best rush up the side of the dam and I yelled for all I was worth. The ducks came up in a cloud and Jess slashed through them, and I lost sight of her in all the wings. Finally when the dust and feathers cleared, she was sitting on the bank and a Mallard was sitting in the water just off the edge. Apparently she had smashed him into the water.

We walked back to the truck, I called her to the fist, and fed her half of a Pigeon breast and put her into the truck. When we got back home, I fed her the rest of the pigeon. Season closes the 24th. Not sure at this time whether I will fly her again before the season closes.

                                  

Its a beautiful day in the neighborhood.

That is Karen's title, not mine. I try to humor her every once and a while. Keeps her guessing as to what I am up to. Today was very nice however, almost like that we sometimes get around the first of Feb. The temps topped out in the high 40's, crystal clear and no noticeable wind.

I had thought to go hawking yesterday, but the wind came up really strong and I didn't want to get out in it, for either me or Karen. We have been preoccupied with lots of stuff from helping the neighbors cut up a beef to making the trek to Ontario to license our new car. Of course we didn't manage to get the car licensed since they had not received the title yet.

We loaded up and went over to the ranch only to find that the gun hunters were there, so we drove up to appendix point to see if the pond was thawed. After a 10 mile bouncing trip over bad roads mixed with enough mudholes to make it interesting, we found it to be as solidly frozen as the last time we saw it. We drove out and headed to Arock to see if those ponds fared any better.

On our arrival we found the pond by the road to be frozen still. After a few cuss words we started down the road to find that there was a small rain puddle about 20 feet across. After checking it and finding it was empty we went on, intending to check a pond by where we hunt Peg. We had driven a short distance when 4 ducks flew over us and back the way we had come. I stopped in the road to see where they were going. To my surprise they landed in the puddle. We did a U turn and went back out to a wide spot and put Jessie's transmitter on her leg so that she would be ready to go when I stopped. We started down the road only to find that the four ducks on the puddle had left. As we drove by, a couple of large flocks lifted off the fields and were milling around over the hay fields. A bunch of about 15 landed on the little puddle. We drove up and turned around to try again. By the time we got back all the ducks that had been flying settled back in the field.

We parked out of sight, I got Jess out and unhooded her to let her get her bearings. While she was sitting on the fist looking around, a flock of about 200 or more ducks lifted off the field and was flying around the field. Soon we spotted a female Prairie Falcon that was trying to figure out how to catch one of them. I was a bit concerned that Jessie would take off and try her luck as well, but while she was very interested, she didn't move a muscle. We all watched as about 60 Mallards landed in that little puddle. The Prairie landed on a nearby telephone Pole. Jessie watched for a bit more and then took off, flying out over the field. The Prairie stayed on the pole and we went through the gate into the field. Jess was circling the puddle and getting a bit higher each time. The Prairie couldn't stand it anymore and took off to crab with Jessie. They locked feet? (Jess had two broken tailfeathers when I picked her up) and lost a bit of altitude, but Jess would not be deterred and the Prairie finally flew off, leaving the field to us.

The ducks were a bit reluctant to fly, but I pushed them up off the puddle. Jessie slashed through the flock and grabbed a Mallard just about the same time that they crashed into the ground. There was a small hill on the far side of the puddle and I think all the ducks and wings caused her to misjudge the height of the hill. I held my breath, because I could not see that she had done anything to reduce her speed. It was just a dive into the ground unabated. The only thing between her and the ground was the duck. Apparently even though I didn't see the duck leave, Jess was standing there on the hill apparently stunned. I crawled through the fence because I wasn't sure if she was hurt or not. Of course she let me crawl on my belly in the mud under the fence before she came to me. Other than the broken feathers she appeared to have come to no harm, much to my amazement.

We will try again on Saturday.

First of the Year.

Normally by this time I have quit, being out of options for flights and generally speaking, frozen out. Thanks to Global Warming, we have not had our usual mind numbing cold that generally strikes us the first of January. Of course the rest of the country is paying the price for our comfort. Being able to hunt on the Ranch next door has given me a new lease on hunting life, even if it is mostly ditches. Hey, game is game, and like it or not it is a bunch better than nothing. I still reserve the right to bitch and moan about them though.

I have not gone out since Randy left, for one reason or another, primarily because we hammered the ranch pretty hard and I wanted the Lake to settle down so the ducks would start using it again. Jess has been indicating that she really would like to fly, by getting excited each day at flying time, and today I decided it had been long enough and even though it was too warm ( 32 ) to make the trip with the truck through the swamp that is on the way to the Lake, we could try the ditches. The last time we flew the ditches I observed a spot that should give a falcon a good chance to make something happen. When Randy and I flew it last we managed to mess up the flush. ( Not unusual on any ditch flush ) This time I had it all figured out. ( yeah right ) Karen and the dogs and I made the long walk to the last bunch of reeds on the Creek that I was sure held most of the ducks on that end of the Ranch. I stopped to brief Karen on how I wanted to handle the flush. Betsy was busy being an Alpha female, scratching up the ground, being a big dog.                                               

I turned Jess loose and after she got her pitch, we started on the ditch. I was at the heaviest part of the reeds, and of course ducks busted out of the bottom part well out of Jessie's range. The dogs and I ran the rest of the reeds and found nothing at all. I cannot adequately express my distress. Jess finally gave up, strafed me and tried to land on my shoulder. I avoided that, and she took a perch on a fence post. I walked on, heading back to the Ranch and finally decided that the ducks had to be somewhere on the ditch closer to the Ranch. I crossed the fence between me and the creek and continued on towards the Ranch. At the end of the field I could hear the ducks talking over by the ditch. Jess was still sitting on a post at the other end of the field. Sounds close, but I needed bino's to see her. Karen moved down and crossed into the same field that I was in, and I positioned her where if we got a chance to flush, would give us the best result.

Jess was in no hurry and she kept us waiting for about a half an hour before she finally decided that there might be a reason why I had not called her to the fist. She was quite well rested and took another good pitch above us. Karen and I, along with the dogs made our rush and actually managed to scare the ducks away from the ditch. Jessie made her stoop ignoring some of the smaller ducks to bind to a female Mallard about 50 yards on the other side of the creek.

I looked for a shallow place to cross and finally just gave up and waded in, well over the tops of my boots. Jessie and the duck were fighting on the ground and Betsy of course stood guard while I helped Jess. I let her pluck and eat for quite a long time before I picked her up for the trip to the truck. When we got home, I gave her even more since I will not be able to fly her before next Monday.