Had a NICE weekend! Headed up to Bartlesville on Saturday morning (DAY 18), and the weather was great! Met up with Ryan and Kent, and we headed out to the rabbit field around 8:00 AM. Def kicked up more rabbits than we have been so far this season, and got some really nice flights out of Kent's Harris hawk. I ended up kicking up the rabbit that the bird caught, and got a front row view of the flight/capture (it was only about five feet in front of me!!!). It was pretty nice! He came in pretty hot, and bound to the head, and immediately had control of the rabbit. Kent was super psyched about his first "official" bunny of the season (b/c the baby rabbit just doesn't really count!!!!), and was in there for the dispatch at a running pace.
Went up to the center for a little bit after the hunt, b/c Ryan needed to show some people around, and Steve showed us his slide show from when he went to the Houbara Bustard breeding facility. I must say, there programs over there is AMAZING, and sets a good example for how projects should be conducted, as far as organization, sanitation, etc. He then showed us the blue prints, for the future prairie chicken breeding project that he (and some other people) are setting up, and I'm pretty excited about what the future holds for this species in Oklahoma. Maybe someday, we won't have to go down to Kansas anymore to hunt chickens! That would be pretty tight! After watching that slide show, we did a short creance session with Kent's new harris hawk, and he did pretty darn well (for his first outdoor creance flights)..
After that, we headed to a different rabbit field, that is out behind a housing edition, and it was my turn to fly. Weighed my bird, and at 2:40 PM, she was at 1036 grams. Ryan felt her keel, and said she is DEF doing better than she was, and that she wasn't near as sharp as she had been (which is def a good thing). Did three creance flights just to make sure she was good to go, and then I unclipped her, pulled her jesses out, and we walked into the field. She flew up into a tree, and was watching us pretty well. We where only in the field about a minute or so, before we kicked up a rabbit. We yelled ho ho ho, and she came out of the tree pumpin straight for the rabbit. She crashed some brush, but ended up empty handed (or footed I should say), and then she flew back up into her tree. She didn't have the amount of "pep in her step" that I would have liked, but couldn't really expect too much more, considering she is rebuilding her muscle, and has to have some days of flying, before she is back in the drivers seat (if you will). Did a few calls down to the fist out of different trees, and then we managed to kick up another rabbit. She must have missed seeing this one, cause she only did a half hearted flight in the general direction, and then pulled up into a tree. Another call or two down to the fist, and then we set up the bunny that Kent's harris had caught earlier in the day in a semi-real situation, and I "flushed it" while Ryan took off dragging it in the other direction. She looked pretty hard at it, but didn't want to come out of the tree and chase it. After a while of dragging the bunny and yellin ho, she finally decided to come down onto the "rabbit lure". We let her settle down for a moment, and do a little bit of plucking, and then I traded her off to the lure, which she did perfectly. After she finished up on the lure, I hopped her up to the fist for a rabbit leg. Things that I learned on Saturday....my tidbits are way too large, and I need to cut those in half. I also learned how to key in my telemetry receiver, and discovered that parachord doesn't make very good flight jesses (at least the style that I'm doing...they fall out). Ryan also lent me his big rabbit lure, with the hopes that she will like coming into that one a lot better (b/c she wasn't very responsive to mine as far as recalls go...she trades to it fine...but won't come in for it). Anyways, I was pretty pleased as far as the whole outing is concerned, and think that she should be flying well in the 1025 to 1030 gram range (she was just a tad too high as far as her "response weight" goes, though I'm working toward that goal slowly now, b/c she needs to convert that new meat on her bones, to some serious muscle). Because of ALL the huge tidbits I was using, combined with the rabbit leg she grubbed down, she got A LOT of food (about 100 grams....which is a bummer). Put her back into her GH at 3:00, and she weighed in at 1135 grams. DAY 19 (10-4) At 3:30 PM, she weighed in at 1073 grams, and we did some quick creance flying (b/c she was 35 grams heavier, I didn't want to fly her free) in the back yard. She did AWSOME! Her wing beats where stronger, she was completely focused, and her response time was instant....over all...it was probably the best creance session I have had since I got the bird. I asked Ryan if this was because we where in the back yard, and she just felt more "comfortable" there, but he said it probably had more to do with the fact that she is getting way more confident coming to the fist, and that she is starting to figure out this whole "game" we are playing. I think the big feed up helped some too, b/c (combined with the flying we did Saturday), may have built up a little more muscle than I had thought possible (being that we only flew her for 20 min or so). I was talking to Waller, and he said the best way to tell if a bird is still flying weak, is to get at a forty-five degree angle to a tree that doesn't have many lower branchs, and to watch how they fly up to the top. Doing this in the field, was where I could tell she was flying a little bit weak on Saturday, and the big test will be when I fly her this afternoon, and see how she compares to Saturday. I have a sneaky suspicion that she is gong to look a lot stronger today. Total during our creance session, she got 20 grams of food (and about 20 flights....see I cut the tidbits down....getting more bang for my buck now...I'm learning!), and I put her up at 1091 grams. For some reason, she didn't hardly burn anything last night (I guess it didn't get as cold as I was thinking it would), and this morning (DAY 20), she weighed in at 1070 grams at 7:00 AM. Being that she was so heavy, I decided to forgo our session until this evening, and I went scouting for some new rabbit fields. Found a few "potential" fields, and then a few more that I will call on today, and see if I can get permission to hunt. I'm hoping to have her down around 1050 grams for the afternoons session, which is still high as far as her "hunting weight" is concerned I think, but we will mainly just be workin on following in our session today, so that will be alright. By her response yesterday, I am hoping for a pretty good session tonight.
Had a NICE weekend! Headed up to Bartlesville on Saturday morning (DAY 18), and the weather was great! Met up with Ryan and Kent, and we headed out to the rabbit field around 8:00 AM. Def kicked up more rabbits than we have been so far this season, and got some really nice flights out of Kent's Harris hawk. I ended up kicking up the rabbit that the bird caught, and got a front row view of the flight/capture (it was only about five feet in front of me!!!). It was pretty nice! He came in pretty hot, and bound to the head, and immediately had control of the rabbit. Kent was super psyched about his first "official" bunny of the season (b/c the baby rabbit just doesn't really count!!!!), and was in there for the dispatch at a running pace.
Went up to the center for a little bit after the hunt, b/c Ryan needed to show some people around, and Steve showed us his slide show from when he went to the Houbara Bustard breeding facility. I must say, there programs over there is AMAZING, and sets a good example for how projects should be conducted, as far as organization, sanitation, etc. He then showed us the blue prints, for the future prairie chicken breeding project that he (and some other people) are setting up, and I'm pretty excited about what the future holds for this species in Oklahoma. Maybe someday, we won't have to go down to Kansas anymore to hunt chickens! That would be pretty tight! After watching that slide show, we did a short creance session with Kent's new harris hawk, and he did pretty darn well (for his first outdoor creance flights)..
After that, we headed to a different rabbit field, that is out behind a housing edition, and it was my turn to fly. Weighed my bird, and at 2:40 PM, she was at 1036 grams. Ryan felt her keel, and said she is DEF doing better than she was, and that she wasn't near as sharp as she had been (which is def a good thing). Did three creance flights just to make sure she was good to go, and then I unclipped her, pulled her jesses out, and we walked into the field. She flew up into a tree, and was watching us pretty well. We where only in the field about a minute or so, before we kicked up a rabbit. We yelled ho ho ho, and she came out of the tree pumpin straight for the rabbit. She crashed some brush, but ended up empty handed (or footed I should say), and then she flew back up into her tree. She didn't have the amount of "pep in her step" that I would have liked, but couldn't really expect too much more, considering she is rebuilding her muscle, and has to have some days of flying, before she is back in the drivers seat (if you will). Did a few calls down to the fist out of different trees, and then we managed to kick up another rabbit. She must have missed seeing this one, cause she only did a half hearted flight in the general direction, and then pulled up into a tree. Another call or two down to the fist, and then we set up the bunny that Kent's harris had caught earlier in the day in a semi-real situation, and I "flushed it" while Ryan took off dragging it in the other direction. She looked pretty hard at it, but didn't want to come out of the tree and chase it. After a while of dragging the bunny and yellin ho, she finally decided to come down onto the "rabbit lure". We let her settle down for a moment, and do a little bit of plucking, and then I traded her off to the lure, which she did perfectly. After she finished up on the lure, I hopped her up to the fist for a rabbit leg. Things that I learned on Saturday....my tidbits are way too large, and I need to cut those in half. I also learned how to key in my telemetry receiver, and discovered that parachord doesn't make very good flight jesses (at least the style that I'm doing...they fall out). Ryan also lent me his big rabbit lure, with the hopes that she will like coming into that one a lot better (b/c she wasn't very responsive to mine as far as recalls go...she trades to it fine...but won't come in for it). Anyways, I was pretty pleased as far as the whole outing is concerned, and think that she should be flying well in the 1025 to 1030 gram range (she was just a tad too high as far as her "response weight" goes, though I'm working toward that goal slowly now, b/c she needs to convert that new meat on her bones, to some serious muscle). Because of ALL the huge tidbits I was using, combined with the rabbit leg she grubbed down, she got A LOT of food (about 100 grams....which is a bummer). Put her back into her GH at 3:00, and she weighed in at 1135 grams. DAY 19 (10-4) At 3:30 PM, she weighed in at 1073 grams, and we did some quick creance flying (b/c she was 35 grams heavier, I didn't want to fly her free) in the back yard. She did AWSOME! Her wing beats where stronger, she was completely focused, and her response time was instant....over all...it was probably the best creance session I have had since I got the bird. I asked Ryan if this was because we where in the back yard, and she just felt more "comfortable" there, but he said it probably had more to do with the fact that she is getting way more confident coming to the fist, and that she is starting to figure out this whole "game" we are playing. I think the big feed up helped some too, b/c (combined with the flying we did Saturday), may have built up a little more muscle than I had thought possible (being that we only flew her for 20 min or so). I was talking to Waller, and he said the best way to tell if a bird is still flying weak, is to get at a forty-five degree angle to a tree that doesn't have many lower branchs, and to watch how they fly up to the top. Doing this in the field, was where I could tell she was flying a little bit weak on Saturday, and the big test will be when I fly her this afternoon, and see how she compares to Saturday. I have a sneaky suspicion that she is gong to look a lot stronger today. Total during our creance session, she got 20 grams of food (and about 20 flights....see I cut the tidbits down....getting more bang for my buck now...I'm learning!), and I put her up at 1091 grams. For some reason, she didn't hardly burn anything last night (I guess it didn't get as cold as I was thinking it would), and this morning (DAY 20), she weighed in at 1070 grams at 7:00 AM. Being that she was so heavy, I decided to forgo our session until this evening, and I went scouting for some new rabbit fields. Found a few "potential" fields, and then a few more that I will call on today, and see if I can get permission to hunt. I'm hoping to have her down around 1050 grams for the afternoons session, which is still high as far as her "hunting weight" is concerned I think, but we will mainly just be workin on following in our session today, so that will be alright. By her response yesterday, I am hoping for a pretty good session tonight.
way to go, youll be catching rabbits in no time
ReplyDeletethats pretty exciting man! good to hear she went right for the rabbit
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