Dan's Blog

New Location!

2010-12-29T22:54:00.002-06:00

Ryan and I have combined our blogs (see post below for additional info....). The blog is called "Little Mews On The Prairie," and can be found at www.ryanvanzant.blogspot.com

Sorry for the confusion.
-D-

Blog update

2010-10-28T16:18:00.001-05:00

First off, i just want to say thanks to all the people who shot me PMs, asking that I keep posting in the old bloggski here. I'm glad at least a few people enjoyed reading it, as much as I enjoyed maintaining it. Unfortunately, life is still pretty stinkin crazy right now, and I just don't have the time it requires. See, I used to do all of my updates at work (inbetween projects of course:)!!), but Magellan has blogs, forums, facebook, etc, etc blocked from access, so the opportunity isn't there anymore. When I get off work, I go hawkin and do family stuff, and don't usually get on the computer at all. This is the way it's been for a minute, and that's why I just didn't/don't have time to keep her updated. Anyways, my sponsor Ryan is sort of in the same boat (as far as having a blog, but no real time to maintain it), so he had the great idea of combining them. The way we look at it, between the two of us, we SHOULD be able to keep some type of consistant blog going. It will probably be more interesting with more than one contributor anyways, so we are going to give it a shot! The inspiration came from Stephen B.'s blog, which is set up in the same manner...Thanks for letting us steal your great idea!!! SOOOOOO, if you all feel the urge, check out Little Mews on the Prairie (www.ryanvanzant.blogspot.com). For the time being, that's where my accounts of hawking goodness will be found.

Since that's the plan, I thought I would get everyone caught up on what's been going on down in my neck of the woods. Right after I made those last posts, but before I put the bird on the permit (we have a few days before the paper work has to be sent in....I was in that aloted time, don't worry.....), the decision was made to send Peachs on her way. She would have been a great hawk, but I wanted a male....wanted one all summer, and I just needed to be patient. Long story about how everything went down, but in the end, I pushed her up a few hundred grams above her trap weight, dosed her for parasites, and said "see ya later!" The cooler weather pushed in, and it was no time at all, before I had a nice little male chillen in the mews. I still havn't given him a name (other than little $hit, which he is refered to as quite often.....), but he will get one eventually. My first post over there will be an update about the season thus far, so I look forward to seeing you all over there. Until next time my friends, Cheers to you all!
-Dan-

Depressing update

2010-09-25T18:01:00.003-05:00

Well, it seems life still does not want me doing a blog....I'm, again, about to be laid off from my job. The company I work for pretty much put all their eggs in one basket, and it didn't pan out.....they will be closing in the not too distant future. So, the job search is back on again. Blogging is now pretty much off the priority list, which should be understandable to most.....Having to time do my falconry birds justice this season is going to be hard enough as it is....free time that used to be available for the blog, will now be taken up with hawkin, being a good dad, loving my wife, and trying to get life back to some what of a managable (sp?) state. Hope everyone has a great season, and I will get back in touch someday.
-Daniel-

Moving Right Along

2010-09-18T19:40:00.002-05:00

Peaches

2010-09-17T22:18:00.004-05:00

Yeah, I know.....It's sorta like my first bird Delicious....just don't ask :). We almost don't even stop to look at her. It had been a long, unsuccessful day of trapping, and we were more into laughing at the podcast, than we were looking for birds. We both saw her at the same time though, and Ryan commented how she looked weird. She looked weird to us, b/c she was the first passage bird we havd seen in weeks! I glass her, and of course can't tell. She then drops off the perch, and hits the ground with a purpose....mousin! I guess it was the angle or something, but neither of us got a good look of her on the way down, so we anxiously watch the spot for her to fly back up. Then, just like that, she flies up to the pole....banded tail just dancing in the air. Ryan hits the gas, and my window is on it's way down. Toss the trap as we go by, and wouldn't ya know....it lands right side up :). Before we can even get the car turned around, she is on the trap, and we are again, anxiously watching a spot. All of a sudden, I see the flip of wing, and I'm yelling "GO!!!" I bail out of the car, and run over to pick her up. The haste was not needed though, b/c she was ALL SORTS of hung up on that trap. Got her hooded, and we took care of the tangled mess back in the car. Went ahead and geared her up right there also, and after getting settled in on the fist, rode the whole way home without incident. She was pretty stinkin jumpy at first, but chilled out after a little bit. When we got back to Ryan's place, we decided to tape her tail, for the ride home in the GH. Spent a minute doing that, and she ended up just knocking it off on the ride back :). I swear, I have never once gotten that blue tape everyone likes to stay put.. Got her home, and she chilled on the block that night. Had a 20 something gram casting the next day, so she had a FULL stomach when we trapped her. That means she's greedy, and I like that! Going to have to stay on my toes with this bird though. Dee Dee was pretty laid back, and I think I was a little spoiled. This bird has an attitude (for a red-tail) and razor sharp tallons to go with it. Anyways, pretty psyched about this coming season! Now, if we can just get rid of this hot weather......

Update

2010-09-17T07:20:00.002-05:00

More to come........

Goodness

2010-08-16T20:49:00.003-05:00

Another Crazy Turn

2010-08-05T10:05:00.003-05:00

Life is full of them, and I just had another....this time, it's for the better! I finally found a job that I can be proud of.....tommorow is my last day at GRC, and I start a new systems analysist job on Monday. It will take me a few weeks to get into the swing of things, but hopefully the world will slow down afterwards. Trapping season opened down here on August 1st, so I'm pretty psyched about that. Been out most days since, and have been havin a blast. I have some buddies coming to town on Saturday for a visit with a coops on the agenda, and we are going to be out trappin all day! Should be good times, and I may just find the time to post some pictures later on. Other than that, I'm just waiting for this 100+ degree weather to go away, so that I can start thinking about trapping a bird for real. Have my eyes set on a male RT to kick the season off with, and I'm really looking forward to it....that is, unless I get distracted by kestrels in all this heat, and decided AC car hawking is the way to go!!!! That's all for now
-D-

Kent's video

2010-06-01T21:18:00.002-05:00

This is a video my good buddy Kent made of the OFA meet last year.....he got a clip of Dee Dee when she scored her third rabbit....pretty sweet!

Don't ya just love it!

2010-05-08T16:25:00.004-05:00

Little known fact, but I lost ALL of my pictures from last season. Yep...pretty much sucks. They where all on my work computer, and when I lost my job, I lost all the pics (LONG story for why I couldn't get them, but that's for another day, and another time....).....if it wasn't already posted on the blog/facebook, then they where gone. Anyways, I have been going around forums and what not, trying to collect as many pictures as I could to commemorate my first season, but had pretty much decided that there wheren't any more to be found. I had given up the search over a month ago, and had accepted the fact that I had all the pictures that I was going to get. Well, I was going through some of Jeff's old posts on NAFEX this morning, and guess what I found?!?!?!?!? Yep, ANOTHER PICTURE!!! With thoughts already turning toward the new RT I will be kicking next season off with, finding this picture just got me more psyched! Hope the moult is flying by.
-D-

Jeff still out there tearin it up!

2010-04-13T11:33:00.003-05:00

Well, I tried my best to upload these onto photo bucket and image shack (so that I could dump them onto Jeff's NAFEX thread)...they uploaded fine, but just wouldn't play properly SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO, I'm posting them here. Again, my video taking skills are more than lacking, but at least the quality is better now (we got that flip camera for Christmas ya know!). Both flights are pretty generic, and I even missed filming the kill shot on one of them, but it shows some of the points that Jeff hits upon in his thread (slipping once your past the birds, etc, etc).
For anyone still paying attention to this blog, I released Sayda a little bit ago, and she has paired up with a nice looking hag male about a mile from my house (those harris hawk feathers make her pretty easy to spot...). Hopefully she will fare well with her first nest, and keep this territory for many years to come. If she sticks around, I will be trapping one of her branching babies in a year or two, and see what an early trapped RS is like. Until next time my friends.
-D-

Startin to get that jittery coops feel!

2010-03-18T10:29:00.002-05:00

I have been down in norman for the last week or so helping out Ryan with some shows. Since we had a lot of down time, we went searching for coops nests. Little known fact, but this happens to be one of my favorite spring time activities, and I'm psyched for the next few weeks. Gary is the one who got me hooked on nest searching, and it just happens to be a favorite past time of Ryan's as well. Ryan has "the eye" for finding nests, and I have been trying my best to soak up his tricks like a sponge. Any who, last year my neighborhood coops nested north of me, but I have been seeing them mainly to the south this year. Went for a quick drive this morning, and located the pair hanging out in a Sycamore a couple blocks from my house. I quickly located what I "thought" was their nest, and sat back to do a little bird watching. They sat their preening and soaking up the son for a good five minutes or so, and then the male started bouncing around. He flew back and forth around the female a few times, and then went over and plucked a stick from a branch near her. He took off, and headed in the opposite direction of what I thought the nest was, and pulled up to what looked like a flat topped squirrel nest. Weird huh?! Last year we found a GOOD number or nests, and I have developed a pretty good image of what they look like.....this one just breaks the rules. Sat and watched for another ten minutes or so, and the male made numerous trips back to the nest bringing sticks (about 8 or so). The female just continued preening in the tree, and didn't seem at all interested in helping out. I don't know anything about bird nesting behavior, but I guess I just always assumed that both birds built the nest....maybe they do, but def not today!

Somethins just gotta give

2010-02-27T13:11:00.003-06:00

Life is a whirl wind right now. With everything going on, I have found myself with less and less time to spend on the computer, and the blog is having to suffer. The bird is coming along really well, and I have been getting in daily sessions. I'm not sure when I will be able to get back into the groove of things (as far as posts go), but it will happen sometime....Probably once I get a job nailed down, and get back into the rythm of life. If I'm still crazy busy by then, then it will probably just be the sporadic update until next season. Anyways, with everyones hawking season drawing to a close, I just want to wish everyone the best of luck with the moult/new eyasses this summer, and hope everyone accomplished their goals for the season. I plan on flying through the spring, and hopefully will be able to capitolize on the fresh batch of youngsters that are about to be hopping around everywhere. Until next time my friends
-Dan-

Update

2010-02-17T18:17:00.004-06:00

Went out hawkin with Jeff yesterday. He showed me LOADS of good pigeon spots, so hopefully I will be able to give Sayda more slips now. Jeff has been pushin his girls weight up little by little in order to find her top end, and I'm thinkin he pretty much found it. Her recall was a little slow, but she still did well. Put a few starlings in the bag, and it was good times for sure! As you all have figured out, my camera is pretty weak, and my picture taking/video skills are lacking as well....but I still managed a few videos that didn't turn out TOO bad:). Pigeons where not being helpful yesterday though, and we didn't put any in the bag. We had one slip that was pretty long, but she just didn't see them until she was already out the window. Pulled up to the top of a power pole, and I called her down without too much hesitation. Continued on, and we found a group of about four or five milling around on the ground. They where in a sorta awkward position though, which forced me to slip her a little bit earlier than I had wanted to. They saw her as she left the window, so she only put in a half hearted attempt at them. Flew up into a tree, and didn't want to come down. Ended up flying across the street, and we had to drive over there to call her down to the lure. She was at 607 grams again, so I was thinking she should do well, but she didn't. Last time, she had had 36 hours between feeds, so she was dynamite. Yesterday, she had less than 24 hours between the feeds, so she just didn't "feel" as hungry, even though her weight was the same. Headed back to the house, and there was THE PERFECT SLIP right at 71st and riverside. Though she had had her full amount of food, I knew it was still in her crop, so I slipped her anyways. She hauled balls at them, and just BARELY missed. Called it a day, and I planned to have her slightly lower for the session today. My math was correct, and she was at 597 grams this morning, so we headed out looking for birds. It was nice and sunny today, and the wind wasn't blowing as hard as yesterday, so the birds where out in force. Unfortunately, the pigeons where not! They where all flying around, and enjoying the nice day, and didn't want to come down and play. Found four really good slips over the course of the day, but they all got messed up one way or another. The first was a group of about ten or so milling around on the ground right next to the road. Flipped the car around, and was about to go slip her, when I truck pulled up RIGHT where they where, and a dude got out to get the mail. WEAK! They all busted, so we moved on. Found another single next to the road, but that one also busted before I could get back for the slip. Headed down to Jonathan's neighborhood, and I found a nice single milling around, and AGAIN, it was busted by a passer by. WEAK! Headed back toward "the pigeon spot", and we found a group of five hanging out in a planter next to a building down town. Went around the block, and we where coming up for the slip, when someone parked on the same side, and then walked right through the middle of them....busted again....WEAK! Ended up just giving her a bagger b/c she had been so patient with me, and I'm hoping for a better session tommorow. I think the weight she was at today was perfect...she was sleeked down and looking out of the car the entire time, and bated LIKE CRAZY at anything with a wing on it. Going to have her at the same spot tommorow, and hopefully Jeff, Ryan, and I are going to have a good car hawking session. HOPEFULLY, they will hawk their kestrels at the same time, and we can get some cool videos of the birds going out both sides of the car at the same time....fingers crossed for some goodness! Though we didn't have any slips today, I wanted to show my buddy a good time, so when we saw a hag coops fly across the road, I couldn't help but toss out a bagger for it. It came down without hesitating a bit, and we got to watch her eat it....pretty neat for sure

OH $hit! She is turning it on!!!!

2010-02-15T15:31:00.002-06:00

I'm so proud of my little girl!!!!! It has been a long journey, and there have been a lot of ups and downs, but it's on now! Sayda weighed in at 607 grams when I decided to go fly today. When she caught and carried the starling, she was at 587 grams (so quite a bit more than then), but she was bating and talkin like crazy, so I decided we needed to fly. Headed right across the river first, but we just didn't find any pigeon slips....TONS of starlings, but no pigs. Headed out to west Tulsa around where the dumpsite is and what not, and again....no pigs...just starlings. Found a NICE slip on three crows, but they where mixed in with the starlings, and i just didn't want to take it. Continued on, and we headed down the access road that runs along 44. Tons of pigeons up on the wire by "the pigeon spot", but none where on the ground. Lindz needed to leave for work at 3:30 PM, so around 3:10 or so, I gave up and decided to give her a bagger. Did great on that, but I only gave her half a starling breast on the lure, and then hopped her up for a leg. We where heading back toward the high way (which passes by the pigeon spot), and guess what???? Yup...ten of them where pecking around on the ground. As we where approaching, another five or so flew down, and Sayda started bating like CRAZY. I was like...what the heck....so I decided to fly them. Incase you don't rememeber the setup, I will refresh your memory. There is a building whose parking lot is sorta dug into the side of a hill....it has concrete walls surrounding it. Anyways, the access road to this building runs just to the left of the top of the wall, and the spot that the pigeons are always at is hidden from view when you start driving down the road. Sayda had seen them going down though(plus we have done this slip before), so she new EXACTLY where she was going. Slipped her out of the window, and she cruised in low, and then dipped hard below the wall. The pigs saw her coming when she crested the wall, and all scattered up into the air. Sayda had gone below the wall (so I couldn't see where she was), and then she came shootin STRAIGHT up into the air underneith the group of pigeons. She flew up between 10 and 15 feet into the air, shot her feet out, and slammed the pigeon from underneith...they cartwheeled through the air, and came to rest on the ground. I lept from the car, and jumped down from the top of the wall into the parking lot. They where fighting it out on the ground, and then I see her shoot a foot out and secure it's head. I get about five yards from her, when out of no where, a cat comes shooting out of a bush STRAIGHT for Sayda. I'm thinkin there is about to be a dead cat if I get there quick enough, but the cat closed the distance quicker than I did. I'm yelling and waving, and the cat hesitated JUST for a second. That was all Sayda needed, b/c she released the pigeon, flipped around, and shot a foot out and grabbed the cats nose. It wasn't a committed grab...she just footed it, but that (combined with my arrival) was enough to send that pussy runnin! Sayda flips back around, and starts looking around everywhere in the pile of feathers (I guess she was thinkin this bird would be attached to a string like the others, and it SHOULD still be there....nope!). It was pretty funny...you could pretty much see the wheels spinning in her head like WTF?!?!?!?!? I know I just had that pigeon right here.....all that's left is a pile of feathers.....where did it go???? She footed around the feathers for a good minute or two, before she gave up, and hopped to the fist for a nice reward. SOOOOOOOOOOOOO....I'm gonna count it. I wasn't going to at first....but I'm going to. She earned it. She caught it IN the air, brought it down, and had it under control....there was no way she would have lost it had the cat not tried to jump her, and had I somehow made it to her quicker....it would have been in the bag.....I'm counting it....talk noise if you want, but I'm counting it! So recap...first slip last time...caught a starling. First slip today...caught a pigeon! The ball is finally roling! Didn't feed her too much, so as long as it's not too crazy windy tommorow, I'm going car hawking with Jeff in the morning. Fingers crossed we will catch another one!

Good day

2010-02-13T21:42:00.002-06:00

Jeff met me at my house this morning at 6:30 AM (thanks a TON man!), and we headed back to Sayda's tree. She was still there when we arrived, so we tossed a starling in the yard across the street, and then waited for the sun to rise. This starling was DEF doing it's job, and he flapped around tirelessly the whole time. Pretty much right as the sun was beginning to rise, I stuck another one out there in the yard that the tree was in, just to give her some options (and to guarantee at least one would be flapping all the time). All of a sudden, a bunch of starlings broke out of the tree, and Jeff thought that was a good sign that she was waking up. Sure enough, a few minutes later, she comes flying out of the tree, and hits the starling we had set up across the street. She was REALLY jumpy, and after letting go and recapturing the starling a couple times, abandoned it, and flew across the street to the other one. Couldn't really figure out why she did this, but now that I think about it....that starling was under a tree.....she felt more secure on that one (even though she was still out in the open....)....that, or else me getting out of the car bumped her off of the first one, but I don't really think that's what caused it. Anyways, grabbed the starling she didn't end up with, and stuck it back in the car, and then I meandered my way to her, and secured the starling. Quick dispatch, and then I traded her off to the lure. I had A TON of food on there from yesterday, so I let her eat a tiny bit, and then I hopped her to the fist for a starling leg.....over all, she just didn't get much food. Later I discovered this was DEF a good thing, b/c she weighed in at 643 grams when I stuck her on the digi. FAT GIRL! All's well that ends well I guess, and hopefully she will have a huge casting, and be down to weight tommorow. Went to Bartlesville with Jonathan the rest of the day, and we hawked bunnies with Kent. His harris had a NICE flight that was at least a hundred yards or more. He closed the gap quickly, and we heard the squeel of the rabbit. Unfortunately, he got kicked off, but remounted and put in a pretty good chase after it. Had more slips, but that was def the most memorable of the day. Headed to a dif field that has only been flown once (Dee Dee caught a rabbit there), and we flew Shaung for a bit. There are cedars EVERYWHERE, and the rabbits have def figured out how to utilize them. Shaung had some nice chases, but didn't manage to connect. Took a break for lunch and to do the whole reset on Shaung, and then Jonathan headed out to a dif field and scored a bunny (like...number 35 or something....heck ya!!!!!). While he was doing that, I went car hawking with the VanZant family, and Gizmo scored some more starlings for the tally board. Had a really neat flight where she whipped up under a deck chasing a bird, and then they both came out the other side....Gizmo tight on it's heals. Once they broke the cover though, the starling skied up, and the kestrel pulled off for a fence perch....still a pretty tight flight! Imped the last three bad tail feathers on Sayda, and then we headed on back to T-town. Good day for sure, and I'm psyched for the upcoming week of hawkin.

1st Kill! Bitter Sweet

2010-02-12T22:30:00.003-06:00

Sayda weighed in at 587 grams at 11:30 this morning. I was pretty psyched on doing some field hawking, so I called my good buddy Judah to see if he wanted to come along. He said he was down, so I went and drove around the neighborhood while I was waiting for him. The starlings where out and about, and it didn't take long before I found the perfect slip. There where two starlings in the grass next to the road, and another about to hop up there from the street. I drove up next to them, and Sayda was slicked down and watching....once we passed, their heads went back down. That's when I slipped Sayda. She came out the window pumping hard, and dropped like a rock onto the unsuspecting bird. Right at the last minute, the starling lifts its head and lets out a panicked scream. It was too late though, and the scream was cut short by Sayda's feet slamming it's head into the grass! Sayda's head immediately goes up, and I flip the car to the side of the road. I whip the door open, and fly out of the door..........and she is no where to be seen. Sayda hates being out in the open, so I half expected this to happen. I pull out the receiver, and start walking around looking under all of the bushes. Can't find her, so I do the walk about, and zero in her location. She was either in the back yard of the house she caught the starling in, or else one of the houses on either side. I knock on the first two houses, and no one answers. I hop back their and peek around really quickly, but don't do good enough of a job to find her. Knock on the third house, and I see a kid moving around inside. He doesn't answer the door though, so I don't go check out that yard. I wait her out for a good hour and a half...maybe two hours and the signal stays exacltly the same. FINALLY, she flies up into one of the trees, and I attempt to call her down. The problem is, I couldn't really get anywhere near the tree she was in, and the call was just too far for her. She had a nice crop, and she didn't really want to do anything. She ignores me, and eventually flies off. It takes me a good thirty minutes or so to track her down, and I eventually glimpse her in the top of a tree. She flies off before I can even get out of the car, and I loose sight of her. I'm messing with the telemetry, when I hear a bunch of blue jays making noise. I drive over to them, and I find Sayda sitting up in the tree. For the next three hours, I sit there and watch her. She won't come to the fist, ignores the lure, AND ignores the live lure. About an hour or so before dark, she decides she is done preening and chillen, and she flies off again. I track her down again, but can't get a visual on her. I drove around in the same circle probably three hundred times...I knew what street she was on, but I just couldn't find her. Once it got dark, my good buddy Jeff showed up, and he brought his marshal receiver. It has a pretty sweet function where you can set in on near, regular, and far (or something like that), and in no time at all, he had her zeroed into a specific tree. Lucky for me, it's a tree in a front yard, and we will be back there at 6:30 in the morning to try and get her down. It's supposed to get pretty chilly tonight I think, so hopefully she will be hungry enough...if not, then we may have to wait till after she casts. SOOOOO....we finally caught something. It ended up pretty bad, but we caught something. Guess I'm going to have to limit her to pigeons and crows from now on, but now that she has caught something, I'm hoping it got the wheels spinning. Going to stay away from areas with back yards for a good minute too :). What's interesting, is that she is at the exact same weight that she flew off the first time...like EXACTLY. Now that she is responsive, I have been pushing her weight back up until she messed around...I guess I found the top end of her weight! LOL. Still psyched about the way she reacted to the rabbits yesterday, so I may do a little more field hawking than I had planned on. Anyways, fingers crossed I get her back in the morning

Update

2010-02-11T13:46:00.003-06:00

Well, Sayda is doing well. I have been working her everyday, and we are easing back into car hawking. She is actively looking for starlings, and she is back to chasing hard. I have continued with the baggers, and it seems to be working well. Drove around FOREVER today, but couldn't find any slips. It was pretty weak, so I decided to take her to the field and see if we could find some rabbits. She did really well, followed a little bit, and I was able to kick up two rabbits for her. She didn't see the first one, and the second occured while she was on my fist. I tossed her at it, but she just wasn't ready. She flew up into a tree, and was looking around everywhere. I went down and started kicking around, and I managed a reflush after five minutes or so. She took off hauling, and chased it clear across the field. When I finally made it to her, she was up in a tree looking intently toward the ground. Good day, and I tossed six or seven starlings for her in there for her to chase. I let he catch two of them, and it really got her focus off of me, and into hunting. Both trades where good, and I was pleased with the session. I'm going to do the same thing tommorow (look for slips, then field hawk if I need to), and I will end the session on a drag bunny if we end up field hawkin. It was really good gettin out into the field! We got half of Sayda's tail imped the other day. It is blatantly obvious that her manueverability is much better now, Im hoping this will translate into "she barely nabbed it" instead of "she barely missed it!" Here are a few pics...they are harris hawk feathers.

Little update

2010-02-08T10:32:00.002-06:00

It's been pretty crazy for the last few days around here. Sayda and I have continued on with the plan, and we have just been reinforcing her on starlings. I can tell her focus has been switching back to where it needs to be, and we are about to be out hunting again. I was wanting to get out today, but it seems to be snowing pretty darn hard right now, so the birds won't be out and about feeding. I had a little "user error" issue with my starling cadge, and all 7 of them escaped, and are now flying around in my attick. Little things are noisy as heck, and now I don't have a baggie for today's session. That's pretty weak......

Excellent

2010-02-05T14:07:00.002-06:00

Sayda did great today! Decided to get out a little bit earlier than I usually do, and it DEF paid off. Ran up to Quick Trip for a little java to kick start the day (around 9:15 AM), and the birds where out in force! Being that Ryan went out and caught SIX today (heck ya!!!!!), I was thinking the falconry gods maybe smiling this morning.....so I grabbed the bird. Sayda and I jumped in the car, and off we went. I drove around for ten minutes, and probably passed up 15 slips...it was CRAZY....there where birds on EVERY single street! She was actively scanning for game way more intently than I have ever seen her, and she was bating at every bird that flew past. I FINALLY found my perfect slip, and I held her back until I had just passed the starling. That's when she slipped, and she blasted out of the window and hurtled herslef at the starling. She closed the gap in moments, and she shot her foot out JUST as the starling was leaving the ground. Unfortunately, all she managed to grab was the starlings tail, and she returned to the fist with two tail feathers in tow. SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO close! In the minute it took to get back to the house, I probably passed five or six PERFECT slips! I stayed strong though, and ended the session on another bagger. I'm psyched! We are back on track, and we are moving forward. I'm pushing her up another five grams or so, and it will be the second day in a row that she is higher. If I'm going to see a behavioral change from higher weight, it should happen either tommorow or Sunday....so I will be keeping a close eye on her to make sure we don't end up in a telemetry chase. If she does well though, then I will keep her at the same weight, and fly her there for five or six days. If she is still cranking it out, I will push her up another five grams. Going to incriment it up until she starts screwing around.

Another quick session

2010-02-04T12:20:00.004-06:00

Goals are still the same......get her focus back on little black birds milling around outside of the window. Set up the first bagger, and we drover around for about five minutes. She was sleeked down in the car, and it seemed to me like she was actively looking for things again. Slipped her out the window, and she did great. She still doesn't like being out in the open on kills, but she is starting to get better. I let her drag this one up under a bush, and she seemed much more comfortable that way. Perfect trade off to the lure, and then she went in the GH for a reset. Got the lure and everything ready again, and we drove around another five minutes. The rain had picked up some by this point so I had to use the wind shield wipers a few time...something that normally sets her off into a bating fit. She did great today though, and didn't bate once! I was pleased, and after driving around, slipped her on the second one. She did great again, and this time we stayed out in the open. Once I got right up on her, she seemed to calm down quite a bit, and started plucking furiously. Let her eat a bit more on that one than the first, and then we had another perfect trade to the lure. Total, she got about 54 grams of food, and she is nice and fat on her pole perch right now at 623 grams. She understands the car hawking thing, and I feel pretty confident I can get her back every time now. I'm going to continue getting her confidence really high on baggers, and push her weight up little by little. Once we are back to the point where I think she is ready to be hunted again, I will bring her down a tiny bit from whatever higher weight we are at, and just see what happens. Many thanks go to my GORGEOUS wife, who helped out with the baggers today! You are a gem!

Quick session

2010-02-03T14:10:00.002-06:00

Today was pretty quick. Headed down to Jonathan's neighborhood with pigeons on the agenda. I found a nice group of about ten or so milling around on the ground, with another two about 20 yards away next to the road. Flipped a "B", and was about to start heading back toward them to slip on the two loners, when they SCATTERED! I have seen that desperate scramble before, and when I made it back to where they where, discovered a passage coops on the ground with a struggling pigeon. Sufficet to say, those pigeons where not coming back to the ground for a long time! Continued on, and found a group of three starlings pecking around right next to the road. Took Ryan's advice, and I sat there until I was sure that she saw them. Pulled up next to them, and she pulled up into a tree immediately. Called her back to the fist for no reward, and then I just bagged her. I'm not going to hunt her again until she is automatic out the window....if it takes ten baggies in a row, so be it. We WILL get her focus back on hunting, even if it kills me in the process.

Yesterday's session

2010-02-03T08:24:00.002-06:00

Was not too darn shabby. After talking it over with Ryan, it was decided that I needed to do some really long calls, in order to asses her condition. Since we where going out to the field, I thought I would be a good day to reinforce the whole rabbit thing. Thawed out one of Dee Dee's rabbits, cut up all my tid bits grabbed four or five starlings for fun, and headed to the field. Little known fact (smile), I get pretty scatter brained when I get excited, and I ended up leaving the rabbit and my tid bits at the house. Pulled up to the field, and all I had where starlings and my lure. Well, dispatched a bird really quickly and got my bits ready to go, and then we headed into the field to see what we could see. I decided to go to the Lowes field, just b/c there are quite a few rabbits, and there are a few pretty open sections. I was hoping to get a slip or two for her, but they just weren't in their usual spots (makes sense...the rabbits had moved in all the other fields....not sure why I expected these rabbits not to.....), so I just started tossing birds. I'll start at the beginning though.....stuck her on the roof rack of the subi, and I called her about fifty yards to the fist. Her response was def less than desirable, and she was VERY distracted. Tossed out a starling (hoping to get her head back into the game), and she just watched it fly.....weak! Continued on through the field beating brush, and did another call to the fist (maybe 100 yards or so). Again, VERY hesitant. Tossed her back up into the tree, and then I started beating around the base of it. Tossed another starling, and this one flew pretty darn weak (it must have been one of my bait birds). Anyways, it flew up to the branch of the tree next to the one Sayda was in, but she AGAIN just watched it. Getting a little irritated by this point, but we continue on. Call her to the fist, and she flies in, and then checks up into the tree above me. Continue on, and then she blasts out of the tree heading back toward the tree she had just been in. I'm thinking we are loosing focus, but to my surprise, she bypasses her tree, and smashes into the one next to it....the one the starling had landed in! I see her parachute down to the ground, so I run over to find her under the tree holding the bird. She makes a few hops till she is right at the base of the tree, and I gave her a moment to start plucking. Once she did, I made my way in there and offered her a tid bit. She dragged the starling right to me, took the tid bit, and then scooted between my legs and started going CRAZY on the starling. I liked this, b/c it seemed to me like she felt safe with me "protecting" her. Trade off to the lure was flawless (at least I did ONE thing right with this bird!), and then I hopped her to the fist for a leg. Over all....not too bad. Even though I wasn't "directly" related to the kill (in that I flushed, she stooped, and connected), she did fly away from me and grab it, which is good. I have been workin on getting her focus away from me, so we shall count this as a good session.

Prepare to have your mind blown!

2010-01-31T14:58:00.003-06:00

All of this just happened within the last 30 minutes or so....So I have the starling trap out in the back yard right....I had caught 10 or so thus far, and I peeked out the window to see if they where attracting anymore. What do I see sittin up in the tree in my back yard...a passage red tail. This was weird for sure, considering I have never once seen a red tail in my neighborhood....red-shoulders, coops, bald eagles, mississippi kites...see those pretty commonly, but never red tails. So I sit there watching it watching the starlings, and I think to myself...hm...that bird looks a lot like Dee Dee. Soooo, wild hare....I open the door, whistle, and throw my lure to the back edge of the yard (and duck back into the house).....and she flies down and grabs it!!!!!!!!! No *ucking way! Dee?????? So I open the door, and slowly start walking closer (gotta get a freakin picture or else no one will believe me), and she makes one hop with the lure, and then bails up into the tree. I run inside yelling to Lindz "Dee's back, Dee's back"! Look outside again, and she is gone. Lindz is like "do you think it's really her" giving me that look like "your freakin crazy". I don't think she believed me...anyways, so I'm talkin a mile a minute, geekin out, and freakin out, and she tells me to use my energy and go scrape the ice off of her car, so I head out front and start working on it. Suddenly a shadow crosses across the ground, and she lands in the big pine tree across the street! I grab a starling and hinder it for her, and then I toss it out in the middle of the yard yelling ho ho ho. She was on her way before it even hit the ground. She smashed it, and immediately carried it up into the neighbors tree two houses down. She tears is appart in about four bites, and then sat up there for a good ten minutes or so, before flying off. Hands down, the coolest thing I have ever experienced in my entire life. I was sitting around all bummed after our $hitty session this morning, and now I can't stop smiling! No other sport, activity, hobby, adventure, ANYTHING....nothing compares to falconry! My spirits are renewed!!!!!

Def need that confidence booster

2010-01-31T11:59:00.002-06:00

Well....she sucked today. She was at 574 grams when we headed out to look for some birdies, and it took us a minute to find a good slip. Luckily though, one of the tride and true pigeon spots came through, and she made a REALLY nice slip on them to start the day off. There is a building that is sorta "inset" into the side of a hill, and the parking lot is surrounded by walls on two of the sides. The side road that I was driving down runs along the top of one of these walls, and she had a nice height advantage when she exploded out of the window, and folded up into a bullet. She hit the center of the group of pigeons, but I'm not sure if all the wing beats confused her, or if she just missed, but she ended up empty footed, and flew off the ground to the roof of the building. Called her to the fist, and we continued on our way. She started getting really bouncy in the car, so I'm thinking that she is getting anxious for a kill. Next slip is a group of about ten or so starlings milling around some trash bags that had been set out the back door of a pizza hut. These birds paid ZERO attention to us, and I just knew this would be our kill. Dropped the window, ho ho ho, and she flew straight up into a tree. She didn't even try...I mean....straight out the window and up. Half the birds didn't even flush from the trash they where eating. THIS was the slip I was waiting for, and nothing. Stupid bird! I'm confused....MAYBE she has decided she can't catch starlings, and that's why she only went hard at the pigeons. Well, I decided it was time for a bagger, so I found a nice spot, and planted it for her. Did our approach...she was head bobbing the whole time...window down.....she shoots up to a power pole........WTF? Call her down, and we try again. Approach, head bob, window, straight up to a tree! I'm pissed by this point. Try again....she flies up to the roof of a building. I get her on the fist, and pretty much have to throw her on top of it. It's like we are back to day one....GRRRRRRRRRRRRR. This is what I think has happened (and I'm going to get a big @$$ "I told you so" from Ryan)....she is hunting the fist now....She WAS hunting birds earlier when her confidence was high from all those baggers, but ever since we have started hawking and getting multiple slips (and I let her confidence wane from not giving baggers), she has been getting her reward from coming to the fist, not from catching birds. We MUST switch that focus back to the birds....I was so worried about getting her back after each slip, that I let her train me. She figured out that all she had to do was fly out of the window, and then she would get called to the fist for food. No more calling to the fist...only lure....and I have to get her confidence back up.

First snow of 2010!

2010-01-30T10:32:00.013-06:00

Well, the weather guys didn't lie this time, and Tulsa got hit with (what we call) a really big snow/ice storm. Unless you are from an area that has ice storms, most people don't really understand what I'm talking about. Thursday it started raining pretty good, and that turned into freezing rain and sleet pretty darn quickly. By Friday morning, EVERYTHING was coated in a good inch or two of ice, and that's when the snow started. I'm not really that sure how many inchs we got, but it had to be at least 6 or more. Oklahomans are natoriously bad drivers in snow as it is, but throw in a nice base layer of ice to boot, and getting out for a drive is suicide! Lucky for me though, I have a subi that just loves getting out in the snow, and I can manage to weave my way in between all the idiots. Sayda was still too high to go fly (I planned it that way), so I spent the day just hanging out with friends, and playing in the snow. Saturday morning she was at 577 grams, so I stuck her out to weather in the snow. She has only been around snow on one other occasion, so I made the decision to give her a starling wing to work on at the beginning, It didn't have hardly any meat on it, but the bone and feathers put her around 582 grams or so. Got online to update the old blog and to get caught up on e-mails, when I discovered a message from Kent....it basically had to do with snow, hawking, good times, and I should come. I had quite a few chores to take care of around the house, and even though I said it sounded like good times, didn't intend to actually make it down to Bartlesville for a session. Well....Jonathan gave me a ring about fifteen minutes later, and after SOMEHOW getting the nod from my beautiful wife, swung over to Jonathan's to pick him up. Shaung was bouncing around in the GH the entire way down to B-ville, so I was expecting a pretty darn exceptional session out of her. I suggested he think about trying for a double while we where on the way down there (being that we where getting down there pretty early, and had tons of daylight), and we also talked about how Kent's young bird is turning it on like crazy now, and just needs that one connect to get the ball roling. Like I said in a previous post...his bird chased harder the other day than I have EVER seen him fly, and it is just a matter of time before we get that squeel. Anyways...made it down to Bartlesville, and we met Kent, Ryan, and Scott out at the usual rabbit field. After saying our hellos, talkin a little $hit, and gettin the birds all beeped up, we headed into the back section of the field to fly Kent's bird. This is my first "real" snow hawkin session, and I was pretty darn psyched. The problem was, we wheren't kicking up any rabbits. They where no where to be found in the "usual" spots (which makes sense), and we walked for a good fifteen or twenty minutes before getting a single slip. We had worked our way through the two big rose bush sections in the middle, and where in the process of crossing the two track toward the lower one (with the rock pile) when Ryan spied one running ahead of us. He yelled ho ho ho as we watched it make it to the cover we where heading toward, but I can't remember if his bird went for it or not. Lucky for his bird though, we had a crew out today, and we where not about to let this little guy get away. Ryan took one side (and could actually see the rabbit sitting there), while I flushed through the center, and the rabbit bolted out of the side into a smaller bush. We waited a moment to get the bird back into position, and then Scott and I flushed the rabbit back toward the original bush. I had a huge cedar blocking my view, but apparently he dropped off the cedar like a rock, and grabbed the bunny by the rump. Ryan said he walked up to the head like a pro, and bunny number one was in the bag. He let him eat on it for a minute, and then finished him off with a back leg. Everyone was psyched for Kent, and the day had started off with a bang. Let's just say it continued on like that!!!!! Got his bird put up, and it was time for Shaung to fly. Jonathan pulled her out, and she immediately shot up to a nice, high perch. We decided to follow the tree line that runs along the north edge of the field (front section), and is boardered by the wide open section to the south, and we took off in that direction. We hadn't walked more than five minute, when I spied the first bunny. He made a little movement, but then just froze in place...sorta scooting it's body down into the snow. From my angle, it looked like a little guy, and I said we should pass him up (joking of course). Well, Shaung had different plans, and comes powering out of the tree, and slams into the brush right on top of the bunny. SQUEEL!!!!! Number one is in the bag. Being that we had only been hawkin for five minutes, and that was the only flight that had happened, we continued on. Traded her off, and she took a nice perch above us. Walked MAYBE 10 yards (tops!), and Kent kicks up a rabbit that tries to head for the briars where the first rabbit was caught. Shaung drops like a rock and nails it before it could make it half way there. Number 2 in the bag! Everyone is laughin, good times are being had, and it had STILL only been about ten minutes into the session.....so we continue on. Walk another fifty yards or so, and Shaung is sorta holding back. We are thinking she has to get her "reset" after that last rabbit, so Jonathan calls her over to us. Well...since we had stopped moving, our presence must have been too much for the rabbit that was hiding in the grass right next to us. When Shaung was about half way to the fist, the rabbit bolts, and she tucks into a dive and slams it on the ground! Rabbit number 3 in the bag! Still....Shaung has only had three flights, and didn't get near enough excersie, so we continue on. We decided to head on out through the open section since there arn't any perchs, and that will motivate her to get some actual flying in. We meander through the field, and eventually make it to the otherside in the group of bushs that run along the road. Everyone makes their way through them pretty darn quickly, but I KNOW there is a rabbit in there...there is no way there isn't. It looks JUST like the stuff we had been kicking them out of, and as the morning showed...they where holding so tight that you darn near had to stab them with your stick to get them moving. I continued working the section, and next thing I know, a rabbit bolts out of the side! Shaung comes powering off of a telephone pole, but pulls up at the last minute and land on another pole. I go in for the reflush, and she starts pumping hard off of the perch, and tuck into the perfect tear drop, spinning as she drove toward the ground, giving me the perfect view of her brilliant white under side! She smashs into the ground and SQUEEEEEELLLLLL!!!! Rabbit number 4 is in the bag!!!! I may be a little off on my tally, but I'm pretty sure that made rabbit number 31 for the season, and I'm pretty psyched for them both. Headed back to the car tired from tromping through the snow, but pretty darn psyched from having experienced such a stellar day of hawkin. Clicked off some victory photos, and then it was back to Tulsa for Jonathan and I. Dropped him off at his place, and there where starlings and pigeons on the ground. It was 4 o'clock by the time I made it home and got Sayda loaded up, and I guess it was just too late by the time we started hawkin. Most of the birds moved on too their roosts, and I only got a couple slips for her....neither of them where ones I should have taken. The birds where jumpy enough as it was, and neither of the slips where true dump shots. She ended up getting burned on both, and pulled up on both slips. The only thing I accomplished yesterday was lowering her confidence...that's all. Fed her enough to get her through the night, and she was at 578 grams when I weighed her at 7:30 this morning. I'm going to swing by Gary's house to grab one of my baggies, and if she doesn't score during our session this moring, then I will bag her to keep her confidence up.

So darn close!!!!

2010-01-28T10:26:00.003-06:00

Well....as you all have figured out so far....I make "plans," but I very rarely actaully stick to them. There where just too many darn birds everywhere to pass up for a lure session. She was at 570 grams this morning when I was about to head to work, so I passed up on that and headed out to do some hawkin. First slip was a nice dump shot on a group of 6 or 7 starlings, but she somehow managed to miss. A ton of crows came in, so she shot up to a tree at the end of the street. Ran over there and scared the crows off, and then she came right down to the fist. Continued on, and I found a ton of slips, but none of them where the "gimmies" that I was looking for. FINALLY, I found a lone pigeon pecking around in the dirt stocking up on grit, and it didn't seem to be bothered by me driving back and forth next to it. Flipped a "B" at the end of the road, and came back by for the slip. The pigeon was right next to the road, so I swung out left to give her a better chance. Well, I'm not sure if it was the car doing something abnormal or what, but as soon as Sayda left the window, the pigeon looked up and bolted. She made a half @$$ed attempt at it, but then checked up into a tree. Called her down to the fist, and I decided to end the session on that. The clouds where beginning to mist on us, which is a sign that the big storm was about to hit, so I just didn't want to push it. Fed her half of a pigeon breast, and then I fed her the body of a starling when we got home. She should be REALLY high tommorow, but that works out well considering EVERYTHING is going to be covered in ice, and there won't be any birds on the ground to chase. She trades off of kills like a champ, but she is still hesitant to come long distances to the lure. I will probably do four or five long flights to the lure tom evening, and then depending on the weather, may try and get out Saturday. If not, then a Sunday session will be in order. I NEED to get a kill with this bird ASAP, or else I may start pulling my hair out :). It's just a matter of time though, and once the ball is roling, I'm pretty sure the head count is just gonna sky rocket. I'm psyched!

AAAARRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGHHHHH

2010-01-27T14:29:00.002-06:00

It appears this little girl has a super small weight range that she behaves in. Took her out for our session around 11:30, and I couldn't find very many pigeons on the ground. The only feasable slip on a pigeon was over concrete, and I don't take those. Continued on, and I found a group of about 40 or 50 starlings on the ground. She was head bobbing pretty hard, so I decided to let her go for them. She barreled out of the window hauling balls, but most of the took off when she was about half way there. I was thinking that she would give up, but she didn't! She came in really low, and then shot straight up in the air underneith one of them, and tail chased it straight into the air about 10 feet and shot her foot out. She BARELY missed, and checked off onto the ground. I whistled, and she started looking around everywhere. I reach for the lure, and she busts. She ends up in a tree across the street, and I start swinging the lure. She starts bobbing her head and leaning hard, and I'm thinking she is about to come on down. About that time, I hear a RS scream, and a passage comes hauling in from the side, and knocks her off of the branch. She takes off flying, and goes into a soar about 300 feet in the air. She cruises around for about five minutes, and then comes down into a tree. I haul over there, and she was gone by the time I got there. Pulled out the receiver, and I track her down to a clump of woods between a park and an apartment building. I "see" her up in the tree, and toss out a live lure. The bird doesn't even look at if for fifteen minutes or so. About that time, it busts, and I realize it was the passage that had knocked Sayda out of the tree LOL. I'm still getting a really good signal from the area though, so I keep scanning the trees, and discover her up in a differnt one. She bolts before I can get very close, and flies to the other side of the wooded area. I drive around, and find her on a low branch about ten feet off the ground. I start walking toward her with some food on the fist, and I kick up a rabbit RIGHT where she was looking. She takes off pumping like a bat out of hell, and she slams the brush right behind it, but comes up empty footed. I hop her back to the fist after that, and we head on home. SOOOOOOO 579 grams is still too high, and I'm thinking I need to have her at the 570 grams like she was at yesterday. Even though she flew off again and that pissed me off, her crashing after that bunny was a good sign for the future. I'm going to skip the jump ups tom, and just do five or six calls out of the trees for the lure. Hopefully, we can strengthen up her recall a little bit more, and then maybe go hawkin on Friday

FINALLY....have time for an update

2010-01-27T09:32:00.004-06:00

Gosh.....the phrase "life catching up to you" has never been so darn appropriate as it is right now. I have been CRAZY busy, but it's about time to update the old bloggskie. Sunday was our first hunt. I don't have my log book with me, but I believe she was around 585 grams or so (maybe 580....I will have to check...) I headed to some industrial areas just across the river with hopes of finding tons of birds. Luck was on my side, and they where out in force! The first slip was a bust....three starlings on the side of the road not paying ANY attention, but she wouldn't go for them. Why didn't she go you ask? I have no clue....we continued on. Next slip found five starlings up against the side of a building. The window went down, and she shot out like she had been doing this for years. Four of the birds busted, but the fifth one just didn't see Sayda coming. She closed the gap in a heart beat, and I'm thinking this bird is toast. Well, last second, it sees her coming, and tries to fly straight up the wall. Sayda flairs, and follows the bird up on the rise, and JUST BARELY misses snagging it. I mean LITERALLY...just misses. I see her foot shoot out, and miss the bird by half an inch or so. GOOD BIRD! Call her back to the fist, and we continue on. Find another three starlings pecking around in a thin grassy strip on the side of the road, and Sayda blasts out of the window and slams the ground. I bail out of the car like a bat out of hell b/c it looked like she got it, only to discover that she had SOMEHOW missed it. I'm a little dumb founded, b/c I'm pretty sure she hit it on the ground....must not have though, b/c no startling is going to pull away from the Sayda girl, that's for darn sure! Well, I'm pleased with the day....first hunt, two great slips, she pumped hard, almost connected, and I was going to end the session on a bagger (gotta keep that confidence high!). Well, I start heading to where I'm going to toss the starling, and what do I see on the side of the road....yep....five starlings takin a bath paying ZERO attention to what's going on. I pass them, no heads look. I drive passed again....no heads look. I can't resist. Pass for the third time, and I slip her out of the window. She blasts out like a rocket and...................................pulls up immediately for a tree. I call her down...no response. Pull out the lure, no response. I rush to the subi to pull out a live lure, and turn around to toss it AND...............she is gone. WTF!!!!!! I'm kicking myself at this point....I broke the number one rule in falconry, and didn't stick to my plan. We had a perfect session up to this point, and I should have just bagged her and called it a day. Instead, I was too focused on getting that first kill, and I pushed the bounry line too hard. I got greedy, and it bit me in the a$$. To make a LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONG story short....we telemetry chase her for the rest of the afternoon, and I finally get her back about four hours later (25 grams heavier b/c she was buggin the whole darn time!). MANY thanks go out to Gary for dropping what he was doing to try and help find her, along with thanks going to Jeff for his concern and willingness to help out as well. Biggest thanks go to Jonathan though, who was there with his receiver in a heart beat once he learned the situation, and we had her tracked down in no time. What I fed her combined with the bugs she got (that I didn't know about), made her nice and high, so no session on Monday. That worked out well though, b/c it gave me the opportunity to meet up with Ryan and Steve, and we spent Monday and Tuesday installing cameras in a bald eagles nest. It's pretty hard to describe the feeling you get when you pull over the edge of an eagles nest, and climb inside. It was pretty darn sureal, and I was psyched that I got the opportunity to do it. Once we got everything wrapped up and made it back to town on Tuesday, it was time to do a little car hawking. Ryan has a gorgeous little female kestrel, and we where gunning for starling number two. Since there arn't really any car hawkers in Sandsprings, I have sorta laid claim to it, and we headed there to see how the starlings where doing. First slip was on the side of the access road running beside the Wally world. She shot out like a rocket, and slammed into the starling on the rise (maybe three or four feet in the air). It looked pretty darn solid, but the starlings SOMEHOW managed to escape. Got another slip soon after which she got REALLY close on, and another one that was pretty good as well. Later on, we pulled up to a stop sign, and there was a lone starling pecking around on the side. Four or five cars drove by, and it didn't lift it's head once. We finally got a break, so we pulled along side and slipped her out the window. She jumped off his fist and immediately turned into a bullet. She dropped out of the window and just smoked the little bugger! I ran out and grabbed them, and we drove to an out of the way spot to take some hero shots. What was REALLY cool about this starling, is that it had a huge white spot on it's head. I havn't ever seen that before, and I thought it was pretty tight. Well, it was starting to get late, but we thought we would try and get a slip or two for Sayda. Drove around for a bit, but it was just too late for them. Roosting birds arn't hawkable, so I decided it was a good day to introduce her to pigeons. Up until this point, the only birds she has come into contact with where starlings, but being that she is showing tendancies to want to carry, I decided I needed to switch focus to pigeons for those fist few kills. Sayda showed ZERO hesitation as she pumped out the window and nailed the pigeon, and at 575 grams (or was it 570...I will have to look), she was acting the way she should have been. I approached and she didn't try and carry at all....GOOD BIRD! I wanted to reward that, so I offered her a tid bit, and she jumped right off the pigeon for it....BAD BIRD! Gonna need to stop doing that. She hopped back on it pretty quickly, and that's when it happened. My stupid a$$ knows she is footy little thing, and I KNOW she gets pretty amped up on kills. Well, I rushed her, and went in for the dispatch, and she nailed me HARD!!!!!! This footing made Dee Dee's stuff feel like love taps, and my hand was completely covered in blood by the time she let go (which took a cool minute). Stupid apprentice!!!!! All in all though, Ryan was pleased with her behavior (this is the first time Ryan has been pleased about ANYTHING related to Sayda in a cool minute...), and it was nice to get the "good job nod" from him (about the bird...NOT the footing incident...that he laughed about!). Fed her enough to put her at weight for our session today, and if the slips are happening, then I'm hoping for our first kill today. We have a BIG storm moving in, so if she scores, I will feed her up nicely, and aim to have a session on Friday....if not....I will feed her enough to put her at weight the next day, and we will do a hundred or so jump ups in the garage.

Saturday's Adventures

2010-01-24T17:58:00.005-06:00

The day started out pretty gloomy. Had the rain held out, the plan was to meet up around ten or so, and we where going to get down on some serious hawkin. Well, the weather didn't want to cooperate, so we didn't end up getting to the field until around 1:30 or so. We had a big crew for this session...Ben and his family where in attendace, Tom, Kent, Jonathan, and of course...myself, where all in attendance, and some bunnies where gettin chased today. When we got there, an interested couple asked if they could come along, so being the accomidating people that we are, welcomed them along. We started out at one of Jonathan's fields, and let me just tell you....this field was rediculous!!!! I thought we already hawked in some pretty thick stuff, but this field was on a whole different level. The briars where all head high at least, and they where WIDE!!! Rabbits where found in great abundance, but they kept slipping away from the Shaung at the last minute. Eventually, we made it to the edge of the field running along the high way, and one of the rabbits made a bad move. Instead of cutting back through the briar patch, this rabbit thought the best course of action was to leave the thick cover, and shoot across the grassy mowed section. Shaung had been observing from high atop a bill board, and she dropped like a rock and slammed the rabbit into the ground. Squeels where heard, out of shape falconers where running, and there was much rejoicing from all. Jonathan let her eat a bit on the kill, and then he traded her off to the lure, but not before we clicked off a few hero shots. After that, we headed off to one of my fields to fly Kent's young bird. I decided it was a good day to try out the Rosa Parks field, and I was psyched that we could finally fly a bird in there. We took the scenic route to get there, but we FINALLY made it to the parking lot, and we headed off into the field. I'm not sure if it was the moist conditions or what, but we didn't manage NEAR as many rabbits as I normally do when I'm running the dog. Still though, we had a great session, and probably managed at least 8 or so slips. Hands down, Kent's bird flew harder than I have ever seen him fly. He only pulled up on maybe one slip, and the rest of them he crashed for pretty hard. He damn near caught three of those rabbits, and it blew my mind that he didn't end up scoring. Still though, it was a good day, and we ended the session with some feather reinforcement. I'm thinkin this bird is about to turn on, and then bunnies LOOK OUT! It's going to be sweet!

Pretty good

2010-01-22T20:39:00.003-06:00

Well, my predictions where off, and she was at 595 grams again. We did a moving baggie, and she did pretty good. Let her eat quite a bit on the ground, traded to a well garnished lure, and then hopped her to the fist for the rest of the starling. She will be nice and fat tommorow, and I'm going hawking with all the buddies. Going to try and hunt her on Sunday (I think), and hopefully we will get some nice, easy flights for her.

E-mail update

2010-01-22T10:56:00.001-06:00

I will no longer be available on my work e-mail, but can always be reached on my yahoo account. All the best
-D-

First Free Flight!

2010-01-22T08:09:00.003-06:00

Well we FINALLY got off the darn creance! It's about time...I know! Got home after work, and she weighed in at 595 grams. The plan was to do a few calls to the fist, and then fly her out of the car window. I was wanting to do it with the car moving, but yesterdays circumstances just wouldn't allow for it. Did a call or two to start out, and her response was just so so. She never tried to fly off or anything, but she didn't have that keyed in focus that we have been having (makes sense...she was QUITE a bit higher than we have been flying at...). Flipped the creance off of her, and did a few more flights across the yard. I didn't want to push my luck, so after that, we flew out of the window. I think she is starting to connect the game call with food, and when I started saying ho, she started looking around pretty intently. She saw the starling, and almost went after it immediately, but then she noticed the cat that was watching from across the street. She kept looking back and forth between the starling and the cat, but after a few moments, flew out and grabbed the starling. She missed on her initial slip...not really sure what happened, but then she flipped back really quickly and grabbed it. She is going to need to improve on her aim pretty quickly :). She was looking around pretty good, but I was able to approch without any carrying attempts. Let her calm down for a moment, and then I traded her off to the lure. I dragged her pretty close to the base of a tree, but I guess she still felt too exposed, b/c she dragged the lure the remaining five feet under it. Once there, she immediately started tearing at the lure, and when she was finished, I "hopped" her to the fist.....I say "hop", b/c it was pretty much the full distance of the yard. Yesterday sorta confirmed some behaviors that I have been noticing, but hadn't figured out the direct factors that contributed. I had been thinking that she is just REALLY darn nervous when she is out in the open, and just doesn't feel that secure without the cover of trees. This further confirmed my theory, and this is going to prove problamatic, being that most of our car hawking slips are going to be out in the open. I am going to have to get her REALLY solid on the whole situation in the next few days, b/c I DEF don't want to create a carrier. I will have to talk stratagy this afternoon, and I'm hoping for a great session today. After the session, we sat on the pole perch unhooded for the rest of the evening, and Sayda slept that way through the night. This morning, she weighed in at 607 grams, so that should put her around 585 grams or so this afternoon, and I think (if we have a great session), I'm going to feed her up pretty darn good afterwards....probably enough where we won't have a session on Saturday, and then MAYBE go hawkin for the first time on Sunday....I am going to have to call Ryan and talk game plan though.

I need to grow some!

2010-01-21T06:52:00.008-06:00

Kent shot me a line early yesterday morning about doing a little hawkin, but it just didn't really seem like it was in the cards. Took the old lunch break, decided not to work Sayda (Complete side note...Sayda NOT ONLY means "fortunate" or "extremely lucky" in arabic....but it ALSO meants "huntress"....crazy coincidence huh!?!?!?) till later in the afternoon, and got back for "Beer Wednesday" around one. Killed a few brews in VERY short order, and then I got a call from my new buddy Tom. It didn't take more than "we should go hawkin sometimes soon" before I was out the door, and meetin up with him. We loaded his Peregrine up into the subi, and we where off to Bartlesville, and arrived around three or so. Kent was already in the field, and we joined in on the brush beating. He had already walked some of the areas to the south, so we decided to hit up "the" rose bush, but didn't manage a flush. It was decided that the rabbits had been hanging out in the more "open" area to the north, so we headed off through the field. Long story short....we had quite a few REALLY good slips, but his little guy just wasn't commited. He kept pulling up, and just didn't really commit to any of the slips. Looped through the back section, and he FINALLY started making some decent goes, and actaully decided that crashing for rabbits may be a good thing. Had a couple slips in a row where he just barely missed, and I think his new found motivation may have come from the approaching darkness, and he wanted something warm before the day drew to a close. No rabbits where scored though, and Kent had to go meet up with the "hay guy," so it was time to train some birds. Tom pulled his bird out, and did a short creance session with her. She is BEAUTIFUL, and I'm looking forward to seeing her slaughter some stuff one of these days. Sayda's turn to fly, and she was all business. Didn't try to fly off at all, completely focused, instant response....it was gooooooooood! I could have easily flown her free...but i just didn't. Tried giving her a starling out of the car window.. Unlike yesterday, when she hammered one from the same distance, she was really hesitant today, and it took some coaxing. There are a number of factors that could have been involved....first...the starling previously was in the back yard, and she is really comfortable back there. Second, being that this was the first time out of the car window, I should have done it a lot closer....she did 40 yards or so previously, but I should have pulled it in about ten or so (since it was a new spot, and a new situation). Also, there really wasn't much cover where I placed it, but she just didn't seem like she saw it in the beginning....probably should have made it blatently obvious for this first time out the window. Lastly, I just flew her on the starling the other day...no calls to the fist or anything, and yesterday....we did a lot of calls to the fist for quite a few tid bits. She may have gotten to many, or I may have brought her focus so much on me (combined with the tib bits), that she just didn't have the motivation to go grab it, when easy food has been coming from me. Over all though, it was a good session, and she has finally figured out the name of the game. Now that she has, I'm going to push her up a little bit in weight. Got home, it was time to work on the pole perch. Tied some meat and tirings on the top to keep her focused, and stuck her on there. Guess what!?!?!! She worked on that, and then sat there WITHOUT BATING for a good couple of hours. Maggie was eating all of the dropped food below the perch and she didn't even bat an eye at her. She ended up sleeping up there last night, and was happy as a lark when I hooded her back up this morning. SUCCESS!!!!! Still have a ways to go before we no longer have to walk on egg shells around her, but it is progress. Our first wild kill is so close I can taste it!!!!!!!

A little high

2010-01-20T11:16:00.002-06:00

She was still high from the session the other day, but low enough where I wanted to do SOMTHING with her, so we did another starling. Unlike the other day when she needed to think about it, her response was instant. She made a 40 or 50 foot flight to it, and grabbed it by the head. She didn't try to carry this time, but she still did a lot of looking around (that made sense though, being that she was so high). Trade off was better than last time as well, and I hopped her to the fist for the head and a leg. Now that she is "sorta flying," her burn rate has adjusted, and I'm still keying it in, but I'm thinking she should be about five grams lower than our session the other day, and I plan on flying her in out out of the car window. I'm going to see if I can get my buddy to hold the "T' perch, and stick tid bits on it for me. That way I can stay in the car during that phase, and we can get a lot of back and forth calls between the two of us. We shall see how it goes. If she won't respond to his whistle though, then I will have to do it the slow way....hopefully everything will work out.

Not too bad....

2010-01-18T20:20:00.002-06:00

Well, the plan was to go back to work........didn't really happen. Got home, and she had cast...weighed in at 585 grams, and it was off to twin peaks to meet up with Ryan, Kent, and C...... (can't seem to remember it right now...). Had a nice brewskie, and then we all headed over to Jeff's house. Got all the birds loaded up, and we headed off to do some car hawkin. Being that both school and work where out for quite a few people, there where crowds EVERYWHERE! There where starlings and grackles flying around and down on the ground, but just couldn't manage to keep them on the ground long enough to slip....people where everywhere! Sooo, we headed up north a little bit, and drover around some of the more "industrial" areas. Found a nice slip in short order, and she shot out and grabbed him like a pro. Headed back to pick up my car, and Ryan introduced his new kestrel to starlings. He wasn't sure how she was going to react to it, but she was off the fist instantly. After that, it was time to pull out Sayda. We went to the lowes field, and I pulled the subi up nest to the grass. The plan was to fly her in and out the car window, but that plan broke down pretty quickly. Pulled the hood off, and she grabbed her tid bit like normal...then she bated. Recovered, and I put her down on her perch. She wasn't focused, and was VERY hesitant on the recall. Tried her from the roof rack, same thing...we had some bates in there too if I remember correctly. I can't figure it out...she SHOULD be spot on. I put her up, and say it's a no go. Ryan tells me I'm rushing her, and to get her out again. I do what I am told, and she does better. Call her to the fist a few times, and then it's time to see what she thinks about starlings. Well....it took some coaxing, but I think her response will be dramatically different next time. She did PRETTY good on the trade off to the lure, and I think she will keep improving as long as I don't do anything to screw it up (fingers crossed). She got a couple rat legs on the lure, and then I hopped her to the fist for half of the starling breast. She worked on the wing the whole way back to Jeff's house, and we didn't have a single bate! Now that I think about it....this may be one of the highlights of the day...first encounter with the car unhooded, completely postive...I think it's a good thing at least. Anyways, she weighed 617 grams when I stuck her on the scale at 7:30 PM, and she will be high for our session tommorow.

Oh yeah!

2010-01-18T06:24:00.003-06:00

Yesterday was a GOOD day! Got some of my house cleaned, which it drastically needed, and I had the rest of the day to do what I wanted. Sayda weighed in at 610 grams, so I didn't really want to have an outdoor session...instead, we did jump ups in the kitchen. This bird has A TON of zip, and she was all about this game. I fed her five grams, with hopes that she would be at 595 grams for our session today. I plan on flying her in and out of the car window, and I'm hoping she does awsome! I have been having ZERO luck catching fresh food for this bird. Both Jeff and Gary have loaned me noose carpets, and I havn't caught a single bird. I was out in the back yard yesterday, and I just decided to put the starling trap out. It was about 3:30 in the afternoon, and when I checked back on it at five or so, there where TEN starlings in it! Oh yeah! Weighed her before I went to work at 6 this morning, and she was at 593 grams....the sun needs to freakin rise!

FINALLY!!!!!

2010-01-16T21:36:00.002-06:00

Had a perfect session today! She weighed in at 596 grams when I stuck her on the digi around noon. We had our session out in the front yard, and it was like I was flying a different bird. She had total focus the whole time (even with cars driving by, people stopping to watch, friends standing around, etc, etc), and we maxed out the creance a few times. Total, I probably flew her across the yard 15 or 20 times, and she had EXCELLENT lure response. I finally feel like we are getting somewhere, and I hope to have her chasing stuff sometime next week. I'm going to fly her in and out the car window tommorow and Monday, and if everything goes as planned, I hope to be chasing some birds by the middle of the week. The big eagle watch was today, and Heather and one of her friends came down for it. Afterwards, everyone headed to Bartlesville, and we got to fly Kent's, Heather's, and Jonathan's birds. It was good times for sure, and Shaung scored rabbit number 24 today!

update

2010-01-15T14:59:00.003-06:00

She weighed in at 605 grams at noon today, and we had a pretty good session. We had quite a few flights, and a few of them where the full length of the creance (about 30 ft). We had one little episode in the middle, but it ended up alright. She had AWSOME lure response, and I'm feeling really good about that. She should be around 600 grams tommorow.

Almost dialed in

2010-01-15T10:18:00.004-06:00

Didn't really have a session yesterday, but we saw improvement.....Sayda was at 616 grams when I pulled her out in the afternoon...there was a difference in her behavior for sure. She didn't try to fly away at all, and that is def improvement. I got about five or six flights out of her, before she lost her focus, and started looking around. I put her up as soon as I saw her look around once, so we avoided anything negative. She was only out about three minutes or so, but it was good. She should be just above 600 grams when I work her at lunch today, and I'm hoping we have a full session of perfection. If she behaves the way I think she will, I think we will max out the creance, and have zero bates. FINALLY we are getting somewhere despite all of my screw ups!

Session #2

2010-01-13T08:35:00.004-06:00

MUCH better! Took Sayda outback, and I stuck a tid bit up on a perch. She hopped up to it, and then turned around and looked straight at me. I back up to about five feet....whistle, and she is on her way FAST! Nails the glove, and grabs the tid bit. Take her back toward her perch, and she flies the last foot to it, and turns around! NICE! Ten feet.....pulls off at the last minute. Call her to the fist off the ground for no tid bit, and I stick her back on the perch. Go back to ten feet...whistle, and she does it! Good bird! Continue on, and I get another 15 or 20 flights out of her ranging from 10 20 feet. We only have one other bummer moment, and that's when she was flying back to her perch from about five feet away, and I stepped on the %amn creance. That jerked her to the ground (which set her off!), but once she stopped tearing at her anklets/jesses, I hopped her to the fist...after that, she didn't really want to fly back to the perch...I think I will do a few tid bits on the perch today, and that should bring her confidene back up. Anyways, it was time to end the session, and that's when the high weight was evident. I tossed the lure out, and she IMMEDIATElY jumped off the perch for it. Slammed the lure, footed it a couple times, and then bolted. Huh? Hop her back to the fist, and I present it again....does the same thing.....hop her to the fist, and I hold onto her for a minute. Stick her back on the perch, and I toss the lure about twice as far as I had been.....She immediately dropped and stayed on it. How close I was to her mattered, and her focus should have been on eating. The whole session, she got about 20 grams or so....That should bring her down 7 or 8 grams from this session, and I'm hoping that will get her a little more tuned in.

Log update

2010-01-12T16:22:00.006-06:00

Yesterday was pretty darn good for creance session number two. She was at 645 grams, and she had good response to the fist. When she was focused....she was totally focused, but when she would loose it, it was GONE. I'm not really sure why, but if I get more than ten feet or so from her, she just looses it, and tries to bolt...there are a number of factors involved I think....for starters, she is still high. She just doesn't have that keyed in focus like a bird at weight does. Also, she doesn't have enough confidence in coming to the fist yet. She just hasn't done it very many times, and I think she just needs a few more reps. Also, she is still just really jumpy....most of these issues should resolve themselves wih a little weight reduction and repetition. Ended the session on the lure, and I think we are just about to make our break through with that as well....Only fed her 15 grams or so, and she was at 637 grams today at 3 PM. The same thing was happening...perfection as long as I didn't get too far away, but would pull up at the last minute if she was coming in too hot. Only gave her two or three grams during our five minute session, so I'm hopin the "reset" will work, and she will do better when I workher again in ten minutes or so. Sorry bout the bad pictures...

WARNING! Slightly more graphic than normal...Weekend Sessions

2010-01-09T17:45:00.009-06:00

I normally don't let her break in, but needed to this time...b/c of this, the pictures are slightly more graphic than usual, but hey...it IS a falconry training log. Friday, she did alright.....she weighed in at 649 grams to start out the session, and due to some nonsense, I had to work her in the garage. Had great response out of the bird the whole time, so I tossed a quail for her. She nailed it with pretty much zero hesitation, and we had a perfect trade off to the lure. Hopped her to the fist for half a breast and the wing, and we ended the session on that note. Saturday was a GOOD day! Kent and Emmerich came down to Tulsa, and after dealing with the plumber in the morning (the pipes to the hot water heater burst!), I met them and Jonathan out at the expanse. We kicked around for a little bit, but the RT was still too high, so we decided to head down to bum central. Headed over to the open section in the front without getting a single slip, but one was quickly kicked from the front rose bush. The bird didn't see it though, so we continued on. A few seconds later, Jonathan kicks up two beetween the first and second clumps of trees, and I'm pretty sure she made an attempt at one of them. Tried for a reflush, but didn't manage to get one. Headed back toward the creek, and I think they got another slip in that section (I had taken the hill side, and since I had the thick beanie on, just couldn't really hear anyone). Crossed over the rise, and we got another slip as we where walking toward the strip of woods running along the high way. Jonathan and I took the deep section, while Kent and Emmerich took the edges. Apparently we where kicking up a rabbit the whole time, and it was just running along ahead of us. The bird went for it once, but sorta messed around after that. It was pretty thick in there, and he seems to start lowering his perch as the woods get thicker (still a baby bird....caught a JACK though, which I forgot to mention...congrats Kent!!!!). We decided to hit more open sections to encourge him to take a higher perch, so we cut back toward the road. After checking out a pond I had never explored before, we hit the backside of the big open area with the briars running along the east. Jonathan got a slip in short order in the middle of the briars, and the bird did a fly over, but just didn't commit. We made it all the way down the field, and started following the briars out into the center. Kent and I both hit in a section with out flushing the rabbit, but as soon as we passed, it broke for the tree line. The harris came down fast and hit the rabbit. It got away, and the bird remounted and snagged it after only a couple hops. the rabbit started bouncing around, and managed to buck him off after a few seconds. It escaped into a rat nest, and I went in for the reflush. When I jabbed the nests, a rat comes shooting up the tree, and he starts chasing that around the branchs. I hear a rustle shooting out the side toward the briars running along the road, so I assume that was the rabbit. Finally got the bird out of "rat" mode, and we beat the rest of the way up the briar patch. No flushes where had, so Kent took the high road on the ridge, and we started following the brair patch along the road. A rabbit is kicked up, and the bird makes a pretty good attempt at it, but comes up empty footed. Continue on, and we kick up two rabbits, but the bird doesn't see them. Decide to put the harris up, and we pulled Jonathan's RT out again. We headed off into the thicker sections, and we get a slip as we start to enter the first open section. She misses, and flies up in to tree, and we get another couple of slips in the open section boardering the fence. Continue on toward the "Big" rose bush, adn we only manage one slip. The rabbit was literally stairing at me from a few feet away. Jonathan and I pretty much poked it before it busted! Continued on back, and after only getting one more or so, we make it to the honey suckles running beneath the power lines. They start heading along those, and a rabbit is kicked out from the side. The RT makes a great chase at it, but it ends up bailing into a stick pile. I mark the spot, and head back and into the woods. I come upon where I think the rabbit is, and the bird is on a branch about ten feet above it lookin straight down. I go in there, and poke my stick around, and the rabbit shoots out the back! The bird comes off hot, and slams the rabbit on the ground! I start running, and get all tangle up in some vines, but eventually get there to find the rabbit securely in her grasp. Jonathan has a nice tade off to the lure, and we head back to the cars. Since we had a nice warm rabbit and all, we thought it was a good time to see what my bird thought of them. Jonathan was kind enough to let me use it (thanks buddy!), and so we headed to the "Wilson" fields to fly my bird. This was the first time she has been outside, so I was def rushing things, but I thought I may as well, so I pulled her out. She was higher than I wanted at 657 grams, but over all, she did alright. I hopped her to the fist a few times, and she only tried to fly off once. Did a couple more calls, and then I produced the rabbit. She didn't have any clue what she was supposed to do with it, and it took some coaxing to get her to jump to it. She tried to fly off a few times, but eventually caught on, and started footing on the rabbit.. I opened it up, and let her eat on it for a bit. Produced the lure for the trade off, and she acted like she had never seen it before. I guess the open rabbit was more appealing, but after shaking it in front of her, she decided to hop off the rabbit for it. After she finished the lure, I hopped her to the fist for a front leg, and we ended the session. DEF is going to need to be lower for rabbits that she will be for birds, but that is sorta to be expected. Now she knows what they are at least, and she will have some sort of idea what's going on, once we do actually start chasing them. Am going to have a creance session outside this afternoon, and hopefully, she will do great! On a side note, Lindz FINALLY named the bird! She picked "Sayda", which means "super lucky"

Still a little high

2010-01-08T14:21:00.003-06:00

She was at 1056 grams when I weighed her over lunch, so I moved the session back to around three or four. She had had a nice cast, and if she is around 1053 grams for her session today, she should be really responsive. Fingers crossed for perfection!

We are getting close....

2010-01-07T12:56:00.003-06:00

Headed home on the lunch break, and I stuck the crazy girl on the scale. She weighed in at 651 grams, so I was hoping for a good session today. Struck the braces on the hood, and pulled it off of her....Whistled, and she grabbed her couple of tid bits. She was fired up today, and after I set her down, immediately jumped back to the fist. That was a little annoying, so I set her down again, and started walking away. Got about five feet, and she was on her way. She did this freakin like seven or eight times! Eventually, she figured out that coming to the fist when she isn't called doesn't get her anything, so she stayed there and waited. Got to the other end of the garage, and I called her. She was pumping toward be before I even finished the whistle, and was on my fist in a flash. Stuck her on a block of wood, and I headed to the other end of the garage.....she hopped up onto one of the rails for the garage door. Dang it! I whistled, she was on my fist in a flash. Got a couple more garage lengths with instant response, then she flew up to a high perch again. Whislted, and she came right down. I have decided she has a CRAZY short attention span. She will be focused in completely, but if I don't call her pretty quick, she tries for a higher perch. I stuck her in the GH, and let her calm down for about ten minutes. Pulled her back out, and we got four or five instant responses across the garage. Also did a couple tid bits thrown to the ground, and then she hopped back up. She again, wanted a high perch. Hopped up ontop of the fridge, and started looking around like she was going to fly agian. Whistled, and she flew down to the fist. Couple more flights, and then I presented the lure with the front half of a rat on it.. She hasn't had any casting material for a little bit, so it was time she had some. She was hesitant again on it though, and it took some coaxing to get her to hop down for it. Hopefully this bigger feed on the lure will help strengthen her lure response some. She is all about it and agressive when it's given to her, but she is pretty weak on the call to it. I think she would trade off a kill to it right now, but I don't think I could recall her with it...if that makes sense. She is a talkative little thing, and I really enjoy listening to her little chirps and chitters. Her leg is looking better, and if it heals like the other one, then it should be good to go in four or five days. I'm hoping it will be quicker though, since we have the improved anklets, and she is a little lower in weight (won't be messin as much hopefully). Anyways, depending on the wind tommorow, I may try and do a few quick hops to the fist outdoors....we shall see. Got back to work, and there was a nice hag RS sitting in one of the pine trees next to the building. We had been sitting right next to it for a long time, and didn't even see him sitting there. A crow flew up to a branch above it, and that's what made me see the RS. I LITERALLY walked right underneith it when I took these pictures. It was just sitting there watching us! If I had had the quail in the car, I could have tossed it out for him, and I guarantee he would have come out of the tree and gotten it!

Red-Shouldered on Crows

2010-01-07T10:13:00.002-06:00

Saw something pretty freakin cool yesterday. I had just finished up eating lunch with Lindz, and I was driving down the road that runs infront of my work. There is a group of three or four crows down on the ground, and all of a sudden, a passage red shouldered comes blasting out of the air, and nails one of them on the ground. They start wrestleing around, and she gains control of it really quickly. The other crows start dive bombing her and screaming, and within a few moments, their cries draw in another four or five crows. Most of them land on the ground and start circling her, while the rest continue stooping her from the air. They sit on the ground for maybe five minutes or so, and every time the RS tried to move or eat, they would move in on her. Eventually, the hawk had enough, and bailed up into a tree. The crows follow her to the tree, and eventually flush her out of there as well. Last I saw, they where chasing her out of sight. It was so intense to watch! I hope my bird is half as ballsy as this one was, b/c she was continually grabbing at all the crows when she was on the ground. I think she would have taken them all on, if there wheren't so many cars driving by, and she wasn't pressured by me (I pretty much just pulled over right next to them...). Red shoulders are so awsome! I'm psyched for a good session today!

Lure response is improving

2010-01-06T10:44:00.004-06:00

Stuck her on the scale when I got home from work, and she was at 666 grams. Had our session in the house, and she did pretty well. Pulled the hood off, and she behaved well. Pulled the lure out, and she hopped down to it after a moment. She then started footing it, and bouncing around on it, so I'm thinkin she is starting to like it more. Didn't have much food on it, so after she finished quickly, I hopped her up to the fist for a couple tid bits. Put her on the pole perch, and she sat there nicely. Gave her a tid bit, and then I walked out of the room. I heard her bate, but when I looked in, she had regained the perch perfectly. Continued on doing stuff in the other room, and I would occasionally walk in there, and if she didn't bate, would give her a tid bit. She was bouncing around pretty good though (always regaining the perch), so I didn't leave her on there very long. Once I was down to the last tid bit, I picked her up, and stuck her in the GH. Not really sure what was going on with my camera, but as you can see, all the pictures came out bad. Bad pictures are better than no pictures though, so here are a few.

Day of Progression

2010-01-04T23:26:00.010-06:00

Got a LOT of stuff accomplished today! Started out like any Monday morning....slow! I'm not big on Mondays to begin with, but being that my company is "switching focus, and heading in a different direction" (which entails them closing my department....thus laying ALL of us off!), I was even less motivated than usual (That's right....time for the shameless plug....anyone out there have a job opening?????). Anyways, Ryan and the girls had gotten back to town, so I shot him an e-mail, with my birds legs as the main topic. It has pretty much been decided that the bating was not what caused the scale damage....this became pretty evident when it continued getting worse while in the GH. This was further confirmed, when I pulled her out of the GH this morning, and the OTHER leg had damage on it (we didn't have a single bate yesterday....)! I had come to the conclusion that I must have made the anklets too tight when I had put them on initially. My line of though.....if the anklets arn't rotating properly, then that would account for why it was getting snagged on the scales, and why I was seeing irritation on the legs. I'm thinking that she is sitting in there, picking at her anklets, and she is just yanking the crap out of them. The "too tight" anklets are getting snagged, and the scales are getting damaged. Anyways, I tell him that I'm going to swap them out, and he suggests that I try roled anklets....D*MN! I never thought about those! Makes perfect sense though....no edges means nothing to get snagged on...good call sponsor! He also told me to stop screwing around, and to get this bird down to weight....My train of thought, was that her being higher would hasten the healing process (apparently not)....unfortunately, keeping her higher also kept her nervous, bouncy, etc, etc, and was putting her in the position to further damage her legs (along with slowing the whole training process, giving me more opportunities to teach her bad habbits, and giving her time to loose all her muscle mass)....stupid apprentice!!!! Hind sight...this is one of those "duh" things, but I just didn't get it...What pisses me off the most though, is that I was having a discussion pertaining to manning, and how little progress is made until the bird drops some weight JUST last week on a forum....I understand the concept, I can even explain it in a semi intelegent sounding fashion, yet can I practice what I preach....NO! I'm tellin ya....I think I just have a blind spot, when it comes to my own falconry. Anyways, we had talked a little bit about this yesterday, so I had already "slightly" started bringing her down, and she was at 671 grams around 3:00 this afternoon. Ryan had informed me that her usual bate to start the session was unacceptable...he explained that something (or someone....me!) is causing it, and I need to figure out why, and to fix it. He suggested some tips, and I started trying to put them into practice during yesterdays quick session (which worked! No bate!!!!!). I continued on with this today, and got her unhooded AGAIN without a bate....SWEET! Hopped her across the garage a couple times with great response, but then she got distracted....she hopped up onto a shelf, and just started looking around everywhere like she was about to book it. She did this b/c she is still too fat, so I picked her up, and set her back down where she should have been. Gave her a tid bit to bring the focus back onto me, and then hopped her to the fist one last time. Pulled the lure out, and she SORTA looked at it. I picked it up in my hand, wiggled it a little bit by her feet, and then tossed it back to the ground....she hesitated for a few seconds, and then flew over to the lure....wasn't as quick as I was expeting, but she flew further for it than last time, so progress is progress. She was at 691 grams at the end of the session, and Lindz and I headed off to Bartlesville for some good times. Took a little longer than we anticipated to get Parker all packed up and on the road, but we pulled into town with about thirty minutes or so of daylight left. Dropped my babies off with the girls, and I met up with Ryan to do some quick trapping before dark. Got a couple tosses, but no commitments, so we picked up some pizza and beer, and headed back to his place. After grubbing down, we pulled the bird out, and Ryan informed me that the anklets where, in fact, NOT too tight (so much for my theory), and that she must have just been yankin the $hit out of them. Got the new anklets on her, and I'm thinkin they will work out really well. Rebraced a hood (b/c I need to give the hood I'm using right now back to Gary), did some chillen, had some good times, and then it was back home we went. Made it home, and it was time to work on the pole perch.....pole perch Version 1.01 didn't perform the way it should have, so it was time for version 1.02. Changed the design of the perching section, and swapped the base for an old Christmas tree stand....it is really darn heavy, and hopefully she won't be able to tip it over....if she can though, then I will swap it for four boards going out the sides....that won't look as good though, so HOPEFULLY my new design will work great. So summary....my mind is at ease with her new anklets, had a good session, rebraced a hood, AND fixed the perch....not too shabby for a Monday! Since I fed her 20 grams during our session today, she won't be ready tommorow until the evening. All I'm going to do is fly her down to the lure, hop her to the fist, and then put her on the pole perch. I will tid bit the rest of her rations over the rest of the evening (when she is behaving on the perch), and will be aiming to have her in the high 650's on Wednesday. If her behavior has improved the way I think it will by then, then I think I will bring her down a little bit more, and creance her outside on Thursday.....big plans...we shall see what happens

1st hop to the lure

2010-01-02T21:54:00.004-06:00

Stuck her on the scale just a little bit ago (9:30 PM), and she weighed in at 682 grams. Popped the hood off, and she did her usual bate. Whistled, and she grabbed the couple tid bits off of my glove. Set her down, and got instant response to the fist. Put her down again, and she bated off towards the side....slut! Put her back, and she hopped instantly again. Got another instant response out of her, and then she hesitated for about five seconds on the last one. Presented the lure, and after a bit of hesitation, she hopped down to the ground for it. Let her eat up on it, and then I hopped her to the fist for a big chunck to end the session. She is still high, but I'm going to continue on like I have been, until her leg is all healed up. Once that happens, I will drop her the rest of the way down to where she should be, and we will be able to progress the rest of the way through our training. Shot a short little clip, so that you all could get a better look at her without the hood on

Great end to 2009!!!

2009-12-31T23:02:00.003-06:00

I still havn't thought of a name for this bird yet....I'm leaning toward something having to do with being accident prone or something along those lines, but just can't seem to think of anything good.....It will come to me soon though I hope. Anyways, the bird chilled in the GH all afternoon, and when I pulled her out at 10:30 PM, she weighed in at 677 grams. Pulled her hood off, and she did her quick bate, and then looked straight down at the glove (we are learning!) I gave my whistle as she started bending down, and she grabbed the couple tid bits that I had on the fist. I then gave her the lure, and proceeded to put them both down on the ground. She started eating pretty quickly, and I offered her tidbits sporadically, which she took from my glove instantly. Once she finished her meal on the lure, I presented a rabbit leg at waist height, and she hopped up to the fist....success! Cut the lights, and hooded her up. Total, we only had that one bate the entire session, and everything went according to plan....may have given her a few too many tid bits while she was on the lure, but HOPEFULLY, she will be at an acceptable weight tom. If she is, then I will try and get her to fly off the fist for the lure, and then hop her to the fist again for the remainder of her rations. 2009 was a year I will NEVER forget....got married, trapped my first falconry bird, had a baby, etc, etc, etc....here is to 2010, with hopes that it will be even better!!!!! All the best to you and yours. Happy New Years!!!!!

Leg Update

2009-12-31T11:30:00.004-06:00

Well, the redness had pretty much completely gone away, and I was feeling really good about the whole situation....then I pulled her out of the GH this morning. Not only was the redness back, but her leg had swolen some as well. I'm like WTF!?!?!? She has been sitting in a GH not doing anything, how is it worse now, than it has been this whole time? Of course, I start freakin out. I'm thinkin that it has to be a fracture. I stick her on the pole perch (hooded), and shoot Ryan a text. I tell him the situation, and ask him if I should take her to the vet. While I'm waiting for his response, I notice that she is picking at her anklets pretty consistantly....hmmm....he texts back, and says that being that the swelling is up on her tarsi, it could very well be a fracture....again.....FREAKING OUT! Look back at the bird, and she is standing on one foot...the foot that is hurt. That makes me feel a little bit better, but I'm still going crazy. Luckily for me, Ryan just happens to be very good friends with one of our local avian vets, and though she had a surgery coming up in an hour or so (and was booked up the rest of the day), said she would squeeze me in before hand. Loaded the bird up, and we hauled balls down there, and got her an X-ray. It was pretty intense while we waited for it to pop up on the screen, but when it did...........................NO BREAK!!!!! (BIG @$$ SIGH OF RELIEF). She said that the bird was probably just picking at her equipment, and that's why it swelled up and turned red again. Looking back at her behavior this morning....that sorta makes sense. Anyways, I feel much better now that I know there isn't anything seriously wrong with her, and I will continue with the neosporine and bag balm, until it clears up. She was at 695 grams yesterday at five, so I left her alone for the evening. She was at 684 grams when I weighed her at 9:30 this AM, so she should be good to go this evening. Will be following the same game plan as I had discussed earlier....feed on the lure, and then hop to the fist for the remainder of her meal. I'm still going to hood her in the dark (which isn't getting me ANYWHERE as far as hood work goes), but I would much rather have zero bates during the session, than to work on her hood training, and irritate the leg more. Fingers crossed, everything will go off without a hitch. On another depressing note, her new hood isn't working out either (yep...that's what...hood number 3 or 4....). If she doesn't touch it at all, then it works fine. One little scratch from the foot though, and it's back to wet spots on the hood. Switched her back to the hood that Gary loaned me, and that is working fine for now. Will have to make another one....

Alright session

2009-12-30T15:26:00.003-06:00

Pulled her out last night, and her leg looked even better. If I remember correctly, she was somewhere around 670 grams or so. Stuck a rabbit back leg on the lure, and after giving her a couple tid bits on the fist to get her goin, pulled the lure out. She bent down and started eating on it, and I gradually lowered both the bird and the lure to the ground. Put them down, and she continued eating off of it. I had cut the back leg "generously", so there was quite a bit of meat on there. Once she had pretty much stripped it to the bone, she started getting distracted. She stopped eating, and was looking around pretty quickly. Reached in to offer her another tid bit, hoping that would get her back into eating mode, but she tried to bate away from me. I guess she was floating around that magic line, and though she was hungry enough in the beginning, filled up too quickly. Hooded her back up immediately to avoid another bate (don't want to impead the healing process), and we shall see what happens tonight. I'm going to use a front leg on the lure this evening, and hopefully she will still be hungry when she is finished with that, and I will be able to hop her to the fist for another front leg. That's the game plan, and we shall see what happens.

Maggie's Big Score!

2009-12-29T13:34:00.008-06:00

Well, since the bird (I really need to think of a name for her....) is down for the count, and there is a lot of snow on the ground, I thought it would be a good day to go scout some fields. Had I planned on doing this, I would have gotten to work early (like on a hawkin day), and would have had plenty of time to drive to some of my new "potential" fields....but I didn't, so it had to be a quick session on the lunch break. Swung by the house, and after putting some more ointment on the bird, grabbed Maggie Mae, and we headed out to the train track field. If you recall, the part of the field I had been hawkin had pretty much dried up on me, so I havn't been here for a cool minute. The habitat is great though, and I KNOW they have to be there somewhere, so we went lookin. The field is pretty darn large, and I had only been in a small section of it (the part that looked the most condusive to bunnies), so I was hoping to find some new sections to fly. Parked at the normal spot, and quickly passed through the area I normally fly. Like I expected, there where no signs of rabbits, so we broke through the tree line, and started heading back into the open section of the field. Maggie is fat.....really fat. She is also pretty out of shape. See, she has been "neglected" for a bit, b/c of the new baby and bird, and though she started out at break neck speed (as usual), she quickly slowed down. Some of the sections had pretty darn deep snow, and she just wasn't prepared for the snow plowing apparently. She was having a ball though, and since I wanted her to stay pretty tight anyways, it worked out well. Anyways, started walking through the open section, and after a good minute, she slammed on point pretty darn hard (she was at full run, and when she stopped, she pretty much twisted herself into a half moon shape). I saw her tail twitch, and gave her a "whoa", and she did it! For those of you who don't know Maggie, she doesn't really like to stay on point. She would prefer to hold it till I get pretty near, and then run in and flush (we WHERE workin on this...but being that I'm an irresponsible dog owner, we havn't recently). Anyways, I was psyched, and when I ran in for the flush, two meadow larks busted out from the snow! GOOD GIRL!!!!!!!! Unfortunately, as soon as they busted, Maggie took off after them. I was not pleased with this, but a tiny nick from the collar was all it took, and she was heeling on my side in moments. Told her "alright," and we started cutting over toward the west side of the field searching for more birds. Ryan and I had checked out an abandoned landscaping sort of place over there, and had kicked up a rabbit and saw tons of signs that day. The back part of that property backs up to this field, and it looked like there where little patchs of briars scattered across the open expanse. Maggie was moving slower by now....pretty much just trotting around, and WALKING through the deep stuff, so I stopped lookin for birds, and started focusing on bunnies. The ground dropped down a bit, into what looked like an old wash out sort of thing. There where little briar clumps everywhere, and we started expoloring those. Pretty quickly, I started to realize that this is where all the rabbits had been hiding, b/c there where TONS of rabbit droppings EVERYWHERE! Pretty much every briar had crap inside of it, and I started getting that "happy rabbit feeling" that we all know and love. Well, found a nice stick laying around, so I started beating brush as I continued on my way. Wasn't too long, before I kicked up a rabbit, and Maggie took off after it. Got a couple reflushs out of it, and then it escaped into a huge patch of briars. Now, I'm not really sure if Maggie has picked up that she is supposed to be "searching" for bunnies or not....I'm pretty sure she just runs around, and when she (or I) kicks one up....then chase is on! Well, that all changed after today! Went and started kicking around in the big briar the bunny had escaped to, and THREE....that's right...count em...one, two, THREE rabbits popped out the back. Maggie had been on the side perpendicular to me, and when she saw them bolt, she took off! Didn't get very far before she got burned, and came back and started sniffing around the bush like crazy! I guess she got their scent or something, b/c for the rest of the "rabbit" portion of the session, her nose was toward the ground (like it is when we are lookin for birds...)!!! Cut back toward the front portion of the field (that runs along the road), and the briars just got thicker. See...this is what happened...when I used to fly this field, the "rabbit" section I was hitting runs along this same road. It opens up for a bit, and I guess I just assumed that it continued on being open (so I never kept walking). This assumption was correct (in that there arn't many tress, and there really arn't any bushs), but instead of being like the rest of the field and baren, there are TONS of little briar patchs everywhere! It was time to get back to work, so I abandoned my beating stick, and started heading through this part, making my way back to the car. Maggie was pretty much walking by this point (OUT OF SHAPE!!!!), when all of a sudden, she tensed up, and broke straight for a briar patch. Mae doesn't really like to "crash brush" if you will, so I was pretty surprised when she started climbing into the bush (though this one had a lot of honey suckle, so it may have been more "friendly" than the other ones...) Took a short little video clip (as seen here...), and then it was time to keep moving on. Well...she left the bush for a little bit, and I continued on my walk. Well, she broke off, and headed straight back to the bush, and started climbing in again. I was like..."may as well", so I walked back to her, and went on the other side of the bush. I started kicking my way through it, and Maggie left the bush, and started circling the side of it. All of a sudden, a rabbit bolts out the side pretty darn near to her, and starts hauling balls toward a tiny briar patch. Well, Maggie dug down to the reserve energy tank, and freakin turned on the after burners. She closes the gap REALLY quickly, and they both get to the briar patch at pretty much the same time. Maggie doesn't even slow down, and just plows into the side, and you're not going to believe this $hit.........SQUEEL!!!!! I couldn't believe it! I call her over, and she come bounding out of the bush with the rabbit (now dead) in her mouth! I'm pretty dumb founded...I didn't think she had a chance....maybe without snow on the ground or something, but not today. I told her to leave it, and guess what she did????? She left it!!!!! Mind is blown again. I know you don't want your rabbit dogs actually catching the rabbits, but I sure did like the intensity that she chased it with, so split second decision...I tore the head and front legs off, and let her chow down. I left the rabbit body in the snow, and after she finished eating her portion, she started walking over to the rest of the rabbit. Clipped off a few pictures while she was messin with it, but I wouldn't let her pick it up again. I told her to "leave it", and she just sniffed around it. About that time, I decided she was WAY too close (b/c if the bird had caught it, that means Maggie would have gotten her reward, and was now messing with the bird and her rabbit....not cool! Granted, when Dee caught one over her, she respected the hawks space, but I didn't want to give her the idea that it may be ok to come in on it sometimes), so I made her keep her distance. Did a little training at this point...I would walk away and around stuff, etc, etc, and made Maggie keep her distance even when i wasn't around....she did pretty well at this (considering this is the dog that likes to steal food off of counter tops, peoples plates, etc, etc.....lets face it...she has a soft spot for food, and her listening usually goes out the window), and I only had to give her a couple taps from her collar. Not really sure if I did the correct thing as far as enforcing the behavior and what not.....I'm pretty darn sure I shouldn't have let her get anywhere near the body, but oh well.....it is what it is. Can't go back and change it, so we will progress from here. Got back to the car, stuck her in her kennel, and she had TONS of briars in her chest, face, and front legs....apparently crashing into a briar patchs at full speed after a rabbit has it's consequences. Pulled out as many as I could, but will be spending quite a bit of time with some tweezers tonight. Made it back to work ONLY ten minutes late, so I was pleased with the day!

Leg update

2009-12-29T08:39:00.003-06:00

Checked on her this morning before work, and her leg looked A TON better! Most of the "redness" is gone, so I applied more ointment, and slapped another layer of grease on her anklets. Feeling a lot better today for sure.....yesterday I was freakin out!!!!

Dang it!

2009-12-28T18:28:00.008-06:00

I'm bummin pretty good right now. We make a couple steps forward, but now we are taking a HUGE step back! Tonight was going to be the night that I introduced her to the pole perch. This is how it was going to go down....I was going to have our session and hopefully get some nice jumps out of her, was going to introduce the lure, and then after putting her back up for a moment, was going to get her back out to put her on the pole perch (tid bitting every once in a while once she was calm and chillen). Being how crazy she is, I'm HOPING that the pole perch will be more condusive to her temperment, and hopefully she would calm down a little bit. Well, brought her into the house, and set her on the pole perch to take off her leash/etc to weigh her...that's when I noticed that her anklet wasn't rotating on her leg.....got it rotating again, and I slid it up on her tarsi, to see what exactly was going on. I discover that during her battle with the perch yesterday, she somehow gave herself a little bit of scale damage, so we are now on hold. I completely skipped weighing her, and just fed her part of a back section of a rat. She did well, and since I wanted ZERO bating after our session, cut the lights, and hooded her back up. She weighed in at 695 grams when I brought her back inside, and I greased the heck out of both of her anklets. I then covered the tarsi in neosporin, and she is chillen on the pole perch, listening to the dish washer. She will be spending the majority of her time in the GH until further notice, and our focus will be on healing. Luckily, I caught it early on, and it's probably not as bad as I think it is, but being the newbie that I am, I'm freakin out about it. What really irritates me, is that this whole situation PROBABLY (maybe not....but probably) could have been avoided, had I checked her anklets and greased the crap out of them BEFORE I let her fight it out with the perch yesterday....granted...it could have still happened anyways, but I should have been proactive about it. I KNEW she bated hard, and I KNEW that she was going to be bouncing around a bunch...should have done everything in my power to have avoided this situation. Hind sight also....I should have just stuck her on the pole....shouldn't have even messed with the block...again...I knew her temperment BEFORE hand, and should have started with the pole, and moved to a block/bow once she had calmed down. Hind sight is 20/20 and all that jazz.....fingers crossed that it will look a lot better in the AM. There is no way to make the picture NOT a bummer, but I thought I would get Lindz to stand there and smile...just so that it was a little bit better....the black die on her leg makes it look a LOT worse than it really is...

Step up, and first hop!

2009-12-27T12:22:00.004-06:00

Progress, but she still hates my guts! This bird is a FIREBALL, and she keeps me on my toes all the time! Her footing is SOOOO fast, and she trys to slip in shots all the time! I have been really good at avoiding her thus far, but her beak is a different story. She is wicked with that thing, and though it's my fault when she gets me, it sure does hurt! Her beak is a LOT sharper than the RTs, and she is really quick with it! After our session today, I was putting the hood back on her, and she flipped her head around and tagged the side of my pinkie GOOD!!!! I like her spirit though, and I think she is going to be a CRAZY aggresive hunter. Anyways, she was around 670 grams today (I got a new pineo swivel from Santa Clause, so I switched up her setup a little bit, and she also got a new hood so she was "around" 670 grams). Total, that's about a loss of 11%, or about 83 grams from trap. We tried being unhooded on the perch yesterday, and that was a disaster! Her tail is already a bummer to begin with, so I HAVE to save whats left....she was just too rediculous. Here is a quick video of her fightin with her jesses (don't mind the commentary....the wife got a new camera, and they where having a "stimulating" conversation about batteries!!!! :)) This bird DOES NOT train like Dee Dee did, and I'm having to take baby steps with her, where I could take leaps with Dee. It all adds to the adventure though, and I'm learning quite a bit from this bird. With these baby steps in mind, I started out the session today with sitting on the perch in mind, as well as to see if I could get a hop out of her. After holding her unhooded for about 5 or 6 minutes to get the "willies" out, I offered her a couple tid bits on the fist, and she reached down for them quickly. Tried putting her on the perch, and she went nuts! Picked her back up, and tried again....took me three of four times before she stayed put, and then I offered her a tid bit on the perch. She ate that, and then I picked her back up, gave her a tid bit on the fist. I set her back down...bated once, and then I got her back on there. Gave her another tid bit on the perch, and then held one out in front of me. She leaned over really far toward me, and took the tib bit out of the fist. Picked her back up, and I gave her a tid bit on the fist. Set her back down, and she sat there perfectly. Gave her a tid bit, and then I held my fist out, and made her lean for another one. She did that with a little bit of hesitation, but once she did, then I picked her back up, and tid bitted her on the fist. Down again, tid bit, held glove out of reach, and she stepped up for the tid bit!!!!!!! I was psyched. Gave her three or four tid bits for that effort, and then I set her back down again. Tid bitted for sitting on the perch nicely, and then I held the tid bit out about half the leash length. She hesitated a little bit longer than I would have liked, but she then hopped to the fist for four or five tid bits. Ended the session on that, and she was at 699 grams when I stuck her on the scale. About 30 grams of food, which isn't bad....I stuck her in the garage, and hopefully she will burn that up quickly. I still havn't switched to rabbit, b/c I forgot about the rest of the rat meat I already had thawed, but once I get her on that, I think we will progress a lot quicker. Hind sight...having her hop off the perch for a tid bit was not a good idea, but I was too caught up in her progress, and got carried away. I don't want to teach her bad habbits though, so from now on, "perch work" will be one part of the session, and hopping/etc will be a completely seperate part....I'm hoing to get her on a routine where I work with her a couple times a day, and that will speed up the learning curve. Can't wait to get back flying.....I need my fix!!!!!!

Success!

2009-12-24T17:17:00.001-06:00

Offered her a little bit of food earlier this morning, and the same thing happened...ate quickly when I held it up, but wouldn't bend over. We are having a snow/ice storm, so I stuck her in the GH out in the car, with hopes that it would get REALLY cold out there. It worked, and she dropped quite a bit more than she has been averaging per hour. Pulled her out a second ago, and after giving her a little tid bit at head height to get her going, shook the rat half by her face. She bit down hard, and I slowly started lowering it toward my glove. About half way down, she slowly reached up a foot, and grabbed ahold of the rat. Brought it the rest of the way down, and I held it with my hand, as she tore away at it. Got 37 grams out of her meal, and I managed to get her hooded with only three or four bates. Total session was about 25 minutes or so, and the temps are continueing to drop. Hopefully, she will shed that pretty well, and i'm switching her over to rabbit. GOOD day today!

We are almost there

2009-12-24T08:44:00.003-06:00

Took the day off yesterday, and my good buddy Ben and I went climbin! The bird rode around in the GH all day, and we didn't have a single incident. She rode in it like a champ (she usually bounces around like crazy!), and managed to only drop a few grams all day....weak! Got her home in the evening, and I popped the hood off....bate, bate, bate, bate, bate....regains the fist...Nice! She remembered :). Offered her the front half of a rat in my fist, and I THINK she may have looked at it, but not really. Held a rat leg to her face, and she ate it IMMEDIATELY! I let her sit there with the rat half for a little bit, but she wasn't hungry enough to reach down for it, so I put her back up. I am confident that when I pull the hood off tonight and whistle, she will reach down and eat. Once she does that, the game is on!!!!!!!

A little progress

2009-12-22T08:53:00.005-06:00

Headed over to Jeff's house after work. It's ALWAYS good times talkin to Jeff, and yesterday was no exception. We talked falconry for a good minute, showed him my new little girl, and we talked strategy. Jeff is a car hawking guru, and I'm trying to soak up as many tricks and pointers as I can. He was kind enough to hook me up with a NICE braided setup for the bird, and I have decided that black is def her color. She looks like a little bad@$$ sitting there, just waiting to get out and kill some birds! Headed back to my babies, and after cookin a litle dinner, it was time to mess with the bird. Pulled the hood off, and she started bating like crazy! Finally stopped, and I put her back on the fist......she sat there! NICE! Got a good minute out of her, and then she popped off again.....and regained the fist! NICE AGAIN! Offered her the top half of a rat and she would bite at it, but wouldn't commit enough to hold it. I offered her a rat leg, and that was a different story. She bit down on it, and would hold it in her mouth for a while, but wouldn't eat it. Everytime, she would either drop it on the glove, or else drop it while bating. I switched gears, and offered her a tid bit from my finger tip. She grabbed it, and did the hold thing, but then she swallowed it! SWEET! Gave her another 3 tid bits, and then we ended the session. I HAVE to get a new hood. She is biting at it now, so that is annoying.....we will get over that soon enough. This one "fits", but not correctly. It's an arab hood, so it's made to fit a falcon, and her head is DEF not falcon like :). I think that is what's causing the troubles. I think it's just too tight when it goes on...I assume it feels more like something is grabbing her head than the "looser" styles do. I need an anglo probably...where its not pushing on her head as much when it's going in. Ryan made me a nice one the other day (thanks!), but it ended up being too small. I have discovered that she is pretty much a male harris hawk size, but just a TINY bit different. Hopefully, we will get that taken care of in the very near future, and I won't have to worry about it anymore. Anyways, the 8 grams will put us behind a day. She burns VERY slowly, and she still has a ways to come down. It's going to be pretty warm today, so I probably won't mess with her at all. I'm thinkin tommorow might be the day she actually reachs down to the fist for food, which will be one goal completed. Now, as far as a trapping story goes....there isn't really one. My good buddy Gary knew that I was on the quest for a RS, and he let me know that there was a passage that hung out around his house. He figured out what her routine was, and the BC was left for her. Next thing I know, I have a new bird sitting on the fist :)! Pretty uneventful, but that's alright. John (who is doing AWSOME with his new bird!) asked about my focus with her, and it's going to be birds! I will bag her on rabbits, and will def chase some of those around, but my main focus will be birds. I plan on car hawkin the crap out of her in the beginning, and will hopefully get a bird with a lot of confidence on feather that way. Once she is solid, I will transition slowly to field hawking. Hopefully she will do this well, but if she is a little slower at it, I will still be car hawkin her in there, and will use baggies in the field if I see her confidence diminishing. It's going to be an adventure, and I'm so psyched to get back out hawkin!!!! I havn't been getting my daily session, and the outings with the bros (though good times for sure) just arn't giving me my fix! I need to fly!

Beginning of Chapter 2!!!!!

2009-12-21T09:03:00.012-06:00

Introducing......well...........I havn't named her yet. Ryan says I should call her "hideous", but I think she is rather cute! Granted, she is sorta a ratty little thing....most of her tail feathers are tipped, one of her decks is creased, and her tallons are dull, but I'm in love! Once I got her all geared up (anklets, jesses, micro back pack, mini merlin transmitter, and hood), she weighed in at 753 grams. She was hog fat when trapped without a crop, and I have just been bringing her weight down since then. Other than the brief sessions when we where trying to find a proper fitting hood, she hasn't been messed with. Those brief experiences have let me know that she is DEF not going to be anything like the RT though! I'm pretty psyched, and can't wait to get the ball roling!

Chapter one comes to a close......

2009-12-18T12:46:00.011-06:00

It was three months ago on Wednesday, when she came down to the trap and became my first falconry bird. She weighed in at 1243 grams then, and she flew out of my life today at a plump 1358 grams (plus a quail). Total, we caught 24 rabbits, 4 squirrels, and 7 "others." She FINALLY flew up into a tree after a really long time, and I tossed out a quail and yelled "HO HO HO".....she dropped like a rock, and slammed it out of the air in fine style. Took a couple videos, and when she was almost finished, made my departure. Good luck Dee Dee!

Day 94

2009-12-18T07:55:00.003-06:00

Fed Dee Dee a whole squirrel last night....well...I tried to. She was too full from the rabbit to actually eat the whole thing, but when I flipped the light on this morning, she hopped down to finish the rest. Dee Dee has gone through a transformation. My nice, well behaved bird, has turned into a possesive, mantleing freak! It's what I want though, and I KNOW she will do awsome back on her own. The rain that they predicted earlier this week, has dissapeared from the weather forecast, and the temps are already above freezing. I will be heading out to the dumpsite on my lunch break, and saying my farewells to Dee. There are TONS of rats all over the place, and there are quite a few spots around it that are full of bunnies (I need to get permission to fly them in the future...just havn't done it yet...) I couldn't have possibly asked for a better first bird! I learned SO much, and hopefully, she learned a trick or two in the process as well. Though my heart sinks as the hours draw closer, I know it's for the best, and I'm excited about starting the next chapter in my falconry endevours. Like you all already know, I will be taking a bunch of pictures, so expect a photo post, along with her final weigh in before the day draws to a close.

Day 93

2009-12-17T10:17:00.002-06:00

Fed Dee a whole rabbit (minus the goodies and all the legs), and she had a nice grape fruit crop when she crashed out last night. She is such a sweet little thing when she is fat! As the days get closer to her release, the sinking feeling in my stomach keeps getting bigger and bigger....

Day 92

2009-12-16T10:05:00.002-06:00

The dumpster is getting a break for the rest of the year. I'm not sure if I hit the rabbits too hard, and they just moved on, or if the population was low to begin with, but they just arn't poppin there anymore. Flew for a couple hours yesterday without a single slip. Ended the session on the lure, and am going to start feeding her up for the next few days. Hopefully, I will be able to trap a RS, and she will be all fat and sassy by the time I'm ready to release her. If I don't end up trapping one, then I will just bring her weight down again. Either way, a BIG feed up is good every once in a while, and she would be good to go after that. Fingers crossed for good trapping, but we shall see what happens!

Day 91 She just keeps gettin better!

2009-12-14T16:47:00.005-06:00

I was in a hurry today....I'm not gonna lie, I had trapping on the brain, and just didn't really want to get out and fly....I'm SOOOOO glad I did! Stuck her on the scale at noon, and she weighed in at 1065 grams, and then I headed back to finish up the work day. Got to "bum central" at around 3:15 PM, and after cutting up her tid bits, and loading up the lure (I wasn't prepared today!) I beeped her up, and it was time to fly. As soon as I pulled her out of the GH, she started talkin. Unlike normal though, she continued talkin, and it only got louder when I struck the braces on the hood. Tossed her up in the tree, and she IMMEDIATELY flew over to the bush we usually start on (still talkin). It was pretty windy, and when she went to fly to a different tree, she caught a gust, and it took her toward the open section of the field (in the front). This is where I was heading anyways (I just always walk the tree line on my way there....you never know...may kick up Peter), so I walked out to the mowed section, and made my way to where she was. I kick around in the first couple clumps of trees, and since my goal was to walk the ridge and then head to the back field, I looped back to the beginning of the ridge, and started walking down it. I guess I kicked up a rabbit (it was really windy....didn't hear it bolt), and she came rocketing out of the tree like she was starving! She passed over my head, and slammed the ground about five feet next to me (higher up on the ridge). She missed, and I see the rabbit shoot off toward the top of the ridge, and disappear out of sight. As soon as Dee hit the ground, her head popped up, and she remounted and started BURNING up the hill, and disappears over the top. I start running up the hill, and she is no where to be seen. I didn't hear a squeel, so I didn't think she had caught it at first....but after a minute or two, she didn't pop back up. This was my heads up that she had caught it, so I start walking back and forth, looking all around the top, and down the side of the steep hill (which is on the other side of where I kicked up the rabbit). I know that she had to be in the near area, so I start making my second pass down the ridge. That's when I hear the jingle, and I find her under some rag weed, and she is sitting there waiting for me 24th rabbit!). I go in for the dispatch, and this is where it gets interesting.....she had ZERO momentum when she remounted off the ground....pumped the rabbit down, and slammed it so hard, that she popped some of the guts out of it's side (She is trying to imulate Shaung apparently....). I really wish I could have seen the end of the flight, but I just couldn't get up to the top as quickly as Dee did :).....I bet it was sick lookin though! Total hunt time....15 minutes. I traded her off to the lure, and then hopped her to the fist for both front legs, and a back. Feed her the goodies at the car, and then off we went. I was psyched...the way she was acting, I believe one would have described her as being in "yarak", and she was DEF getting a kill today. This was the first rabbit she has caught on the remount which was also cool, and she gave me enough time to drive around lookin for RS's afterwards. Gary had a passage in his back yard this afternoon, so we are going to start watching that one as well. It's just a matter of time, before one of them is mine!!!!

DAY 90

2009-12-14T07:10:00.002-06:00

Went trapping today! Don't really want to get into it, b/c it was pretty frustrating, but I managed to find a passage bird IN THE MOST PERFECT TRAPPING SITUATION EVER......with no bait in the BC! ARGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG. Sat there and watched her for a good twenty or thirty minutes while she was scanning the grounf for a snack, and she flew off about ten minutes before the bate arived.....GRRRRRRRRRRRRRR. I will go out again today to see if I can locate another. Jonathan said there is one that comes and talks to Shaung all the time, so maybe I can go grab that one...we shall see

Day 89

2009-12-14T06:48:00.002-06:00

You ever have those days where you don't catch anything, but you consider it one of the best hawkin days you have ever had????? Well.....I had one of those today! Slept in for a bit, and then headed out to the squirrel spot to look for my new hunting partner. Pulled up, and got Dee Dee out of her GH (still hooded though), and she started doing her little chirping thing...before long, the passage RS that I have been watching came in to investigate. I put Dee up, and go hide in the woods (b/c I had already placed the BC, and sat around watching the bird for a good 20 minutes. He/She head bobbed, leaned, switched branchs for a better view point...everything....and then flew off! GOSH!!!!! Guess it wasn't feeling the mice, so i will try something different next time. Got the kitchen pass from the wife, so I headed down to Bartlesville around noon. Met up with Kent when I got there, and we went and checked out a new field. IT'S AWSOME! We kicked up 4 or 5 rabbits for Kent's bird, and in the brief 15 or 20 minutes that we flew Dee (in a different section of the field), we kicked up another couple of rabbits. There was rabbit poo EVERYWHERE, and once we figure out there habbits and what not, I see us consistantly getting tons of slips. Kent's bird flew well, and got it's first wild kill. It was a rat, but the situation was good, and the bird directly associated the kill with Kent. Pleased with this, we headed over to Ryan's house, and went to find some ducks. A gentleman (gosh! I'm so bad with names!!!!) who is interested in falconry joined us for the session, but all the ponds where frozen over. Found a couple Gadwalls sitting on the ice at one of the ponds, but they busted before we could get the bird in the air. Headed back behind the mall, and it was time to fly Dee. We headed to the back section, and the rabbits where poppin off EVERYWHERE. "New guy" managed the first couple slips, but no connections where made. Looped around along the tree line, and then we decided to head off along the neighbor hood side. Kicked up a rabbit in the wide open, and Dee starts pumping after it HARD. She is going into the wind, but catchs up quickly (strong bird!!!!). The rabbit is running down the two track, so we all had a nice view when she came down and slammed the crap out of the rabbit. They both twist, but somehow, the rabbit gets away (stupid dull tallons!). We get another flush pretty quickly, and that rabbit runs down the two track also....STRAIGHT TOWARDS ME! Dee crashs the ground, but comes up empty footed, and the rabbit is heading straight for me. Now you know I'm always trying to get my own score, and this was the setup if I had ever seen one. I take my stance, pull all the way back, and swing like my life depended on it! Ninja dodges the stick my half an inch, and shoots BETWEEN MY LEGS! It was SOOOOO close! Continue on, and we manage four or five more slips before we call it a day. One of which she got REALLY close, and probably would have gotten it, but we rushed the flush. Pretty much all of her flights where into the wind, and she chased them all down. She is getting so damn strong it's rediculous, and Ryan even commented on this fact. Even though she screwed off and caught two rats during the session, it was still good. Most of the flights where in the open, so they where all easily seen, and she missed b/c she got juked, not b/c they made it to cover. This is really good, b/c IF I do end up keeping her, this is good practice for when we go hunt jacks in January. The day was really exciting, and I headed out of B-ville one happy falconer.

Day 88

2009-12-11T20:25:00.009-06:00

Today was sweet! Woke up around 6:30 AM, and Dee weighed in somewhere in the mid to upper 1060's. Tried to fly the squirrels behind work, but Dee was still asleep (she just sat there with a foot up, and watched them run around....). I had woken her up when I put her on the scale, and she fell back asleep while I was cutting the meat up. Stuck her in the GH, and she had her head tucked back before I could shut the door. I LITERALLY think that she was just still asleep, and had ZERO interest in hunting. Stuck her back in the GH, and I went and met up with Gary. The starlings had been poppin everywhere earlier in the morning, but they where no where to be found, once we started hawkin. Drove around for a cool minute, but we only managed a few slips....he chased hard, but just didn't manage to connect today. Like always though...it was car hawkin, and I had a GREAT time! Dropped Gary's car off to get some work done, and we drove around for a little bit with Dee. We found one pigeon slip, but it was pretty far, and she got burned. It wasn't a very graceful exit from the car, and they saw her as soon as she left the window. That was sorta a bummer, but then I got the call from Kent, and we headed over to "Bum Central." I havn't seen Kent since before NAFA, so it was def good getting to chill for a session. He said his boy was still a little high, so we decided to fly Dee Dee first. She had cast in the GH, so I was pretty confident she would fly well. Started out the normal way, and we hit the little honey suckle bush in the front (well...I do...Kent and Gary are to the side of me kicking around in the woods...). Dee flies up to the cedar above the bush, and then Gary flushes a rabbit. She takes off in that direction, but she wasn't anywhere close, so she just takes a perch further up. We continue through the woods and come to another briar filled clearing. Gary flushs another rabbit, and she pumps in pretty quickly, but pulls up into a short tree. She starts lookin down pretty hard, and so we start kicking around the brush around her. All of a sudden, she drops off her perch, and starts heading for Gary's head. I'm thinkin "oh $hit!", and am about to shout out a warning, when she flips to the side, and slams into the side of a small cedar. Dee...you suck! Stop rattin! I pull her out of the tree, and sorta fumble around about what to do. I have traded her off of a rat before on the lure, but i was thinking i could just pull it down in my glove for a moment....came to my senses quickly, and I tosser her and her prize down to the ground. I then trade her off to the lure, and we continue on hunting. We cross over to the section with the HUGE rose bush, and we kick around in there for a minute. No rabbits are hanging about today, so we head back straight behind it (which, conincidentally, I havn't ever done. Guess what! There are some GREAT spots back there. We break out of the tree line, and find some honey suckle coverd brambles. The road curves around, and cuts through this section, and Kent and Gary head over to the left side of the road. I start heading toward the right side, when Dee takes off burning hard....apparently, Kent and Gary had been walkin toward each other, and a rabbit kicked up inbetween them.....it shoots across the road, and is about to enter the bush, when Dee shows up, and drills it into the ground. Run in and pull them out of the bush, and stick them in the middle of the two track. Had an alright trade of (not the best...but not bad), and I hopped her to the fist for a front and back leg. Jonathan calls at this time, and apparent his bird had disappeared. We head to the expanse, and after a little telemetry work, find her safe and sound. Fly Kent's Harris hawk for a cool minute, and his bird chased pretty darn well. Had a couple REALLY nice ones, and Kent was pleased by the end of the session. Flew Jonathan's bird for a little bit after that, but then we had to head back for Gary's car. Over all....GREAT day! She was in the 1120's when i stuck her on the scale, so she may not be on her "A" game tommorow....we shall see what happens. Maybe Lindz will want to go to Bartlesville tommorow!

Day 87

2009-12-10T19:46:00.008-06:00

Today was LONG! I got to work this morning at the usual time, and when I took my coffee break around 7:30, there where FIVE squirrels running through the pecan trees....they taunted me all morning, and it's going to be pay back tommorow! Why you ask? Well....I'm takin the day off. Yep...that's right....no work, no plans....just hawkin....ALL day! It's gonna be sweet. I'm gonna hit those trees first thing in the morning, and I'm planning on having my first cup of coffee over a dead squirrel. I have been wanting to fly this spot for a COOL minute, but I had previously believed the situation unsafe...I have since come to a different conclusion (after a little first hand investigation), and it's going down in the morning! After that....more hawkin....the rest of the day! Gonna be freakin sweet! Anyways, back to today. Finished up with work at three, and I was walking into the woods by three fifteen. She was high today, and you could def tell by her behavior. She DID NOT want to follow! The day started slow...walked around for a good forty minutes or so, and didn't kick up a single darn thing. Apparently, this bored her, b/c she decided to float up above tree line, and disapprear off into the distance A COUPLE TIMES (come on Daniel...do you not see a freakin trend! High bird = rabbit hawkin NOT squirrels! If you fly in the dense forest, she disappears!). I spent a lot of time looking for her...the longest stretch was a good fifteen or twenty minutes. Finally, I wise up, and call Dee Dee down to the fist once I find her.....i hood her for about ten minutes, and take a much needed break to calm the nerves (I was pissed!). I don't know if this is true for birds in general (I know of a few that this works on, but I don't know how wide spread it is....), but this is Dee's "reset" button....after unhooding her, I flew a different bird the rest of the day! She followed along perfectly and TIGHT....probably tighter than she has thus far. We where heading to "big red's house" (that's the squirrel we chase EVERY time we come out her....ninja squirrel has some MOVES!!!!), and just like always, she flies straight to the top of "the tree." I kick around in the branchs below it, but nothing moves. Weird...he is always here.....Don't really know what to make of it, so I start kicking around in the "general" area. All of a sudden, she takes off through the trees, and SLAMS a small tree just in front of me. I see "Red" scurrying down the tree, and I quickly cut him off at the base. He heads about half way up, and then bails to the next tree. Dee comes shooting through the branchs from the side, and Red dodges her by A MILE (he skipped between freakin like 8 branchs in the blink of an eye!). Red crosses between 3 or 4 trees in a breath's worth of time, and I'm thinkin he is LONG gone. Dee wasn't feeling that though, and flew a few trees past Red....landed, and then shot straight back toward me. Red wasn't feeling that, and he started cork screwing down the trunk. Dee dropped straight down, and BARELY missed nabbing him off the trunk. Red hit the ground, and started heading back in my direction, and I did my best to cut him off. My best efforts where rewarded with Red skipping to the side and disappearing into the underbrush....Nicely played Red! We shall meet again soon! I'm not going to lie...I pretty much gave up right there. This is a HUGE stetch of woods, full of squirrel nests, and acorns EVERYWHERE....but there are never squirrels to be found...."Red" is pretty much the ONLY squirrel I move consistantly. I continue heading North, and start getting into some sections I hadn't visited before. I come across a TON of clearings FULL of briars and all the stuff rabbits LOVE, but like all the other spots in this area....no rabbits. Not even a single pellet. I did find a TON of coyote skat, so I guess that explains it....but you would still think there would be one or two....anyways, I loop through the "new" section, and then I start cutting back toward the two track. Dee drops off her perch, and starts skimming through the woods at about 8 to 10 feet of the ground. She almost gets out of sight, when she shoots straight up into the air, and lands in the top of a tree. I start running in her direction, and when I get to her, she is looking straight down the tree. It's a really large tree, and there are no vines to shake, or anyway to move a squirrel. I start making a circle around it, and for some reason, the squirrels makes a break for it. It had been tucked away somewhere at the top, and I notice it as it is shooting down the trunk of the tree. Dee Dee drops off her branch, and does MAYBE a half turn around the trunk, and then SLAMS it off the side. She flares her wings and floats down to the ground like she had dones it a thousand times (Number 4!). I run in like a darn track star, and put the squeeze on it almost as soon as they hit the ground. I let her foot on it for a minute, and then we have a perfect trade off to the lure (and I didn't cover it up this time either...I have been doing that, but not today.....and she STILL traded off perfectly! PROGRESS!). Since I am flying early in the morning, I hopped her to the fist for the rest of the tid bits, and she should be at killer weight in the morning. Kent's coming down, meeting up with Gary to fly the kestrel, and Dee is going to be exceptional...I can just feel it!

Day 86

2009-12-09T21:47:00.007-06:00

It got COLD! Since I have been out hawkin so much, I havn't really noticed the temperature this year as much as usual...today was different! Winds where blasting out of the North, all the little creeks and puddles where frozen over, and the sunny skies from earlier on, had turned to a gloomy grey. I had pulled up to "bum central" at around 3:45 PM, and the bums where out in full force. The cold snap had them scurrying around through the forest, and they all where looking for things to add to their homes, and I quickly headed off through the woods in the other direction. I was weaving along the edge of the tree line, heading toward the open spot in the front, and I came upon the first big "bush" that I like to hit. I hadn't kicked up a rabbit from this one before, but I made my circle around it....Dee was up in the cedar right above the bush, and I see a rabbit shoot out the back. Dee was already stooping toward the ground before I could say HO, and she crashed into the ground like a ton of bricks! It was one of the loudest hits I have heard so far...it was nuts! She was a little bit sharp today considering the drop in temp, and she was READY to catch a rabbit. We made our way to the open section, and I hit the first clump of trees, but didn't get any slips. She is sitting on the edge of the woods, and she purposefully flew past me into the field, and landed in a dead tree by the third clump. She immediately looks at the ground, and stays focused while I make my way over to here. This is a big clump of trees, and I usually have to crawl inside to flush the rabbits out, but I did my usual once around with my fingers crossed, and a rabbit flushed out the side (heading toward the big hill)! She has the wind at her back, and you could tell she over shot it hard....she tried to twist in the air, and nab it as she passed, but she was coming in WAY too hot. Hopped her up to the fist, and since all the creeks where frozen, I headed all the way to where the hill starts, and I found a HUGE rose bush! Dee was still out of sorts from that last slip, so she was a little bit behind me. I flushed a rabbit as I was nearing the bush, and I start yellin my head off.....she ignores me (little hoe!). There wasn't really anywhere for the rabbit to have gone, so I called her over, and stuck her up in a tree directly over head. I kicked around in it for a good minute, but the darn thing had just disappeared. we leave the bush, and she takes a perch in a tree right on the fence line of the high way. There is a little two track that runs through the field along this fence line, but there is a decent sized gap between the road and the fence (on the other side of the fence, it's mowed grass and then the highway....). I start walking through there, and I get a slip in seconds. It's a race toward the fence, and the rabbit squeezes through just as she slams into the the chain link. We continue on, but we dont find anymore slips. We get to the end of the big field, and we duck across to the other side (ya know...covered in briars...i hacked my way through it for like an hour the other day...)anyways...start headind down the line, and we don't kick up a single darn rabbit...we get all the way to the spot where the bush juts out into the center, and i'm gettin worried...it will be dark in ten minutes or so, and I really want her to score...anyways I start following it out, and she takes a perch on the tree she scored out of last time....I get about half way down, when she starts lookin straight down at the briars below her. I guess one had been holding tight and it decided this was a good time to sneak off into the woods. She drops off the perch, does a wing beat, maybe two, and then folds her wings and stoops hard into the ground...SQUEEL!!!!!! Hell ya! Dispatch, victory pics, and perfect trade to the lure (#22!!!!). Since she was sharp, fed her both back legs (cut generously) and all the goodies on the fist, and she had a nice crop when she had finished. Going to get even colder tonight, so she should be good to go tommorow.

Day 85

2009-12-09T09:42:00.004-06:00

It was raining and crummy yesterday again. It was misting most of the morning, and it was steadily getting colder. I'm not sure if the squirrels could tell that a big front was moving in or what, but they where out in force when I took my lunch break. Headed out to my squirrel spot behind the health center, and I started off the day heading through the open section in the front. I'm not sure why there arn't any rabbits in this part...there are briars everywhere, and it seems like it's good rabitat, but none have been seen thus far. Always have to check it though, and after doing that, we continued on through the woods. Nothing was moving, and I'm starting to realize that the "city" squirrels are on a different schedule than the "woods" squirrels. I don't give up that easily though, so we head to the section where she have had some flights so far. Like clock work, we hit the spot, and she flew up to the top of the same tree she chased in one last time. She is peering around VERY intently, so I move in, and start beating around the dead tree. The squirrel that lives her is really large...and though it may be the lighting or something, appears to be VERY red (as opposed to the brownish orange that one usually sees). This squirrel has picked up on the game pretty quickly, and after two really nice tries from the bird, it manages to bail to the ground, with me hot on it's heels. There are TONS of dead limbs on the ground, and once I start running, i pretty much stop looking at the ground. I slam my legs into NUMEROUS branchs, as I stumble through the woods after them, but get burned pretty quickly. She crashs the ground in front of me, and I guess it was enough to turn the squirrel, b/c it heads back to the tree we started in (though I don't know this at the time). She ladders back up, and i start kicking around in the area that I THINK the squirrel went to, but can't move anything. She starts looking at "the tree" again, so I walk back in that direction. When I get withing 15 yards or so, the squirrel bails out of the tree. It seemed like it was falling in slow motion, and Dee started closing the gap really fast. She gets there JUST after the squirrel bounces on the ground, and crashs HARD. This took place out of my sight line, but I hear bells jingling like crazy, so I'm hoping she is wrestling with a big fat squirrel! I get there to find her empty footed on the ground, and I'm a little dissappointed about it. Oh well...time to head back to work, so I call her to the lure, and we head on out. I need to find squirrel spots that are better...this one slip a day nonsense is getting really frustrating. I have gotten permission on a few different ones, but they arn't condusive to quick hunts, so I need to find another spot close to work. Rabbits are sorta the same...the dumpster WAS being productive, but it hasn't been lately, and I know the bird must be getting tired of it. So the search is on again...need to find some gravy spots, and start getting consistant kills again. Kent is coming down to hawk on Friday, so maybe I will find some gems before then.

Day 84 continued....

2009-12-08T08:58:00.002-06:00

Well, I headed out to the dumpsite yesterday to see what we could find. Dee was really focused, and was following along VERY tight, and it didn't take long before we got our first slip. I had just started walking throught he woods, when Dee took off from her perch, and shot over to the top of a cedar. She was looking pretty intently at the ground, so I headed over there and started beating around. Couldn't find the rabbit for a cool minute, but then all of a sudden, it busted at my feet! The rabbit took off through an open section, and Dee was hot in pursuit. She crashed the brush hard, but the rabbit used some quick moves, and escaped her grasp. We continued on through the woods, and she flew far off into a REALLY thick section, and started looking around in one of the trees. She must have seen a squirrel, but there was no way I could move it (with the amount of honey suckle vines growing over EVERYTHING). Headed out of the woods, and we walked the sumac line, that borders the open field, and the "woods" section. No rabbits where kicked up, so we headed back to the front, and kicked around on the otherside of the two track.....Nothing. Went back across the two track, and came up the front section across the creek.....no rabbits. Hit the section we normally go to first....nothing. Guess all the smart rabbits where holed up staying warm, and the one we kicked up must have been the special ed rabbit. Anyways, called her down to the lure once the light faded, and I took her on home. She will be at killer weight this afternoon, but it's raining......I HATE RAIN! May try and do a little car hawking, but the birds arn't out in this weather either...so it would probably just turn into a driving session. She will be pretty keyed in though, so maybe I will go looking for some ducks.....

Day 84

2009-12-07T14:27:00.002-06:00

I'm SO glad I have been keeping this blog! Why you ask.....lost the log book...ya I know....Daniel? Losing something? NO WAY! Yep, have no idea where it is. As a result, I'm makin this quick post, so that I don't forget her weight. She was at 1065 grams when I went home for lunch at noon, so she should be ready to role when I go hawkin at 3. Gonna hit the dumpsite, and hopefully they will be poppin off like crazy. Fingers crossed!

Day 83...21st rabbit!

2009-12-06T15:11:00.009-06:00

It was pretty cold this morning, and it was slightly over cast....The wind wasn't blowing too hard, and it would have been great weather to fly. I was on daddy duty this morning though, while momma was trying to get some sleep, so I didn't get to take advantage of it. At 10:00 AM, she weighed in at 1056 grams, and was ready to go. I ended up chillen at the house till about 12, and then I headed out to "lowes"...I am renaming this spot "bum central," b/c they have a little village back there, and are EVERYWHERE! The weather was no longer nice, and it was spitting mist and drizzle pretty consitantly. IT WAS COLD! Anyways, got her beeped up, and we headed into the woods. Kicked up the first rabbit within a minute or so, and she went crashing into a huge honey suckle bush. Hopped her back to the fist, and we continued on. Our comotion brought a lone bum lady over to investigate, so I briefly explained what I was doing, and headed off toward the open section. There are a pair of two tracks that run through it, and there is a long briar patch that runs along the roads in the middle. At the end of this is where the roads converge, and there is a HUGE rose bush at the end of that (When Greg/Tasha/Jeff came hawkin, this is where we chased that one rabbit back and forth for a good minute.....). I start pushing through the briars making my way down the roads toward the rose bush, and I get a slip pretty quickly after entering them. It juts across a little open section inbetween the bushs, and Dee comes crashing in from above. The rabbit makes it to the safety on the other side of the clearing, and Dee is left tangled in the vines. She gets back up in the tree, and we push up toward where the roads join together. As I am reaching the edge of the briars, two rabbits come bolting out of the brush, heading across the two track, toward the huge rose bush on the other side. I think they surprised Dee, b/c she hesitated for a moment, before taking off toward the rabbit that was the furthest away. She came up empty, so I beat around in the big bush for a minute. Managed to move one of the rabbits a little bit in the bush, but she couldn't crash to the ground to get it. More bums where coming around (mental note...don't go to bum central on Sundays...they all stay home apparently), so I headed off toward the pond, to see if there where any ducks on it by chance. There where none, so I kicked through the briars that ran along the banks. Kicked up a rabbit, but Dee was out of position, and it escaped into the underbrush. I came to a deep "valley" sorta thing that was fu\illed with honey suckles. They covered the entire canyon, and on the other side, there looked like there was a big open field. I hadn't been to that section, so i started weaving my way through the honey suckle, trying to get to the other side. After making my way through the maze of vines, I get to the other bank, and discover the whole hill was covered in head high briars. I begin chopping my way through, and after 15 minutes, finally make it to the other side. Dee Dee flies over, and she lands in a tree top right above me. I make one step out of the briars, and a rabbit pops off in front of me. Dee comes crashing in, and I hear a little squeel, but then nothing. I get over to her, and find her sitting on the ground, with feet full of fur! She walked around on the ground for a minute or two, and then finally gave up, and hopped to the fist. She is VERY wet by this point, and she noticably feels heavier on the fist. She pumps back up to the top of a tree (a little slow, but she gets up there).. There is a big rose bush that is off away from the main row of them, and I start kicking around that for a bit. A rabbit shoots out the side of it, and breaks toward the open field. Dee comes out of the tree pumping hard, and SLAMS into the ground with a really loud thud. She missed....must have gotten juked or something. Since she was so wet, that could have had an impact on her maneuverablity...anyways, got her back up into the tree, and I kicked around for a little bit longer. Moved two or three rabbits through the really thick briars, but it was so thick, she had no chance of getting to them. I started getting toward the end of this section of the field, and there was a thin strip of briars that ran from the main section of the patch, out into the middle of the fields. I walk to where it connects with the main portion, and a rabbit kicks out the back side of it. She crashs after it, but misses again. She wouldnt let go of the grass and the ground, so I ended up picking her up, and after she calmed down, tossed her up into the tree. Headed in the direction I thought the rabbit went, but couldn't get a reflush, so we headed back to where we where. Started following the briars out into the middle of the field, when Dee takes off of her perch flapping CRAZY hard. She stays really high, and actually starts getting higher as she goes along the briars. She then cuts hard, and does a wicked wing over straight into the briars, and crashs all the way to the ground!!!!! It was a REALLY thick section, and the only way I can explain it is b/c of the extra water weight she had. Anyways, I hear the rabbit squeel, and I start heading into the briars. The rabbit is still screaming, so I can tell that she only has it by the back end, and when i finally get to her, that is exactly how it was. I dispatch the rabbit really quickly, and then after trimming some of the briar back, pull her out. After stomping down a section in the tall grass, I lay them down, and snap off some victory photos. Have a good trade off to the lure, and then I hop her to the fist for a front and back leg. Made the long treck back to the car, where I fed her the heart and lungs. She didn't move a muscle when I stuck the hood on her, and she was fat and happy when I put her in the GH. She weighed close to 1200 grams when I weighed her at home, but she was still soaking wet, so that isn't really a true weight. I will stick her on the scale before bed, and I should get a better idea of what she weighs. I'm thinkin she should be in the upper 1050's for our hunt tommorow, which should be really good.

Day 82 20th Rabbit!

2009-12-06T10:46:00.006-06:00

Got to sleep in a little bit later, considering I was heading down to Bartlesville. Lindz woke me up at about 6:30 AM, and after getting the bird loaded up, and a little Java from QT, was on my way by about 7:00 AM. Dee Dee had weighed in at 1040 grams, so I knew she would be good to go today. Got there about 20 min before 8, so I drove around for a little bit lookin for crows. Finally found some hanging out behind the Mcdonnalds over by the walmart, so I pulled her out and I gave her a go on those. It was an awkward slip, in that they where in a little gravel parking lot, and it was pretty much a head on slip, with her having to come out, and go the same direction the car is (as opposed to straight out the window). She made a really nice effort, but too many eyes popped up when the car hit the gravel, and she just couldn't close the gap in time. Called her down, and I headed over to Ryan's house. He was ready to go, so off we went in search of ducks (and a nice passage RS hawk too!!!!)! Hit the training field first, but there where no ducks, so we headed off down the road. Found some ducks on a big pond that he hadn't ever flown before, but he just wasn't feeling the slip, so we kept on going. Made it to the pond where I have seen him kill the last couple ducks, and there where a couple Mallards, and a couple gadwalls floating in the middle. Put the hybrid up in the air, and he started climbing nicely. Out of no where, the two mallards bust....the hybrid hesitates for a little bit, but sorta starts coming down. Since the two had busted already, we ran in a flushed the gadwalls, and the hybrid switched focus, and came down hard on those. The mallards bailed back to the water, and watched as the hybrid drove the gadwalls down below the damn wall. Once he dissappeared behind that, the mallards broke off the other direction, and we see the hybrid whip back up, b/c he had apparently missed the gadwalls. Ryan was pissed! It wasn't a good flight, and he was NOT saisfied, so he lured the bird down, and off we went for some other ducks. Saw a bunch of passage RT's as we where driving around, but still, not what we where looking for. Finally saw a RS, but it was a stinkin hag (surprise!), so we kept on driving. Came to the pond where the hybrid scored his first duck, and there where TONS of them on there. We pulled him out, and tossed him into the air, and more ducks kept coming in and landing on the pond. Ryan said some days are just like that, and we where getting pretty psyched for a good flight. Took a pitch that was acceptable, so we ran in for the flush. Bird came down like a rocket, and hammered a gadwall onto the ice. She winged back up, and there was that one on the ice, and then one more in the water next to it. Bird went a few hundred feet back up, and then the ducks flushed. They headed off into the wind, and the hybrid got burned! Called him down to the lure, and called it a day for him. Headed back to the training field, and we kited the gyrkin. He is still getting back into the game, so he only flew him up a couple hundred feet, but that bird is a powerhouse, and climbs like a maniac! I'm psyched to see him hunt, once Ryan gets him going strong! Got a little lunch, and it was back to trapping. Saw another hag RS and a ton of RT's, but nothing to get excited about. Had Dee in the car, so we where half way looking for crow slips, but we didn't go out of our way to look for them or anything. Swung back to the pond by the school, and there where quite a few ducks on there. I was hoping Dee was just gonna be super and fly down and catch on, but it was not to be. Had her on the fist, and we snuck up toward the end of the pond with rocks. Ran in for the flush, and I tossed her at them, but she just flew up into the air, and then headed for a telephone pole back behind the car. Little slut!!!! A lot of the ducks hadn't flushed, so I swung the lure, and then when she was on her way in, I was going to try and flush the ducks again. Well, she started my direction, and I waited to long to flush.....she got too close, and was not even lookin at the ducks. When i took off to flush them, she just landed on the ground where I had been....balls! Leave the neighborhood, and we get a nice slip on some geese...but again....she didn't really chase...BUT...she flew up into a tree, and then ignored me for a little bit. She was stairing at the geese really hard, and hind sight, I probably should have tried to run in and flush them. She may have dropped off her perch and slammed on......MAYBE wishful thinking though. Anyways....a step in the right direction, and she has at least seen them now. I think I will bag her on a duck, and then see what happens. Went and showed Ryan a field I had checked out the other day, and there was rabbit crap EVERYWHERE! I kicked one up as soon as I stepped out of the car! Ryan had some family stuff to take care of, so we parted ways at this point. I set forth with the plan of hitting the field behind the mall, but then I was like what the heck, may as well try and fly that new spot right? So i drove in there, and headed all the way to the back (where we had walked around). I stuck her up in a tree, and I got a slip within a a few seconds. It headed off through on open section, but it was into the wind, and the rabbit made it to cover before she got there. Kicked around in that spot for a little bit, but couldn't get a reflush, so we continued on. Kicked through a REALLY thick section where we could hear them running around earlier, and I managed to move a couple rabbits. She crashed the brush hard on both of those, but just couldn't make it through to the ground. She started loosing a little bit of focus at this time, and kept taking perchs really far away. I had to call her down twice and carry her to where I wanted her, and she just wasn't hunting well. Got another slip or two, but she pulled off both, without crashing the ground. Put her up for a moment, and I drove back toward the front section. Put her up in a tree, and it was like the switch had been flipped. Got a slip after about ten minutes or so, and she ALMOST snagged it, but barely missed. Headed across the two track, and started kicking around in a REALLY thick section. She was a little bit out of position when I kicked up the rabbit, but it didn't go far, and she flew up to the tree right above us. I beat around where i saw it last, and the rabbit shot out the side, and headed across the two track. As it was getting to the other side, she snuck in and nailed it as it was approching the brush line. I hear the squieel, and run in there for the dispatch! We have a perfect trade off to the lure, and then I hop her to the fist for a front and back leg. We have been stuck at 19 rabbits for a minute (b/c i have been hawkin squirrels mainly), and it was great finally scoreing number 20. That's a big mile stone for us, and I'm so proud of my little girl! Got home, and she weighed in at 1115 grams, so I'm going to be able to have a session Sunday afternoon!

Day 81

2009-12-06T10:07:00.003-06:00

Had a big scare on Friday! Left work around 3:0O PM, and decided we where going to fly on squirrels behind the "health center" (that's where we have been going recently for squirrels). It doesn't take very long to get to this spot, so I had her beeped up, and in a tree, just a little after 3:15 or so. I was testing out a new "technique" if you will, and was being really quite, and not really moving about much. The thought process behind this, is that I would be providing less distractions, and she would be able to listen, and focus more....well, it didn't really work. She ended up seeing a squirrel WAY far off, and she was out of sight in moments. I walked around looking for her for about 20 minutes, and then I decided it was time to break out the telemetry. Made it back to the car pretty quickly, and I got a signal immediately. Started heading in that direction, and I proceeded to chase a signal around for the rest of the day. It would get really strong (like she was right above me/on the ground below me), but I wouldn't ever be able to find her. Started getting nervous, b/c I begin to realize just how bad I am at using telemetry, so I shoot Ryan a text. He calls me immediately, and I start filling him in on the situation. I loose her signal at this time, and really start getting anxious, so Ryan tells me to get in the car, and triangulate her signal. It's about ten minutes till dark at this time, and Ryan says that if i don't find her by dark, he will drive down, and we will go find her (REALLY glad I did all those lure sessions with her coming down in dark!). That put my mind a little more at ease, so I pull out onto the main road, and I start driving toward turkey mountain (which pretty much backs up to the woods I was flying). I'm thinkin that I should be able to get a good signal from up there, and that's when I see the RT fly across the road. I flip a *itch, avoid hitting a few cars in the process, and whip over to the side of the road. It's rush hour traffic right now, and there is a steady line of cars passing by. I stand out in the head lights, and start swingin the lure and whistling like crazy. The bird doesn't even look at me. I keep swinging....MAYBE a head bob, but still....nothing. I decide I should grab the binocs out of the car, and see if I can see any anklets/bell/etc. I start winding the lure, and am turning back toward the car, when Dee slams the lure out of my hand from behind me! Not gonna lie...it scared the crap out of me, and I did a startled jump and an AGH! I guess she had been somewhere on the other side of the road, had seen me swinging the lure, and came across the tops of all the cars, dipped down low, and snuck in from behind me undetected. I now know what the game feels like, when she comes out of no where, and slams their heads into the ground! It was crazy! Wasted day of hawkin, but at least I got her back!

Day 80

2009-12-04T13:25:00.003-06:00

Ducked out of the office early yesterday, and I met up with Jonathan to fly. We headed to a field that is across from the "dumpster" that Jonathan had flown once before (it's the one that I walked, that had the ridge covered in briar....), and we kicked around in there for a bit. The time before, Jonathan said they had been poppin off every where by the road, but we just didn't manage to get many moving. We got one flush after about 30 min or so which she chased pretty good, but it dissappeared into the honey suckle somewhere. Went through another denser section, and we found an open spot that was covered in low briars, and she crashed the brush after a rabbit in there. I heard where it scampered off to, and got a reflush on it, but she barely missed it as it entered the denser part of the woods. Decided to call it a day on that field, and we jumped across the road to the "Dumpster." We started in the area we normlly do, but didn't kick up any rabbits...so we headed on the other side of the fence, and started heading through the woods. Jonathan started yelling ho, and Shaung comes in HOT, and slams the rabbit on the ground. I only see the beginning of the flight, but start running when I hear the squeel. Jonathan makes it to her before I do, and she had lost it?!?!?!?! Not really sure how that happened, but she did. Got her back up, and Jonathan made a few steps, and reflushed the bunny. It got away unfortunately, so we continued on toward the open section in the back. I flushed a rabbit right on the edge, but she was out of position, and just ended up coming and landing above me. That rabbit pulled a houdini, and was never seen again, and we started cutting back toward the car. He called her down, and as we where getting back to the car, she bated HARD off of his fist. We commented how that looked like she was going at something, and as we turned the corner to go back through the fence, a rabbit kicks up. She launchs off the fist, but doesn't have enough momentume to catch up, so she flips up into a tree above where the rabbit went, and started stairing straight down. I go wide, to flush from behind, and Jonathan comes in from the other side. I only make a few steps back toward the bird, when the rabbit bolts. All i can see is the bird, but the rabbit must have hopped the creek, and then shot across the two track. She crashs the brush on the other side of the road, but comes up empty footed. It was pretty much dark by now, so that's all the hawkin that we got in, but it was good times, and Jonathan was sure that she would be fired up for todays hunt. Just talked to him on the phone, and he was exactly right. Apparently, she came down and slammed a rabbit so hard today, that she split it open, and the guts fell out! NICE!!!! Dee was at 1040 grams when I went home for lunch. Drove around for a little bit looking for pigeons and crows, but only found a couple slips, and they both busted before we got close enough to slip her (they where in gravel parking lots and busted as soon as we would pull in....even though we where on the opposite ends of the lot...oh well). I got here early this morning (like always), so I will be heading to the squirrel spot around 3 or so. There was a hag RS sitting in my back yard yelling at Dee over lunch...I'm taking that as a good sign that we will have a successful trapping adventure this weekend.

Day 79

2009-12-03T09:04:00.003-06:00

Fat birds are so happy! I flipped the lights on for her this morning...she lifted her head to look at me, and then tucked it behind her back, and went right back to sleep. I continued on with what I was doing, making a lot of noise and what not, and she didn't even move.! Gonna head down to Mowhawk park at lunch again today, and see if I can find some PRS hawks hangin around. I'm gonna buy a sling shot this evening and start working on my aim. Hopefully I will be a quick learner, so that I can start helping Dee Dee with those squirrels a little bit more. Greg and Tasha where kind enough to post a few of the pictures they took of Dee Dee, so I had to add them to the blog of course! They are great! Thanks again guys

Day 78 Squirrel #3

2009-12-02T17:56:00.007-06:00

The weather sucked today. It was raining when I stuck Dee on the scale at 6 this morning (she weighed 1052 grams), and it continued to rain up until around noon. I new that the rabbits wouldn't be out hoppin, and I wasn't really sure if the squirrels would be either, so I wasn't really psyched about the prospect of flying. Headed home on my lunch break, and the crows where everywhere. Saw three at the park on the way home, there where a couple in the parking lot at the school by my house, and there where six or seven in the grassy area belonging to the business next door. I was thinking it was a sign, so I ducked out of work at three, and I met my buddies Jeff and Lil Baggles at my place. Handed the keys over to Jeff, and after getting Dee beeped up and tape put on her bell, we where on our way. We had decided that we where going to start off the day driving around some of the industrial areas near "the dumpster." so we where cutting through the neighborhood, in order to get on the high way. A squirrel was just begging to be caught, and though I said I wouldn't fly in the neighborhood anymore, it was just too good of a slip, and I had to try. Roled the window down, and tossed her out the window. She dropped down low and came in like a bullet, and slammed the squirrel about five feet in front of the tree it was heading to! I run over there, and find Dee with the squirrel completely under control. One foot was on the squirrel's head and the squirrel's back end (as in, having it wrapped in a ball), and the other foot was clamped down around its chest. I put the squeeze on the squirrel, and we had a perfect trade off to the lure. Hopped her to the fist for a tidbit, and off we went again. Drove around for about an hour or so, but couldn't find any birds on the ground. This was expected, b/c unlike earlier when they where everywhere, I now had my bird, so of course, they where no where to be found. I had been thinking about it for a little bit, and had decided that I need to crop Dee up really well. I've given her some big feeds since I caught her, but I havn't given her a baseball crop or anything, so I fed her the whole squirrel (it was a really small one). She is a fat, fluffy ball of feathers, chillen with her foot up on her block. At 5:30 PM, she weighed in at 1226 grams....so we won't be flying for a few days. That's alright though, b/c I just felt like she needed it. I'm expeting her to come back with a little more zip, once she is back to hunting weight. Goal for the next few days.....searching for passage Red-shouldered hawks!!!!! Wish me luck!

every single morning

2009-12-02T07:19:00.006-06:00

Most birds get psyched to go hunting no matter what time of day it is.....not Dee Dee....she IS NOT a morning bird.

Day 77

2009-12-01T16:32:00.002-06:00

She weighed in in the 1060's this morning (hadn't cast yet) around 6:00 AM. Put in some hours at work, and then ducked out for an early lunch break around 11:00 AM or so. Went to a new spot that I hadn't checked out yet (but have been wanting to), and walked around for a good couple of hours. When I pulled up, there where 5 or 6 crows on the side of the little road I was about to drive down, so I pulled her out, got her beeped up, and jumped back in the car. It was about as perfect of a slip as one could find, and I started pulling toward them......when they all took off! Dang it! Not sure what spooked them, but I hadn't even gotten half way there when they busted. Said oh well, parked the car, and started walking through the woods. There where squirrel nests everywhere, but I just couldn't manage to find any. After walkin around forever and not finding squirrels (though she did manage to catch and scarf down a little mouse in short order), I decided it was time to head back to car. As I was approching the tree line, she took off from her perch and pumped really hard toward a tree. She landed, and started looking straight down. I knew that look, and went over to where she was. A tree had fallen over at the base of the one she was in, and I started beating around on that. Made a full circle around the tree before I finally got the squirrel to move, and she made an amazing cork screw flight on it, but ended up missing. This squirrel wasn't playing around, and bailed immediately for the ground. She tried to slam it, missed, remounted....missed again....remounted...missed again....and then remounted for a third time, and I was certain she grabbed it. Somehow, she missed though, and stayed on the ground. I was moving as quickly as I could, but the squirrel got too far out in front of me, and I lost track of it, and it dissappeared into the brush. Beat around for a cool minute, but didn't get a reflush, so we called it a day. As I got back to the car, I saw the crows where back. Though the slip wasn't as good as the first one, it wasn't too bad, so I flew her on them, and she got pretty darn close to catching one, but ultimately missed. I was talkin to Mark last night, and he pointed out one of those Duh things that I should have realized...but didn't. From now on, when car hawking, i need to put a piece of tape on her bell. No wonder everything keeps busting quickly...there isn't any surprise when there is a jingling bell coming at them! Stupid apprentice!!!! I will be putting some electrical tape in my hawking bag this evening.

Day 76

2009-11-30T08:26:00.004-06:00

I don't think I'm going to fly today.....I have been out a lot, and I think the wife is getting a LITTLE bit irritated. Just gonna chill around the house and hold my son! Nothing else to report...she was in the upper 1060's this morning, and it's in the 30's, so PERFECT flying weather....oh well. Gotta do the shout out to Chris! Apparently, he tore it up at NAFA, and Eric shot a sweet video of his bird scoreing either it's first or second rabbit......OUT OF A SOAR! Lucky! I have been trying to get Dee to do that ever since OFA. I'm gonna have to figure out his ninja tricks, and see if I can get her to do that. CONGRATS BROTHER!

Day 75

2009-11-29T14:57:00.003-06:00

Got the day kicked off around 7:30 this morning, and Dee Dee weighed in at 1039 grams. Headed back over to Jeff's house, and the four of us loaded up in his car, and we went and did a little car hawking. He trapped his little girl early on this season, and is already racking up a pretty nice head count. He said she was a little bit high this morning, but I knew we would still have a good show. Headed down toward the shopping district, and there where quite a few starlings out and about. The trouble was, that most of them where either not in a slippable situation, located on concrete, or up on wires. Drove around for a good minute before we found our first slip, and she bailed out the car window pumping hard! She smashed the starling on the ground, and we where at 1 slip, 1 catch. Drove around for another bit, but just didn't manage to find any slips. Got one more before we called it quites that was pretty neat....it was on a big group of starlings, and they saw her coming pretty early on. They all took off, but she kept chasing, and followed one up a good ten feet or so, before she pulled off, and landed on a pole. Decide one starling was good enough for a fat bird, so we headed back to the house, where Jeff's wife had already prepared a nice breakfast (THANKS!!!!). Grubbed down on that, and then we headed out to "Lowes" to chase some bunnies. Greg and Tasha both brought out their nice cameras, so of course, we didn't catch anything. The rabbits didn't want to come out and play, and we only managed five or six slips the whole time. She chased well, but was again, one step behind. We started out hawkin in a new section, and it was REALLY thick, so that may have contributed to the lack of success, but she did make one notable chase, and she crashed the bushs right in front of them. Gave up after a little bit, said my good byes, and headed back home to my babies.

Day 74

2009-11-29T13:47:00.007-06:00

GOOD DAY! Headed over to Gary's house in the morning, and we headed out behind his house to chase some squirrels. She weighed in at 1045 grams at 8:30 AM, so I was hoping for a stellar performance. Up until this point, Dee really hadn't had to "chase" squirrels that much, but had just smashed them off the trees, or else stayed at the top most of the time. Today was different. We managed to kick up a nice sized fox squirrel, and she chased it up and down the tree for at least fifteen minutes, and you could tell she was pretty wasted by the end. The squirrel played his chess match well, and ended up finding an opening, and bailing out of the tree. He made it to cover, pulled a houdini, and no reflush was to be had. About this time, Gary's kestrel was ready to fly, so we headed back to the house, and went and did a little car hawkin. Now car hawkin is still very new to this bird, but after a slightly hesitant start, he began chasing hard, and had some really nice flights. Had a couple where he just barely missed, but then he ended up connecting with a nice sized starling in a grassy section, right on the edge of a parking lot. That was good times for sure, and on the way back, scoped out a new squirrel honey hole, that I'm going to ask for permission to fly on Monday (or whenever I can get into contact with land owner....). Watched the first half of the $HITTY OSU/OU game (I hate OU!!!!!!), and then headed home for some Parker/Lindz time. Got home, and discovered that she had headed to her mom's house to put up Christmas Decorations, so after a couple good time brews with Tommy, headed out to "Lowes" for some more hawkin. Bunnies where poppin like CRAZY, and I managed 10 or so slips for her before dark. I'm not sure if it was b/c the cover was so thick, or if she was still tired from earlier, but she was just one step behind, and didn't manage to score. Got to expore a different section of the field (which was good), and I'm starting to figure out what type of cover THESE rabits prefer. Jeff was kind enough to invite the family over for dinner, but Lindz was tired, so I was the only one who ended up makin it....had a GREAT time, and stuffed my belly full of some really good grub. Hadn't seen Jeff for a while, so it was good getting to talk to him, and pick his brain about all things falconry related....I have said it a thousand times, but I am so blessed to be surrounded by so many gifted falconers (Jeff, Mark, Ryan, Gary, etc, etc) and to have them be so open and receptive to me. There is no doubt that my early success is a direct result of and all these guys helpful advice. Got the pleasure of making a couple of new fiends...Greg and Tasha where in town for NAFA, and had swung down to T-town for some chillen, hawkin, and good times. Both of them are extremely nice, and we all sat around talkin for a cool minute.Had the opportunity to see my first finnish Gos which was a treat, and being that both of them are VERY tallented photographers, got to see tons of great pics from the NAFA meet. Could have hung out till the wee hours of the night but I missed my babies, so I headed home at a decent hour

Day 73

2009-11-29T13:16:00.007-06:00

Eventful day for sure.....Katie and Matt (Ryan's bro) where running a 5K here in T-town, so we met up with them afterwards, for a little breakfast and java. The invite was extended, so we packed the bird and Parker up in Lindz jeep, and we headed down to Bartlesville for some good times, and some hawkin. The girls chilled at the house for the afternoon, and all the boys (minus Parker) went out flying. Ryan had the honors, so we took his hybrid out for a little duck hawkin. Found a nice slip, and and his bird ended up scoring a nice sized drake Gadwall. He made a really nice stoop, and though he didn't get it on the initial one, he put three of them to the ground, and he quickly grabbed up one on the reflush. Now, I know you all are checkin out these pictures, and are probably getting all hot and bothered by that glorious stache he is rockin (LOL!)....but calm yourselves....he is a happily married man, so you all are just gonna need to chill out....take a cold shower or something!!!!!! Clicked off a few victory photos with Matt holding the bird, and then we headed on back to the house. Decided it was just too warm to fly the Gyr, so he stuck the falcons up, and it was time to fly Dee. Jumped in the Jeep, fired her up, and we are on our way?????? NOPE! Started her up, and she died. Tried again...same result. I feather the gas, and she keeps running, but then when I let off.....she dies. Weird! No warning lights on, temp is fine, etc, etc, etc. Start checking out all the usual suspects, and Ryan discovers there ISN'T ANY OIL IN THE CAR!!!!! OK....so I know what your thinking....your the husband....your supposed to keep track of the fluids in your wifes car.....................................you're right! Gosh, stop rubbing it in! I know, I know...I dropped the ball on that one! Ryan was kind enough to help me out with the Jeep (cause I HATE working on cars, and tend to be pretty bad at it), and 5 quarts of oil and a new filter later, she was running like a champ. By the time we where finished, it was already dark, so no flying for us.

Happy Thanksgiving!!! #19

2009-11-26T20:42:00.005-06:00

Slept in till TEN O'CLOCK this morning!!!!!! It was great! Went and did family stuff all day, and then I got the kitchen pass to go flying around 4 or 4:30. Dee had weighed in in the 1040's around 1:00 PM, so I knew she would be keyed in and ready to go by the time we flew. Headed out to a new spot that I hadn't checked out yet, which I will refer to as "Lowes" from now on, and had a great session. I hadn't walked the field yet, or even been back there, so I was a little nervous about being able to find the pockets of rabbits....because of this, I decided to bring Maggie into the field with us. Though the bird is used to Maggie, and had been introduced early on, this was the first time to go fly with both of them. Stuck the bird up in a tree, and then I let Maggie out of the car. Dee was watching her REALLY hard, and I'm not really sure how this initial interaction would have gone down, but I managed to kick up a rabbit within 30 seconds or so of entering the fields, and that snapped Dee's attention back to the game at hand. Maggie was being useless at this time, and I was pretty much paying more attention to her, than I was the bird. LUCKILY though, this field was AMAZING, and I managed to kick up four rabbits or so in short order (maybe....ten minutes). Still no connects yet, so we started making our way down a two track that led straight throught the center of a wooded section FULL of squirrel nests. There where quite a bit of briars in there, so being that I had Maggie and what not, decided she should crash them instead of me. I told her to "find them bunnies", and she took off into the brush with her nose to the ground. I kept walking, not really expecting anything to happen, when all of a sudden, I hear the brush rustling, and Maggie starts crashing through the brush in that direction. I stop walking, b/c I can tell that Maggie is running straight toward me, and all of a sudden, a rabbit pops out of the brush and onto the two track. I must have surprised the rabbit, b/c it jumped really high, and turned to go back into the bushs. About that time, Maggie comes breaking through the bushs, and cuts off the escape route, so the rabbit takes off down the road. It makes it a little bit down the road, and then is looking like it's about to go back to the bushs, when Dee shows up, and hammers the rabbit into the ground. The squeel was cut really short, and in the 3 seconds it took me to get to them, she had already killed the rabbit. Killed it already you ask???? Ya....well.....it was a pretty small rabbit. In fact, it was just barely longer than my lure, but a rabbit is a rabbit, so it counts. The trade was perfect AGAIN (I think the tid bit thing is workin!), and then I hopped her to the fist for both back legs. I usually do a front and a back so that she doesn't get too heavy, but it was so small, I was thinking it would be alright. I'm not sure if I just cut the legs with too much meat, or if the piece on the lure was bigger than I thought, but when I got home, she was in the 1120's....which is a bummer. Doesn't look like she will be at killer weight tom, but we shall see what happens. LINDZ FOUND THE CAMERA CHARGER!!!!!! So no more boring blog posts without pictures....thanks hun! These are the pictures of the triumphant Maggie after she finished "hunting"...(she ran around being rediculous and got lucky!)..thinks she owns the darn place!

Day 71 (continued)

2009-11-25T21:40:00.002-06:00

The boys in charge called it a half day, so it was time to do some hawkin! Met up with my REALLY good buddy Judah, and we headed out to Lil Germany to see what was going on. Got a couple slips while we where out there, but didn't manage to score anything other than a big fat wood rat. She didn't cast today, so I'm thinkin she was just too fat to fully commit to the job at hand.....she was just a step behind, and didn't have that extra bit of motiation that she needed. Left there, and after a quick stop at bueno, we hit the dump site. Again, rabbits where not wanting to play, and we ended up empty handed. Swung by Gary's house, and we have a tentative plan to go check out those new rabbit fields on Saturday. Fingers crossed that I will get the kitchen pass, and we can find some good fields, so I can start doing this bird better justice.

Day 71

2009-11-25T07:16:00.003-06:00

Dee was still high when I weighed her this morning at 6 (1085 grams), but she had a lot of casting material yesterday, so she should be at weight after she casts. Just finished taking a coffee break outside, and got to see a nice little show. There where three or four sparrows pecking around in one of the grassy dividers in the parking lot, and out of no where, a hag coops comes blasting in, and snatchs one a few feet off the ground! She carries it up to the top of a pecan tree, and I get to sit there and watch her eat her morning meal. Got the day started off nicely, and I have my fingers crossed that I can get a good day of hawking in. I'm swinging by Gary's house this afternoon, b/c I'm letting him borrow a perch, and hopefully I will catch him before he flies, and try and get in on that! A good session of car hawking is always enjoyable, and hopefully that will set the tone for another good day with Dee. Gary was telling me about some possible rabbit fields, so I may get the heads up on that, and try and fly one of those. The whole crew is in town for the holidays, so I'm pretty geeked about that, and am VERY ready to see all my friends! Gonna have a lot of good times over the break, and we will hopefully catch a bunch of rabbits and squirrels as well!!!!

Day 70 rabbit # 18

2009-11-24T13:19:00.003-06:00

Woke up early this morning, with the plans of heading to mowhawk park to chase squirrels. I started heading that way, and then realized that with all the construction, there would be no way I could make it to work on time. So I headed back out to Little Germany, and walked through the woods for about forty five minutes or so. Dee Dee had weighed in at 1060 grams at 6:00 Am, and she was def in hunting mode. Didn't manage to move any squirrels, and due to the possibility of deer hunters in the field in the back, never went and tried for any rabbits. Headed back out there on my lunch break, hoping that the deer hunters would be gone, and their cars where no where to be seen! Put on the hunter orange, and I carried her through the trees, to the field in the back. Sruck the braces on the hood, and it was off to beating brush. I kicked around in a pretty large (but low) briar patch for a few minutes, thinking that it may just hold a rabbit or two, but none where seen. Moved on, and we headed through a really open section, and came to a little clump of trees. Everything else around it was pretty open, but there where quite a few of the bushs with the little red berries (that seem to always hold rabbits) there, and some viney bushs, so I decided to kick around in there for a minute. Moved all the way through it without seeing a single rabbit, but as I approached the edge, one makes a break for it. It barely gets a hop or two outside of the tree line, when Dee drills it to the ground, and I run in to secure the rabbit. Next comes the trade off, which is what I struggle with the most. The day we got the double and the wood rat, she traded of perfectly, and I had been offering her tid bits on the kill before I would present the lure. When I caught the rabbit at the dumpsite with Jonathan, the trade off was horrible, and I didn't offer tid bits. I was wondering if there was a corolation, so again, I offered tid bits on the kill before I offered the lure, and she traded off perfectly. I will have to catch a few more things before I'm confident that I have figured something out, but if i can fix her trading off problem, then I really don't have anything else I can possible complain about. Anyways, hopped her to the fist for a front and back leg, and let her eat the front one, before I stuck her and the back leg in the GH, and headed on back to work. Good day, and a good learning experience.

Log Day 69

2009-11-24T13:14:00.002-06:00

At 6:30 Am, Dee Dee weighed in at 1043 grams. Austin and I headed out to a field that I had checked out once before, that is located behind one of my climbing areas. The area will be refered to as "Little Germany" b/c of the climbing area, and this was the first time I had actaully flown it. The approach is pretty long, but it goes through the woods, so I was hoping to get some squirrel flights on the way. Made the treck through the woods without seeing a single squirrel, and arrived at the "open" section with about 30 min of hawking time left. We kicked around in the briars and sumac, but only managed to kick up one rabbit. She made a couple trys for it, but ended up empty footed. Ended up calling her down to the lure, and then had to head back to work.

Days 66, 67, & 68

2009-11-23T07:53:00.003-06:00

Friday was pretty weak! Got out to the Field around 3 PM or so, and nothing was moving. Flew for a good couple of hours, and only got one rabbit slip, and no squirrel sightings at all. We where at the dumpsite, so I'm not really sure what was going on, but it is what it is. She got a good work out in, and I fed her up to 1087 grams. Saturday was better. I met up with Jonathan, and we headed out to the dumpsite to do a little hawking. I offered to let him fly first, but he graciously declined, so we beeped Dee Dee up, and headed into the field. Again, the rabbits just where not jumping, and we only got two or three slips in the first couple of hours. Eventually, we made it back to the front part, and started walking the fence line, and she made a nice flight at a squirrel in a tree a little bit aways. I headed in that direction, and found her on the ground, looking around all confused like. Got her back up in the tree, and I started beating around, hoping to get a reflush on the squirrel. I heard the brush rustle to the side of me, and she came buzzing in, and slammed the ground near me. Got to her, and she didn't have anything, so I got her back up, and went to see if I could reflush it again. The brush was really high in this section, so I just started wading through it, when I hear the bells jingle, and she comes shooting past me, toward the open field that I was about to get to. I stop and listen, and then I hear a rabbit squeel!!! I twist my way through the rest of the brush, and made in for the dispatch (#17!!!!. Apparently, the squirrel had just dissappeared, and there just happened to be a rabbit over there that I kept kicking up. It was a nice sized bunny, and interestingly enough, it had a black head. Pretty weird to see, but it def put up the most fight of any rabbit she had caught thus far. Got Shaung out next, but we only managed a few slips for her. I was hoping to show Jonathan a good time at the dumpsite, but they just didn't want to come out and play. Had to head home, so we called it a day, and when I weighed her later at 8:00 PM, she weighed in at 1101 grams. Woke up Sunday around 5:30 AM, and she weighed in at 1083 grams and had yet to cast. Loaded her up, and we headed down to Bartlesville. The goal for the day...meet Raul, go fly some ducks with Ryan's hybrid, and then get a little flying in with Dee, before I had to be home by 12:30 PM. Got there a little early, so I drove around scouting for new fields out there. Found one potential spot that I think will be REALLY good, so I'm thinking about checking it out next time I'm there. Got to Ryan's around 7:30 AM, and we headed out looking for ducks. Found a GREAT setup at one pond, so he put him up, and we ran in for the flush. She took a pretty decent pitch considering she is still a young bird and learning (around 700 feet or so), and came down and smacked a gadwall pretty good. It managed to make it back to the pond, so we let the hybrid take another pitch, and then we flushed them again. Ryan and Raul came from one side, and I ran across the dam on the other side. This worked, and two ducks took off low right across the dam, and I got a front row view of the the falcon coming in, and slamming the duck. It bounced off the ground once, and she pitched up, and then dropped straight back down. The duck made a flap or two trying to get back up, but the hybrid drilled it on the ground, and the struggle began! You never know how people are going to react to you reaching in on their bird, so I waited for a moment till Ryan and Raul got into view, and then after getting the go ahead, reached in and secured the duck until Ryan got there. It was a pretty bad @$$ flight to watch, and duck number 4 is in the bag! Had a quick lure session with the jerkin, and then it was off to fly the broad wings. Jonathan had made it up there, so him and the crew headed off behind the mall, and I went to the school. Rabbits again, where not wanting to play, and only got a couple slips for her. I headed back to the woods, and we started looking around for squirrels. Got a nice session on a fox squirrel that lasted about 15 minutes or so, but it eventually made it to the ground, and dissappeared into the bushes somewhere. Continued on, and we eventually kicked up a grey squirrel in a dense section of vines. It bailed toward a tree and got a little ways up the trunk, before Dee slammed it off the side. Somehow, it got out of her grasp, and bailed back into the vines. She took her perch, and I beat around in the bushes, and tried to get it moving again. Eventually it kicked back out, and she tried to nab it on the ground, but it evaded her, and made it up into a tree. The flight went from tree to tree for the next five or ten minutes, and she almost grabbed it another time or two, but missed. Eventually, they got further in front, and I was trying to catch up, and the squirrel took advantage of this and bailed to the ground. It cut back in my direction, and I made a ton of noise, and turned it to the side toward some cedars. She barely missed again, and the squirrel made it to one, and vanished into thin air. Called it a day, and we headed back to town. at 2:00 PM, she was at 1082 grams, and I left her out to weather for most of the afternoon. This morning, she weighed in at 1043 grams, and I'm going to squeeze in a session over the lunch break.

Day 65 Sorta a triple

2009-11-19T17:58:00.004-06:00

GOOD day today! Got released from the hospital around noon, and I must say, it is GREAT to be home! Parker and Lindz are doing excellent, the temps where nice, and Delicious was at perfect hunting weight! Weighed her in at 1037 grams around 2 PM, and we headed out to the dumpsite for a quick session around 3 or so. Got her beeped up, and she took a nice perch in a pretty large tree above me. I started kicking around in the bushs, and she hops again to the tree above me. We had been in the field for about five minutes, when I hear the brush rustleing far out to my right. She takes off, and leaves the section of trees we are in, cross over an old abandoned two track, and dissappears into the bushs on the other side. I hear the squeel, and take off running in the direction I saw her last. I had no idea where she was, so I start walking around, listening for her bell. Can't find her for a few minutes, and then I kick up a rabbit, that runs off JUST a little bit in the other direction, and then stops. I go back the other way, b/c I didn't think there was any way she could have gone any further, and after another three or four minutes, I decide its time to get the receiver. I get on the old two track, and start running back toward the car, when I hear a little jingle off in the brush. Took another minute, but I found her eventually mantleing on a nice sized rabbbit. I pull her out of the dense stuff, dispatch the rabbit, and we have a really nice trade off to part of a rabbit leg on the lure. Hop her to the fist for a tid bit, and decided that just wasn't long enough. Put her back up in the tree, and I decide to go see if I can find that other rabbit. I head in that direction, and she stays put in the tree she initially went to. I started kicking around, and then she popped up to the tree right above me, and started looking HARD at the brush in front of me. I start banging on it, and then I see it pop off right at my feet. She drops like a rock, and crashs the brush and I hear a load thud. I listen intently, but hear nothing, so I'm thinking she had missed it. I'm still standing in the same spot, waiting for her to pop back up, but nothing happens. No jingle...nothing. I'm thinking hmm.....so I start tromping through the bushs, and find her all tangled up in some vines, with ANOTHER nice sized rabbit in her feet. I dispatch that one quickly, have ANOTHER great trade off, and then I hop her to the fist for another few tid bits. It had just now been 30 minutes, so I'm like "what the heck....lets keep going". Toss her up to a tree, and we take off toward the back part of the field (which was where we were heading in the first place...just hadn't made it there yet)...kicked around for about 15 minutes or so, without a single slip, and I decided we should head to a spot that I knew we could kick something up. SO we leave the field, and head through the woods, toward the front section. She is following along nicely, when she suddenly takes off, pumping pretty darn hard through the trees. I have seen this flight now a couple times, and I'm thinking she sees a squirrel. I start looking ahead of her, and what do I see....I stinking HUGE wood rat running along some branchs. It sees her coming, and jumps from the branch its on to a smaller one below it, and is about to run to the next tree when she slams it off the branch, and prachutes down to the ground. SINCE she didn't catch it in typical "ratting" style, and instead caught it out of a tree, I decided it was alright, and had YET ANOTHER great trade to the lure, and then I hopped her to the fist for a rabbit leg. Called it a day, and we headed back to the car in high spirts....well, I was at least!!! Now, I know a wood rat doesn't really count as game, so it's ACTUALLY a double.....but I'm still going to call it a triple b/c it's my blog, and I DO WHAT I WANT!!!!! Hopefully, I can get the camera back tonight, and I can start taking pictures again.

Day 64 Second Squirrel!

2009-11-19T17:40:00.002-06:00

Didn't get a whole lot of sleep last night, but the little I got did wonders! Did daddy stuff for the beginning of the morning, and then Lindz was kind enough to let me head to the house to shower, eat some food, and grab the dog/bird. Stuck her on the scale around 12:15 PM, and she weighed in at 1015 grams. I was pretty surprised she had dropped that much considering she had eatin squirrel, but it had gotten pretty darn cold, so it made sense. Went into the field behind the hospital, and headed to the spot that I thought looked most condusive to hawkin. My good buddy Jeff had joined me for the afternoons hunt, and we both started hitting on the briar patch, hopping to kick up peter, or one of his buddies. About 20 min went by, when Jeff started yelling ho, and SOMETHING took off through the brush. She hopped to a closer tree, but didn't really move that much closer. Jeff said that it didn't go too far, so we headed back in the direction we had heard it last, and started beating around. I hit one side of a dense bushy section, and missed what happenend next, but Jeff had an EXCELLENT view, and so this is his account. He was beating around a tree, and heard the Jingle of the bells behind him...about that time, he sees the squirrel shoot up the tree right next to him, and she starts twisting through the tree tops, on her way HOT. If i understood him correctly, she came in and twisted sideways, and slammed the squirrel off the side of the tree. She flared her wings immediately, and got stuck in the tree, and then she started dancing around. She had a bad grasp on the head, and then a foot on the back.....The squirrel breaks his head free at some point, and starts trying to bite at her. He pulls his head back a little bit too much one time, and she slams his face with her foot, and she has him under control. I get there about this time, to see my bird flared out up in a tree about 15 or 20 feet off the ground....squirrel twisting around in the air, with it's head in her feet. I throw everything down, and start heading up the tree, hoping that it doesn't fall over (did I mention it was a dead tree? If not....it was VERY dead) on the way up. There where a ton of vines all over the trunk, so it took me a minute to get up to them, but once there, I put the squeeze to the squirrel, and it was all over. I untangled her from the branchs, and threw her (and the squirrel) down to the ground, where we had a PERFECT trade off to the lure. She got three bites on one of her feet...two where on each side of the tallon on the back toe, and the other was on the bottom of the foot. None of them where bad at all, but I went ahead and put stuff on them anyways (b/c it's better to be safe, then sorry!). Headed back to the hospital, and chilled with Parker and Lindz for a minute, and then we headed back to the house, and she weighed in at 1107 grams. Getting cold again tonight, so that should put her pretty much spot on. No pictures again, b/c the camera was with Lindz

Parker Joel!!!!!!!!! (DAY 63)

2009-11-17T17:05:00.004-06:00

I'm about to fall asleep, my head is hurting, and I would normally be in a pretty pissy mood....not today though! Introducing, my newest climbing partner, and the latest addition to my hawkin team! He weighed 6 pounds, and 10 ounces when he got her around 11:30 this morning (we got to the hospital at 3 AM!). Still just soaking it all in, but it was an incredible experience. He is perfect!

Day 62 1st squirrel!!!

2009-11-16T14:37:00.005-06:00

Ducked out around 11, and headed to "the dumpster." Got her beeped up, she took a nice perch high in a tree, and I began beating around the brush. This is a relatively new field, and I was heading toward the back section that we hadn't flown yet, with hopes of kicking up a bunny or two. The wetness was keeping them in tight though, and we only kicked up one rabbit in the first 15 or 20 minutes. She chased it hard, but it made it into a patch of thick vines, which she managed to get VERY tangled up in. Kicked around for another 15 or 20 minutes with no luck, before I arrived at a really large briar patch which looked like it may hold a bunny or two. Dee Dee had been ignoring me for a minute or two, and looking pretty intently in the direction of a couple trees, but since I had just finished kicking around all the brush in that area, I decided it was time for her to move on. I call her over to me at the briar patch, and after a reluctant moment or two, she took off in my direction. About half way to me, she veers off toward the trees, and starts pumping really hard. It looked like a rabbit flight to me, but when she crashed the brush at the base of the tree, she was a few feet off the ground. I walk over to her, and am about to hop her to the fist, when I see the squirrel twist toward the top of the tree. This was a pretty small tree in the middle of a field, with the only one nearby being a pretty large cedar. She hops to the ground, and starts walking toward an open spot, so I'm thinkin she is about to fly up to the cedar, and I'm gonna move this squirrel. I start hitting the tree, and she flies up to the top of the tree, and I guess this was just a little too much for the squirrel....it bailed out of the middle, and hit the ground running within beating stick length of me. I try to score one for me, but just barely miss with my beating stick, and then the squirrel does a crazy side step, and dodges the feet of Dee, as she slams into the ground next to it. Dee then decides the best course of action is to try and chase it down on foot, so she takes off at break neak speed (smile), and wadles after the squirrel. SOMEHOW, the squirrel out ran her, and made it safely into the branchs of the cedar tree, so I hop her to the fist for a tib bit, and then get her to fly up to the top of the cedar. I push the lowar branchs of the cedar to the sides, and I crawl inside the tree, to find a HUGE wood rat nest surounding the trunk, on the first level of branchs. I start poking around in that for a while, knowing it's the only possible place it could have gone, but didn't manage to move it. Dee Dee is peering really hard down the tree, so I go to the other side of the trunk, and start poking that section. Dee then hops into the cedar along the top row of branchs, and starts looking around really hard. About that time, i see the squirrel coming back toward the nest, and I start beating around above it. This turns the squirrel, and he starts hauling up the tree. She watchs it till it gets pretty much underneith her, before she drops off the branch, twists once, and snatchs it off the trunk!!!!! She fans out, and stops right there in the top of the tree. She is held up by her wings, and immediately starts switching her feet back and forth on it's head, with the body dangling in thin air. I drop my beating stick as soon as I see her drop, and am already part way up the tree before she snatchs it. I shoot the rest of the way up to them, and grab the squirrel's body, and quickly put "the squeeze" to it. Once I'm satisfied that the squirrel was gone, I break the branchs that she is hung up on, and down climbing the tree, bird in tow. I finally make it to the ground, and set them out in an open spot to calm down. She takes an exceptionally long time (which can be expected), but eventually starts trying to pluck the head. Produce the lure, and we have a nice trade off to part of a bunny leg, and then i hop her to the fist for both front legs, and the organs. I'm pretty darn psyched! The overall session was good. For one, she eventually got the squirrel secured firmly in her grasp, with a back tallon going straight through the jaw into the head, thus sealing its mouth and preventing a bite. Also, because of the situation she caught this squirrel in, she directly associated me with keeping the squirrel moving, the hunt in general, and the eventual kill. That is hard to accomplish with squirrel hawking from what i've been told, and I'm pleased that I had I was able to do that with the first one. Swung by home to change cloths, and I get Lindz to snap off some victory photos. Good session!

Day 61

2009-11-16T09:25:00.003-06:00

I woke up really early to an overcast morning. Temps where great, the wind wasn't blowing that hard, and a big storm was making it's way into town. I stuck Dee in the back yard for most of the morning, hoping I could burn a little more weight off of her, before I went and flew. Grabbed a cup of coffee from down the street, and when I finally stuck her on the scale, she weighed in at 1044 grams. It had rained during the night, which normally makes the rabbits hold tight, so I wasn't expecting much out of the session. Just fly her around for a bit, and then call her down. It was drizzling by this point, and I knew it was going to start coming down really soon, so I rushed out to the feild, to get a quick 15 or 20 min flight session out of her. Apparently, rabbits know more about weather paterns than I do, b/c they knew a storm was coming through. They where EVERYWHERE! I kicked up the first rabbit before I made a single step into the field, and managed 5 or 6 slips before it started pouring down rain (which was about 15 or 20 minutes into the field). I can fly her higher if I'm producing a lot of slips, but if I'm not kicking many up, then she has to be keyed in better.....IF I had known the rabbits where going to be out in force like they where, i would have come way earlier and not worried about her weight as much, and we probably would have scored a rabbit. Since I waited so long, I just didn't give her enough time. Bummer. Called her down to the lure, and she got a squirrel leg, and some rabbit tid bits. This morning, she weighed in at 1033 grams, and is going to be geekin for a kill. Now, I know that the rabbits come out BEFORE storms hit, but they usually don't inbetween (from past experience). That being said, it's not going to start raining again till this afternoon, so I'm going to get in a session at lunch anyways, and I have high hopes. Maybe I shouldn't.....they probably won't be out in force, but I'm going for it anyways, and we shall see what happens.

Day 59/60...1st double, and I got footed!!!!

2009-11-14T13:31:00.002-06:00

Headed out to the new spot, which I have lovingly dubbed "the urban dumpsite"....."dumpsite" for short, and I took along my good buddy to help flush. He is in town from Ohio, and was pretty psyched to get to join us on our session. Weighed her around 12:30 PM, and she was at 1036 grams, so after making a few stops, made it to the field around 3 PM or so. We started kicking around the bushs, and after a short scare where Christian thought he was going to get killed by a crazy hawk, we managed to kick up a rabbit, which took off across the two track and into some dense bushs near a fence. We decided to walk all the way down to the beginning of the fence line, and then I would walk through the middle, and he would go along the fence beating the brush. We got a couple nice slips, one of which included a pretty tight wing over, but had yet to connect to anything. We where getting antsy for a kill, and I guess Dee Dee was feeling this way as well, b/c the next rabbit we flushed, she came in HOT and slammed the ground...we heard the noise we where waiting on, and I went running in there pretty psyched. If you have not been keeping up with Dee Dee and our progress, then I must point out that when she catchs stuff, I generally get too excited, and temportarly loose track of pretty much everything going on. I have lost beating sticks, lures, jesses, etc, etc....it's pretty bad. Well, yesterday, it caught up to me. She was all twiseted up beneath a fallen tree, and I needed to break a bunch of branchs, and then pull her out to more open ground. I break the problem branchs off, and it's now time to grab the rabbit. Well, my retarded self decided it was a good day to reach in there with my bare hand, and she shot a foot out and got me good. Had a pretty bad trade off after that, but that was due to me rushing her, and not letting her calm down after the little "altercation." My fault, so we won't hold it against her. We had only been in the field about twenty minutes or so, and hadn't even gone to the "honey spot" yet, so we decided to go for two. Put her back up in the tree, and gave her a moment to collect herself. We then continue along the fence line for about 30 yards or so, and then she flies up into a tree above us, and looks down pretty intently. I beat around in the brush for a little bit, but don't see anything. Since I left my hawkin bag where we made the first kill (she had spilled the guts, and I was using the bag to cover them up.....), I decided this was a good time to go get it (since we had been hunting again for ten minutes or so). I looped back to grab the bag, and then I made my way back toward Christian and the bird (moving along the fence line). As I made my way toward the tree that Dee Dee was sittin in, I heard a rustle in one of the dense sections of bushs, that ran along the fence. She hopped to the branch directly above me, and I started hitting on the fence. I heard a little bit of movement, so I reached over and hit the other side of it. This must have been too much for the rabbit, b/c he bolted from there in the direction of a head high mass of vines. She dropped off the tree and hauld toward the rabbit, and I lost sight of them as they went around the bush. I then hear the squeel!!!! I flip myself over the fence (which I get hung up on, and end up face planting on the other side), and then stumble around the bush sorta "dazed" like. I find her about a foot and a half in the mess, COMPLETELY tangled in vines, holding the rabbits head firmly in both of her feet. I have to pull the game sheers out, and clip about 20 or so vines, before I could pull them out! I fed her the head on the ground, and then hopped her to the fist for a front leg. When I got home, she weighed in at 1175 grams, and won't be doing anything for the next couple of days. Unfortunately, since I manage to loose everything, and the wife doesn't trust me, the camera is on stand-by in her purse, so I wasn't able to get any pictures. Lame! We didn't even make it to any of the section we had kicked up rabbits last time, so it's looking like this field might be pretty good! Time will tell. DAY 60, she weighed 1123 at 9:00 AM, and 1085 grams at 6:00 PM.

Day 58

2009-11-14T13:26:00.002-06:00

I get the phone call from Lindz while at work, and she says it's time to go to the hospital....I run home, and Dee Dee weighs in at 1046 grams and is ready to go kill something. I tell her sorry, and give her 45 grams of squirrel meat, and head off to the hopital. After a long afternoon of sitting around waiting and not much going on, they decide he isn't coming today, and send us home....bummer. On a positive note, while I was there, I noticed a nice wooded section at the end of the parking lot, so I headed back there to tromp around, and to see if I could find any rabbit spots. Luck was shining on me, and I managed to find a couple areas back there, that should be pretty darn condusive to rabbits. I didn't have any shoes with me, so I wasn't able to kick around and try and find them, but I'm thinking I will be able to get some moving when I fly it later on.

Day 57

2009-11-12T08:37:00.002-06:00

Went to check out the new field, and I really think it has a lot of potential for this winter. The underbrush is still really thick, but we managed to have 5 or 6 good flights on rabbits, before I had to head back to work. She was in the upper 1050's, and was pretty intent on hunting, but kept coming up short due to all the brush. She was crashing well, but just couldn't make it through. I walked around for a bit, and expolored a couple of the sections we didn't go to the initial time out there. I found one spot that I think is going to be REALLY good, and I'm going to head in the other direction today, to see what I can find. I didn't feed her a whole lot, and she was really jumpy last night. I'm hoping for a stellar performance today!

Day 56

2009-11-11T06:43:00.003-06:00

Didn't get to fly again! She was at 1075 grams when I got home last night. It was already dark, so a session wasn't going to happen anyways, but I think she probably would have flown well, (just b/c of the amount of time btw feeds....) even though she was high. I liked where she was at though, b/c that will put her super keen for a morning hunt. Got to work this morning around 6. I pull into the parking lot, and there are two rabbits just sitting in one of the grass planters in THE MIDDLE of the empty parking lot....right under a light! I'm thinking this is just too good to be true, so I pull into my parking space, and I creep around to the back of my car. I open it, pull Dee Dee out.......and the rabbits are STILL sitting there! I unclip her leash, pull her jesses out, and am about to strike the braces on the hood.....and then I remember the telemetry. Rabbits are still holding tight, so I turn around, and grab the receiver. Flip it on, touch the magnet on the transmitter, strike the braces and remove the hood, and turn around....The rabbits are GONE!!!!!!!! I was pissed! If I had just remembered to turn it on right when I pulled her out of the box....we would have had a dead bunny, and I could have gone for a double today with ease! Had the sun been up, I would have just slipped her without turning the transmitter on, but if she had missed (highly doubtful) and flown up to some tree in the dark....it would have been a bummer. Anyways, gonna take an extended lunch this afternoon, and try and fly one of the new fields Ryan and I checked out the other day. Fingers crossed for a catch!

Side note.....the baby is going to be here any day now!!! I'm getting pretty psyched, and am rushing around all crazy getting all the last minute things together. There is a possible honey hole about 30 seconds from the hospital, and Lindz told me I could hawk it during the days while she was sleepin! I have the best wife in the world!