NAFA Field Meet - Wednesday
Tuesday was miserable, but Wednesday dawned bright and beautiful!! Wow . . . Kansas really does have blue skies! And very wide open terraine. NEWS FLASH . . . in case you don't know it . . . Kansas if VERY FLAT!! Fields go on for miles and miles. You can't appreciate this until the skies clear and it is sunny. Wednesday was sunny!
I went out early with Bill to attempt to trap something. Bill would like to have caught a passage prairie falcon, or a redtail, but we ended up with just a really nice ride in the country. It was a beautiful morning, and I did get a feel for the area a bit. Very nice company! After a couple hours, Bill decided to call it quits, and head back to his hotel to wait for his son to drive in. I decided to take Pente out looking for hawking opportunities. I stopped by one of those super big cattle operations and asked in the office whether they allowed people to work their grazing areas. Many of these looked like really good jack country. They were nice, but indicated that no, they didn't want anyone walking around the areas where the cows grazed. So, again, after a quick Falconry 101, I left looking for other spots.
By quirk of fate, I managed to run into Sharon and Tony again. They were out hawking along the Arkansas River. I say river, as that is what it is called, but actually the water all dried up some time ago. So really, it's just a dry dirt bed, with many trees. I was beginning to get out and prepare to hawk, when Sharon let me know the area had already been worked pretty hard. So we agreed to try somewhere else. I indicated that I had seen some possible good spots from the morning's trapping outing, but I wasn't quite sure if I could find them. We drove around a bit, and I did finally locate one. It looked good . . . but turned out to not be so. It was a wide open field, with a couple trees, right in the middle of a trailer complex. But as soon as we got out and put Pente up a tree, I saw why it would not be a good area. About 10 children descended upon us . . . and it was apparent that they played in this field quite a bit. So we had lots of questions directed at us, but saw no rabbits. Pente was also not acting quite right. More reluctant than usual. I thought it might be the children . . . but I was to find out in time it was something else.
Say goodbye to Sharon and Tony, and back to my hotel to grab some lunch, and some more lure meat. I then hooked up with Bill again, and he agreed to take me to one of his secret hunting locations out near Dodge City. It was quite a long drive, but pleasant. Bill is a nice guy! And he was definitely right. The spot was perfect. We flew Pente first, and she had her chance at many bunnies. It runs along a mostly dried up creek, with many trees. For the most part, Kansas doesn't have a lot of trees, but there are some places where they grow, and that is where you should look for the bunnies. The whole area was overgrown with wild mint. Every footfall brought up the pleasant smell. It was truly a beautiful location. We flew Pente for awhile, following the creek, and then Bill decided he would go back and get KC, and work the open field off away from the creek. So I continued on with Pente, flushing bunnies from time to time, but she never contacted with them. She did manage to fur one really well . . . and I had to grab up the huge chunk of fur that she pulled, and tuckd it into my pocket to show Bill. Calls from Great Horned Owls, and its beginning to get dark, made me decide to work my way back to the van. As I got close, I called Pente down to the lure, then walked the rest of the way with her on my fist. She was breathing rather hard, I thought, and I worried a bit about that.
Once at the van I put her away, and took all my gear off. Bill was still off working the grass. The sun was going down, and there were some unidentified birds (I tried to determine but couldn't get a good look at them) singing in the bushes. It was a quiet, peaceful moment. Such moments bring me such joy. I wonder sometimes why it took so many years for me to come to falconry. There are moments like this, when out in the field, that you can feel at peace with everything, and connected. I was happy to be there, at that moment in time.
Some short time later, I heard Bill off in the field. I walked up the path, and found him with KC on her first bunny. He fed her up, and carried her back to the van, finishing her meal there. I showed him the fist full of bunny fur. He exclaimed that the bunny was going to have a very cold night . . . having lost all that fur. But it escaped with its life! I guess a good enough trade off for the bunny.
I also had the opportunity to teach Bill a new word. Here it is Bill . . . CREPUSCULAR. It describes animals that are active at the fringes of the day, dawn and dusk, as opposed to Nocturnal, active at night, or Diurnal, active dring the day. He'd never heard the word before, and wanted me to spell it for him. Useless extra trivia info stored in the brain!
We hurried back to Garden City as best we could, but even still, this was the first night I came to the evening events with my hunting clothes on. I hadn't had time to change. They had free chili, and it tasted pretty good. Vendor time, and the evening raffle, and that was the end of Day Three.
I went out early with Bill to attempt to trap something. Bill would like to have caught a passage prairie falcon, or a redtail, but we ended up with just a really nice ride in the country. It was a beautiful morning, and I did get a feel for the area a bit. Very nice company! After a couple hours, Bill decided to call it quits, and head back to his hotel to wait for his son to drive in. I decided to take Pente out looking for hawking opportunities. I stopped by one of those super big cattle operations and asked in the office whether they allowed people to work their grazing areas. Many of these looked like really good jack country. They were nice, but indicated that no, they didn't want anyone walking around the areas where the cows grazed. So, again, after a quick Falconry 101, I left looking for other spots.
By quirk of fate, I managed to run into Sharon and Tony again. They were out hawking along the Arkansas River. I say river, as that is what it is called, but actually the water all dried up some time ago. So really, it's just a dry dirt bed, with many trees. I was beginning to get out and prepare to hawk, when Sharon let me know the area had already been worked pretty hard. So we agreed to try somewhere else. I indicated that I had seen some possible good spots from the morning's trapping outing, but I wasn't quite sure if I could find them. We drove around a bit, and I did finally locate one. It looked good . . . but turned out to not be so. It was a wide open field, with a couple trees, right in the middle of a trailer complex. But as soon as we got out and put Pente up a tree, I saw why it would not be a good area. About 10 children descended upon us . . . and it was apparent that they played in this field quite a bit. So we had lots of questions directed at us, but saw no rabbits. Pente was also not acting quite right. More reluctant than usual. I thought it might be the children . . . but I was to find out in time it was something else.
Say goodbye to Sharon and Tony, and back to my hotel to grab some lunch, and some more lure meat. I then hooked up with Bill again, and he agreed to take me to one of his secret hunting locations out near Dodge City. It was quite a long drive, but pleasant. Bill is a nice guy! And he was definitely right. The spot was perfect. We flew Pente first, and she had her chance at many bunnies. It runs along a mostly dried up creek, with many trees. For the most part, Kansas doesn't have a lot of trees, but there are some places where they grow, and that is where you should look for the bunnies. The whole area was overgrown with wild mint. Every footfall brought up the pleasant smell. It was truly a beautiful location. We flew Pente for awhile, following the creek, and then Bill decided he would go back and get KC, and work the open field off away from the creek. So I continued on with Pente, flushing bunnies from time to time, but she never contacted with them. She did manage to fur one really well . . . and I had to grab up the huge chunk of fur that she pulled, and tuckd it into my pocket to show Bill. Calls from Great Horned Owls, and its beginning to get dark, made me decide to work my way back to the van. As I got close, I called Pente down to the lure, then walked the rest of the way with her on my fist. She was breathing rather hard, I thought, and I worried a bit about that.
Once at the van I put her away, and took all my gear off. Bill was still off working the grass. The sun was going down, and there were some unidentified birds (I tried to determine but couldn't get a good look at them) singing in the bushes. It was a quiet, peaceful moment. Such moments bring me such joy. I wonder sometimes why it took so many years for me to come to falconry. There are moments like this, when out in the field, that you can feel at peace with everything, and connected. I was happy to be there, at that moment in time.
Some short time later, I heard Bill off in the field. I walked up the path, and found him with KC on her first bunny. He fed her up, and carried her back to the van, finishing her meal there. I showed him the fist full of bunny fur. He exclaimed that the bunny was going to have a very cold night . . . having lost all that fur. But it escaped with its life! I guess a good enough trade off for the bunny.
I also had the opportunity to teach Bill a new word. Here it is Bill . . . CREPUSCULAR. It describes animals that are active at the fringes of the day, dawn and dusk, as opposed to Nocturnal, active at night, or Diurnal, active dring the day. He'd never heard the word before, and wanted me to spell it for him. Useless extra trivia info stored in the brain!
We hurried back to Garden City as best we could, but even still, this was the first night I came to the evening events with my hunting clothes on. I hadn't had time to change. They had free chili, and it tasted pretty good. Vendor time, and the evening raffle, and that was the end of Day Three.
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