Missed Opportunities
On the weekend of March 4 through 6 I was supposed to be down in Illinois for the Lady Hawker's Meet, which was on Saturday the 5th. It was hosted by SOAR (Save Our American Raptors http://www.soar-inc.org/pages/791287/index.htm). I had taken a vacation day from work, and gone down on Friday, and stayed at the home of a falconer. We hawked some of his incredibly rich bunny fields. I only wish we had fields so rich here in Wisconsin, locally where I live, where we do have to work for our bunnies! There is just too much forest area that the rabbits can spread out in. In Illinois they are isolated on the fringes of towns, boxed in by the large, open farm fields. His bird caught a bunny, and mine tried, but did not put out a very good effort. I was to come to find out later, based on her behavior over the next week, that I had dropped her too low to compensate for the warmer weather in Illinois. This proved to be a source of anxiety and frustration.
Unfortunately, in the middle of the night on Friday, I received a phone call, and it was necessary for me to return home, driving through the night, because of a small emergency. So, I was unable to put to good use my 5-day hunting license for Illinois, or allow my hawk to redeem herself. Although, now I'm pretty sure she would not have done well at all, regardless. I addressed that problem in the week that followed.
The weekend did not turn out at all as I would have liked. I was disappointed on several fronts! But at least the reason I returned home for turned out to be OK. And I went on to have a somewhat enjoyable weekend.
I tried flying Abby on Sunday, locally, but the place I chose simply did not produce any rabbits. I tried again on Tuesday, working the small location across from the Travel Mart in Camp Douglas, which was now free, relatively, of deep snow. We did flush several bunnies, and Abby worked hard for them, but I could tell as the afternoon wore on she was getting terribly exhausted. She simply had been pushed too low, and was in pretty bad condition. We ended up crossing the road into a large field full of cattails. In this field I flushed a pretty easy slip, and she did contact with the bunny, causing it to cry out, but before I could get to her and help her out, she lost her grip and the bunny got away. A few minutes later I saw her struggle to take her perch in a tree, and I could tell that she was just too low, and had no energy to spare. I called her down to the lure. She ate what was on the lure ravenously, and then would simply not let it go to transfer back to the fist. So I ended up trading her off on the bunny head I had in my bag. She ended up with a crop so large, I've never seen her so stuffed. And even then, she complained the whole time I walked out of the field. At one point, fortunately for her, I tripped on a tree root I didn't see, but managed to not fall onto my bird . . . which would have been very bad. Instead I threw myself into the opposite direction (I was going down either way, so I didn't want to crush my bird). I bruised my knee, and twisted my hip, which hurt for the next few days. Who ever said falconry was easy!!??
Because of her poor performance, and her low condition, over the next few days I initiated several days of good feedings, and jump ups. I needed to restore her body's reserves, as well as work her out, and build up a bit of muscle. I carefully weighed her food, each day increasing the amount, to see exactly how much she could consume in one day, yet still return to the same weight the next day. The last day we were up to 4 oz of food. On Saturday, she was looking pretty good, and energetic. I hoped to now return to successful falconry . . . actually catching something with a trained hawk!
Unfortunately, in the middle of the night on Friday, I received a phone call, and it was necessary for me to return home, driving through the night, because of a small emergency. So, I was unable to put to good use my 5-day hunting license for Illinois, or allow my hawk to redeem herself. Although, now I'm pretty sure she would not have done well at all, regardless. I addressed that problem in the week that followed.
The weekend did not turn out at all as I would have liked. I was disappointed on several fronts! But at least the reason I returned home for turned out to be OK. And I went on to have a somewhat enjoyable weekend.
I tried flying Abby on Sunday, locally, but the place I chose simply did not produce any rabbits. I tried again on Tuesday, working the small location across from the Travel Mart in Camp Douglas, which was now free, relatively, of deep snow. We did flush several bunnies, and Abby worked hard for them, but I could tell as the afternoon wore on she was getting terribly exhausted. She simply had been pushed too low, and was in pretty bad condition. We ended up crossing the road into a large field full of cattails. In this field I flushed a pretty easy slip, and she did contact with the bunny, causing it to cry out, but before I could get to her and help her out, she lost her grip and the bunny got away. A few minutes later I saw her struggle to take her perch in a tree, and I could tell that she was just too low, and had no energy to spare. I called her down to the lure. She ate what was on the lure ravenously, and then would simply not let it go to transfer back to the fist. So I ended up trading her off on the bunny head I had in my bag. She ended up with a crop so large, I've never seen her so stuffed. And even then, she complained the whole time I walked out of the field. At one point, fortunately for her, I tripped on a tree root I didn't see, but managed to not fall onto my bird . . . which would have been very bad. Instead I threw myself into the opposite direction (I was going down either way, so I didn't want to crush my bird). I bruised my knee, and twisted my hip, which hurt for the next few days. Who ever said falconry was easy!!??
Because of her poor performance, and her low condition, over the next few days I initiated several days of good feedings, and jump ups. I needed to restore her body's reserves, as well as work her out, and build up a bit of muscle. I carefully weighed her food, each day increasing the amount, to see exactly how much she could consume in one day, yet still return to the same weight the next day. The last day we were up to 4 oz of food. On Saturday, she was looking pretty good, and energetic. I hoped to now return to successful falconry . . . actually catching something with a trained hawk!
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