Crabbing

Today I had one of the most unusual experiences in my five plus years of practicing falconry. Today my bird caught another wild bird, a juvenile red-tail! I was fortunate enough to have someone along for the hunt who had a decent camera who could document the event. I was much too busy trying to resolve the issue to even think about taking pictures, even if I had brought a camera with me.

Because I had two "dogs" today (humans who come along to help kick up bunnies) I decided to try the field where I had caught the squirrel. There was plenty of rabbit sign previously, but I needed more help to work the frozen and snow-covered marsh. Today I had that help. I got Nina all set up and released her, only to have her fly some great distance away from me. As I moved into the field, I called her back, and she returned quickly enough. I then sent her off again, towards the direction that we were headed. I never saw the other bird. But she did!! Once spotted, she flew right at it and "bumped" it . . . which is the way a dominant bird expresses its supposed superiority over what it assesses to be a subordinate. The only problem is that the juvenile bird did not agree with this assessment! It stood it's ground, and began to crab with Nina. The pictures show very clearly what this is . . . they lock talons with each other. This went on for quite a few minutes, as Nina was wedged into the fork of a tree, hanging on to her end, and the wild bird was hanging upside down, hanging on back. Liz, my room-mate started to throw snowballs at them. I was yelling up, trying to scare the juvenile, with no effect at all! After what seemed like a very long time the two finally fell down to the ground. I quickly moved in, and only having one gloved hand, grabbed for Nina. I could have grabbed the wild bird, but felt it was prudent to secure mine first. Even on the ground, the wild one was standing its ground, and broke away only at the last moment, flying up to the fence.

It then sat there . . . glaring at us!! I've never seen this kind of chutzpah in a wild, untrained passage bird. Once I had a good grip on Nina, I turned and ran at the bird, brandishing my arms, attempting to scare it away. It just went a short distance over the fence, landed and continued to watch us. Liz asked me why it was doing this. Frankly, I'm not sure, but I can take one of two guesses. It is possible that it is starving, and just does not have the strength or energy to go very far. Or, it is just an incredibly brave wild bird that has staked out a territory here, and is defending it. I'm going with hypothesis #1, and feel pretty certain that if I brought a trap out to that field, and the bird is still around, I could catch it. (Any takers?? Dave?? It's still trapping season!)

As we were standing around and talking, trying to decide what to do, the wild bird flew back up to the trees. It was not budging! Because of this, we had to relocate. If I let Nina go again, she'd just go crab some more. It appears that she did not sustain much in the way of injuries. There are some scratches on her feet, but nothing major. I checked her leg, where you can see in the picture it appears the wild bird had a grip on her right leg, but upon inspection I didn't see anything. It must have just had a talon-full of feathers. I hope she didn't hurt the wild one.

What a Bossy Bird! This girl will have no trouble once she is released in claiming a new territory!

At the new location we kicked up quite a few bunnies. Nina caught #8 for the year. Because we have such deep deep snow on the ground, and it only being December, it may be a difficult falconry year. It's really hard to move around, and there is just so much snow over all the grass and brush that the bunnies have lots of cover to hide in. But I'll keep trying! The count so far is 8 bunnies, 1 squirrel, and 1 hawk. OK, so the hawk was just caught by Nina, and didn't make it "into the bag". But I have photographic proof that is happened! Doesn't that count?