The Hangover

With all good things comes the hangover. Willow was over weight she had to shift 100 grams of rabbit the night was mild so that wasn't going to happen. Its at times like that you immediately start to wish you was allowed a second bird but it was my fault entirely for allowing her to feed up so well. I also had battery problems on the truck so the evening session was a no go. I feed her 10 grams of rabbit hopefully she will be ready to go. Forecast is in the 60F-70F temperature rain, it;s drizzling and miserable, I'm thinking prospect hunting tonight in a wooded area near my daughters day care center

Fridays forecast is a 50% chance of thunderstorms in the morning, I'm hoping for a good squirrel hunt in the afternoon.

Out of interest i got a Trail/Scout Camera for Christmas from Wild Game Innovations. I'm testing it out in the mews right now so far the batteries have lasted 6 days. I'll write more once i have tested it for a bit. The cost $45 from walmart at the moment so my view point was if it was crap i wouldn't loose too much.

First Rabbit

This is a first in so many ways.

We headed out to the airport. I knew a field i had hunted before but the only problem with it is its waste deep in briar's for much of the field. You have to crash through them there are that many. The idea was we might fly willow a bit, catch maybe a rat but get her ready for the weekend. Cope out i know but anything was worth a try. Well that was the theory.

My son in law Luke came with me and we pulled up next to the field. and soon he was cussing me because of all the briar's , I guess i didn't use it much last year because of the pain you experienced when you entered and when you left it.

First slip resulted in a confused hawk. She came down in a classic tear drop, i spotted a rabbit hole but with nothing in it we quickly moved on. Second slip resulted in a wing over that was just amazing.

She was soon on the rabbit and telling me about her achievement. She has not said a word in 8 weeks and now she was screaming. I dispatched the rabbit quickly and fed her up. Trade off was crap, something we will have to work on but there was no way in hell she was going to let her rabbit go. We headed home, she ate 100 grams of rabbit tonight, i put her outside hopefully she will be at weight for tomorrow i have another spot to check out.

Sorry no pictures as i forgot my mobile phone.

oh yeah, on the way home i got stopped by the cops, in my excitement i forgot to put my lights on, the cop laughed and i went on my way.

All i can say is way to go Willow !

Carnage

Whilst out hunting with willow tonight i came across this...

I counted in the region of 15-20 carcases

First Flight

I took willow up to OKC, I want to get her chasing rabbits and as many slips as possible. The idea is the more slips you provide them the more they trust you to provide. Bill Boni invited me to go hawk with him so Christmas eve and a 2.5hr journey we arrived at Bills house to start hawking. We went to a new field of his that he recently found there is a little construction on one side and an industrial estate on another side. In the middle is farming equipment that has long since been abandoned.

I beeped willow up and of she went. We had a few early slips that both bill and i didn't see the bunny but you could tell with the wing pumping willow was on to something. Then there were 3 other spots that held rabbits. The first one had a slab of concrete that the middle had collapsed , this held a few rabbits and a good hiding spot for them, The second spot had all this tin scrap metal and farming equipment. I lifted a tin metal sheet and out popped 3 rabbits all heading in different directions.The last area was an old pipe that was bent and twisted. It held one rabbit. In all we provided 20 slips.

During our time there a wild passage RT showed up, he hunted with us for the whole two hours. Willow was not phased at all. At one point they both had a foot on the rabbit. As i approached the wild RT bumped of, The rabbit made a bid for freedom and through willow off through some brush.

Bill trapped the wild RT 2 days later which i am very pleased about. if i had been a general i would have done the same thing.

All in all great flights great day and a great first flight.

Needs some help

I am almost ready to fly her free for the first time but i need some help from any Oklahoma Falconers out there. I need a cookie field that's full of slips for a few hours. I haven't found a cookie field locally yet and that's mainly down to the fire ant populations down here , rabbits are few and far between.

if you can help me out for an afternoon then please email me or give me a call. oh yeah i bring beer if that's an incentive

thanks in advance ....

Had a real step forward in attitude during last nights session, Saturday and Sundays didn't go so well. Her attention was all over the place, back turned away from me, picking at her anklets Having spoke with my sponsor it was time to change track. Everything has been at her pace with willow dictating whats been happening, this hasn't worked to well , so it was time to change tack.

I brought her weight down some more and finally got a change in attention and attitude. Due to the cold weather front her daily ration has also shot up 100 grams just to maintain weight. Will fly again tonight, hopefully with the same results. If not I'm going to feed her up a bit and then bring her back down again. My fault its taken so long and my fault her attention hasn't been on me. She is close so hopefully the final bit in the jigsaw will click into pace.

Lift

I came to the this book a little prejudiced. I had been told Rebbecca was just a romance novelist (which she is supposed to be very good at) and i was expecting a romantic view of falconry. I had been meaning to get the book for a while but then heard that less than 500 of the books had actually been sold. Feeling a little guilty i brought mine form amazon.

It's an easy book to read and one that was surprising in its contents , flash backs to early life where interesting but sometimes a little distracting but all the same made for interesting reading. The thing that surprised me the most was her brutal honesty of the mistakes Rebbecca made with her first Peregrine. That is something you rarely see in the falconry world. Even in the falconry blog world its all about head kills, the perfect hunt, the perfect falcon and the perfect Austringer. Some apprentices give the arrogance of being super human , the best. Maybe something changes as and when you grow up in the falconry world more willing to realise you make and have made mistakes.

All in all i loved it and is defiantly something i will get the wife to read or anyone interested in falconry for the first time.

Away training again. Willow is with me she will be flying soon we are close. The teacher just came back from a week pheasant hunting. My phone won't let me post pictures to my blog. That sucks

WPR: An Inside Look at Falconry (2010-11-19)

Short but sweet

WPR: An Inside Look at Falconry (2010-11-19)