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)

Road Trip

I have to go away on an adobe training course for a few days, willow is comming with me, should prove interesting... Back on Wednesday.....

Willow getting some fresh air from After Effects fundermentals

more training

a tail of two temps

Yesterday was upper 70s low 80s, today couldn't be further from that if you tried.Right now its 32f , the wife was cold, i was cold and the bird was well, non- responsive and ended with the fly 2 feet and "will you please through the lure out so we can get out of here". The change in temp caught me off guard with her weight and she came down a little lower than i wanted . I'll check her tonight and make adjustments.

Todays Flights

Company and Compulsion

I took Willow to the local park today. I need the space to fly her and a few less trees. She weighed in at 1100 grams again. I staked out 80 feet of creance and we started our training session. About half way through we both here this scream, a redtail hag was telling us both to piss off and leave the area, willows wings came down and into the defencive posturing that stressed redtails take. The hag soon bugged out after about 3 minutes and we continued. She continues to fly back to her perch after her tidbit which for some reason amuses me. I always get the feeling its "hurry up and i get another treat" going through her head. We ended the session on the lure at 80 feet and then a good trade of to a tidbit on the glove from the lure. One thing i must remember is to be careful where i throw the lure because when you go to trade off and are sitting on the lure, a fire ants nest can erupt from beneath your ass and the over desiring compulsion to immediately stand up very fast can be over whelming.

It's amazing how much she has changed since introducing the lure, I'm actually starting to enjoy this and it doesn't seem like such hard work.

50K is never a good reason

Woman detained after falcons found in luggage

Day 29

We had a great session today i had her flying to 60 feet on the creance, she also worked out that if she flew back after her tid bit, it would take half the time before getting another one. She must have put in 40 flights. Local kids all came to watch and she didn't batter an eye lid i felt her response was finally focused on me. Lure response was again very good and she was on it as soon as it hit the ground. She was wanting to carry the lure so we will work on that some more. Trade off was a breeze , tid bit on the glove , off the lure and it was forgotten. Now my confidence is back up we will move to a different field and go for some longer flights. I want to bring her weight down a little more , not much. Shes hovering around 1100 and 1105 grams so I'll take it just below 1100 grams and we will see how she responds.

Progress

We hada  good session today 40 feet on the creance at 1105 grams, Followed up by a good trade off on the lure. I introduced her to the lure yesterday and it was amazing that she knew what it was. Before i had finished getting it out of my pocket she was flying towards me.

Day 25

I spoke with my sponsor Steve Armstrong a week ago and we decided to go back to basics for a week. The creance outside wasn't working out. She was easily distracted and was wanting to hunt, field control was just out the window. We decided to spend more time on the fist and fly her in the house re-enforcing me as the supplier of all food. Feeding on the fist is always fun and learning how to palm the food(last season with Zoie) so she don't sink 4 talons in my hand is always fun( Murphy's laws says she'll probably foot me now) .The weather here hasn't been to great either, high winds and rain so as it turned out this wasn't to bad a prospect.

She's now at 1130 grams and behaving allot better. Bating less of the fist and less jumpy. We decided to bring her down to 1100 grams, she should be there at the weekend and we will once again ready to go outside on the creance.

I have two new hunting grounds once deer season is over, one north of Durant and one west of Boswell. Private land but with a ton of squirrels on them.

Day 16

Well things are still progressing slowly, but we are doing this at willows pace and not mine. Shes flying across the room now. Not every flight results in a tidbit on the glove. I have been changing the way i present the tidbit on the glove and she seems to be responding better. She still bates of the pearch when i approch so we have been working on that too.

A friend of mine Matt made me a new cloroplast box ( he had a spare sheet) which i have now furnished out. I'm not sure its quite tall enough so will probably be making another really soon and ill keep the other for another hawk in the future. Its amazing how much lighter than my wooden GH it is ( and i made that on the sparse side).

As promised

and finally... Day 13

Dropped her weight to 1206 grams, instant response and jumped to the fist after a little hesitation. She not only hopped once but 6 times, Shes still nervous around people but that's getting better as time has gone on. There is a video to come once i find out how to get it into my computer, seems my Dazzle Video Capture card is not compatible with Windows 7 64 bit ( it is with everything else) so once i work that out there will be more videos coming. Hopefully we will have her on the creance ( long leash) pretty soon..

What goes into making a Quality Scope

Interesting video on what goes into makeing a Carl Zeiss Scope

Day 7

Things are going slow, She refuses to jump to my glove, She will stretch but wont jump, Her manning is coming along. She bates but not that often, she sits on the perch and after bating from the perch will return to it. She currently weighs 1225 grams coming down slowly hopefully tomorrow she will make that big step, she is almost there but not quite, I'm being impatient but its all about trust and right now i still haven't got her trust but we are getting there... even if it is slower than i want.

Day 4

She is feeding of the fist quite happily, been stretching her reach out and think tonight she may just hop to the glove for the first time. Introduced her to the Bow Perch for the first time this morning, surprisingly batted very little. Tonight will be interesting to say the least...

Day 3

There is little more satisfying than a wild animal trusting you to be fed for the first time. This hawk has some serious attitude but tonight we seemed to crack it and a major hurdle was over come.

On another note i bought a Tallon stopper glove from western sporting Falconry a year ago. This glove has given me nothing but pain , the leather was to stiff and i would end up with hand cramps. I purchased another ( i like the idea of Teflon in the glove) and found they changed the martial to a softer leather, the difference is amazing and not a bad price for $45 + shipping. The old glove will be a spare

Willow 2010

Caught a Female weighing in at 46.5 ounces just north of McAlester on highway 69/75. I am done with trapping, Ihave been trapping most days for since August the 1st ( 3 months ) now this will do for this seasons. Started manning down, the usual dead chicken routine went on for 3 hours and i put her away after 8 hours of manning, you forget how tired your arm muscles get ! She is very different from Zoie alot lighter in the chest and face and willows tail feathers are darker. Not the male i wanted but shes a very impressive bird and now we have extended trapping season i can keep looking but at my own leasure.

Time flies

It's been three weeks since my last post and i really cant believe how fast the time has gone. I've been out trapping pretty much every night and weekend. I have pretty much caught 99.9 percent of all the Hag(adult birds) in southern Oklahoma. I did catch one passage that weighed in at 1200 grams (40oz) however it turned out to have avian pox. Everything had to be disinfected after releaseing the passage redtail back to the wild. for those that don't know Avian pox can be deadly and is highly contagious. Birds can survive it but really i don't need the vet bills or another season of a sick and hawk.

The difference between male , female, kinders, harlins and dark morph light morph has been interesting to see and its been worth trapping every bird we have seen just to see the differences.

I am also in the middle of reading "Training the Short-Winged Hawk" so between reading various books and trapping its been a busy time.

I was hoping to go to the OFA field meet this weekend but life had other things planed and it sucks that i cant go, i was really hoping to catch up with some other very experienced falconers.

I have still have 4 days off work with a house photo shoot on Saturday morning but hopefully come Tuesday we will have one passage male redtail hawk.

Sparrow Hawks in Turkey

I love sparrow hawks they are my favorite hawk. Unfortunately even if i could have one i couldn't afford one in the USA.

I watched these videos about a year ago from another site but they recently came up on a listserv i subscribe to and are worth reposting.

The difference the rain makes

Once sandy lake beaches and emptying ponds are now full, migrating birds bound to the shore line waiting to be chased by one springer spaniel. Farrow and whitetail deer hiding from the inevitable.

Things are about to change

Winds from the north are finally coming , the migration of Redtails is starting to pick up, the next week or so should see me with a male Redtail Hawk.

The Curious case of the missing hunting land

I use google maps allot when looking for potential hunting land, the last few weeks i have been wanting to go check out a plot of land on the north side of Lake Texoma. On google its know as Texoma Public Hunting Area the locals call it Widow Creek.

I didn't take either of the dog and in allot of ways I'm very glad i didn't, first of i drove around this for 3 hours trying to find it, even with a GPS , the main road into is a single track and not very well paved at all. The thing that confused me was along the red line ( on the map ) its marked as private property with lots of signs stating that the owner will prosecute. This is what confused me the most, I thought perhaps i had miss the road so i set of to go round it only to realise nope that was the right property. i found the road that looks like an elbow joint , however the road leading into it had been dug up, one minute its paved the next a mud/bog track and then back to being paved.I followed this road that then became a trail round only to run up against a dead end, a 4 foot deep creek that was to wide to jump across

I have a friend who''s relative works as a park ranger for the cor of engineers who are supposed to own the property and find out if in fact they still do. It would be a real shame to find out that this property is now gone out of the public domain. Oklahoma has a proud tradition of public hunting and lands that are available for public use , we need more of these properties and not less.

Cycles

I was updating my season information and i noticed there had been changes in the season dates for game that i am interested in. Dove season has been extended to 75 days but Quail and Pheasant (Gun ) has been shortened and in the case of Quail the season is 50% down on the previous year.

I came across a number of reports that had some very interesting reading. Quail in Texas and Oklahoma seem to go through a cycle of a 5year hi/low. 2005 was a very productive year for quail and if my understanding is right we should be and the emphasis on the should be on another high... but we are not , we are in a declining population.

One of the reasons put forth is the change in agricultural policy and a change in hunting behaviour. More and more pasture is being given over to the growth of none state native grasses for hay production. Nearly all fields in Bryan county have hay bails on 2-3 times a year, the farmer gets anywhere from $50-$100 depending on that year prices, a small pasture of 10 acres can produce 100 bails in a year, that's allot of money for practically doing nothing.

One of the other reasons is, quail hunting appears to be down, this is partly due to the fall in birds but also the fall out of favour in Quail hunting with hunters. Quail hunting in terms of trophy bucks is not as glamorous.

Pheasant populations are falling for the same reasons, lack of habitat and lack of interest from hunters.

These reports ( spanning 25 years of data) also conflict with the anti-hunting lobby in that here is direct proof about how hunting regulates game numbers and the opposite effect of why we shouldn't hunt occurs. Numbers go down ( and not up) when game is not hunted.

I was also reading another report on Quill that also found that leaving quail coveys alone for the winter resulted in a higher loss of birds per covey (50%) than a covey that had been harvested. In other words the ones that where harvested would have perished due to the winter anyway so the harvesting of quail didn't really effect the natural populations of the covey.

I spoke to a few friends that own large pastures and have small to medium sized properties about why thy didn't allow the stocking of quail on there property and the overall reason was because they would then have to allow public access to there property , something they were not to happy about.

The solutions are never simple but one thing that has to change is the agricultural policy and habitat for these two game species in order to start bringing these populations back

A Predetor Dropped In

Tonight a predator of a different kind dropped in. I love Praying Mantis i found my first one in Cyprus when i was 17. There is something so alien about them. The big eyes the spikes on the underside of there two front feet along with bees they are one of my favorite insects god has created.

Urban Hawks

Found this new website called Urban Hawks, interesting videos and pictures of Redtail Hawks.



I'm amazed at the number of Videos and Pictures the site has.

Early trapping appears to be a waste of time, we spent most of Sunday traveling as far as Bartlesvillie and back (even via route 66) to Colbert. We saw a grand total of 6 hags and not one passage bird, by the afternoon the south wind was reaching gusts of 30mph. Frustrating and disappointing to say the least.

For consolation i took Lilly out, i wanted to explore a part of my hunting grounds i haven't been to before.

I found two duck ponds separated from lake texoma by a sand bar that now had trees growing on it, We flushed half a dozen ducks off it.

 The ponds look promising for this coming season and with Lilly being the gun dog she is promptly decided to go for a dip.

Lilly and i then scrambled through some dense brush she would occasionally pick up a scent but the brush was so dense we would quickly loose it. Shes getting better at walking without her lead and not wanting to run off but its been a long a tedious process.

We finished our walk along the beaches flushing a red shouldered hawk that seem to be eating the dead fish along the shores of lake Texoma. There are so many of these right now, the average size must be 3-5lbs

First Rifle

A friend of mine gave me a Marlin Glenfield Model 60 .22LR. He wasn't using it anymore and it was just gathering dust. It needs a good clean and a new scope mounting on it but very soon it will be used in the field. I've been researching the different kinds of ammo for it. my friend Albert has been advising me on the different kinds as well. I have also been learning to strip it down and put it back together again. It should make for some fun times. 

A Falconry Film by Media Students

This video was filmed and edited by Media students, i thought it was very impressive.

More Trapping

The weather has changed, gone are the 101 - 114 degrees Fahrenheit temperatures this week should be in the upper 80's lower 90's does this make a difference oh hell yeah !

A big front came though today moving just about everything i had locally with the exception of one female out by Durant airport. I love watching this female she has worked out she can hunt dove, she circles 100-200 feet above and then dive bombs the dove. She'll chase for a few minutes if she doesn't connect but then starts to circle above again.

On Thursday i have to travel to Lawton, another military medical review board for latrell. On the way back we plan to trap. Hopefully we will find a male redtail hawk.

I finally got some sort of confirmation on carhawking from the Oklahoma wildlife department today.

"The "car hawking" is not a new law, it was an interpretation made by Law Enforcement prior to the NAFA meet last year and they determined that it is legal for a falconer to release a falconry bird from a vehicle"

On page 34 of the Oklahoma Hunting Guide it stated Migratory Game Bird Regulation "From or with the aid or use of a vehicle or other motor-driven land conveyance"

I know Dave Eslicker is working and in communications with the ODWC to make sure it stays this way, which makes a different form of falconry very exciting for a lot of people.

Not that i didn't trust anyone but i just wanted it in some form of writing from someone one official. I know how cops and lawyers work and unfortunately it ain't pretty...

Out of interest Lauren McGough ex president of the OFA is now back in the USA, I found an interesting article on her study of falconry in Mongolia .



You can check out the full article at Raptor Education Foundation great photos and an interesting read

Scouting

I started scouting out my hunting grounds this week. Lilly came with me for the field practice, she still bolts but i have been letting her drag a 20 foot leash behind her to slow her down a bit. the wwwooohhhh command is starting to click. She flushed 3 collared dove and a doe from cover. Rabbit scat was present but not in large amounts in comparison to last year and the migratory birds had not entered the area yet.

Pretty pleased with how lilly behaved especially as she hasn't been in the field for a while , its been to dam hot. I plan to check out some of the other public grounds in the area, the reports from the game wardens are more encouraging especially the further north you go (less fire ants).

Trapping and the Central flyway Region

Went trapping today. Its my birthday so it was my birthday present ( as well as a new freezer so i can keep all my hawk food in it without the kids complaining) , the plan is to bring back a Tericel Redtail hawk. We headed north on hignway 75 past McAlester and ended up on highway 69. The number of Redtails dramatically increased past McAlester. We spotted a number of hags but eventually found a passage. We bumped her of the trap the first time backed off and she went down on a second trap. The first time she landed on the trap she was able to lift the 2.5lb trap, so basically her own body weight. She had massive feet, ideal for squirrel hawking. She was almost a direct replica of Zoie in size, weight and appearance. We weighed her in at 1060 grams. Her strength was really impressive. My wife and Steve were surprised i passed her up. I think if this had been last year i would have definitely kept her.

Steve was tempted by her but she was about 150 grams to light for what he wanted and 100 grams more than i wanted so we released her back into the wild for her only to fly back to the pole we called her in from.

The rest of the day we spent finding poles that might be useful for later on in the season. definitely worth going back to in a few weeks. The heat then got to 104f, way to hot to safely trap so we called it a day

I have been researching the Central flyway migration routes.

Interesting to note the two main routes in Oklahoma are down through the panhandle and Hackerberry flats and then down from Tulsa to Broken Bow.   I haven't paid much attention to the Central flyway region info before now but this affects allot of things and not just falconry but all water fowl hunting.

The council decides bag limits for ducks geese and other water fowl hunting as well as permits for peregrine take. This route starts in Canada and moves down though the central plains including Dekota, Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas to name just a few.

Heading towards OKC on Sunday (its my birthday ) to try and pick up a Tiercel Redtail Hawk, I can't wait. The wife is coming and so is my mentor. Things will be very different this year not just in behaviour from a different hawk but in allot of ways its like starting from scratch and as a complete novice. Weight management is going to be very different.

I am also interested in getting some articles, Bill Boni graciously sent me an article on the passage coopers ( next years project maybe) but I'm also after the follow that appeared on American Falconry.

"Duck Hawking with Shortwings" by Don Hunley Vol 25
"The Suburban Passage Coopers Hawk by Paul Hofsommer (vol 26)
"Hawking Quail and sparrows with an Eyas Sharp-Shined Hawk" by Tracy Dewit & Jennifer Coulson Vol 13

If anyone has these volumes or extra ones and they don't want it please email me as i would gladly read them.

Dirt Hawking

This book should now be recommended reading to all apprentices as far as i am concerned it has everything in it for the aspiring austinger that wants to hunt rabbits and hairs. Its fairly easy to read with chapters on just about everything that covers the art of hunting Rabbits and Hares.

The thing i like about it is for the aspiring apprentice it touches on dispatching, field dressing, types of hawk, use of dogs. I would say as brewer is to squirrel hawking Roy is to Rabbit Hawking.

THE IMPRINT ACCIPITER

http://www.amazon.com/

I just got trough reading this finally. What can i say, for anyone remotely interested in raising and training any hawk or falcon so much of this book applies. I particularly like the section on weight management, certainly there are things I'm going to be trying with the next RT this season. There is a pretty good section at the bag that is a condensed diary of events on 6 different hawks, Goshawk, Sharp Shined Hawk and Coopers hawk that details trials and deliberations with each one. Well worth the read if you can get hold of a copy. There has been a new and updated version ( not read yet) that ill try and get hold of in a few weeks.

Mikes Falconry

Way to go Kristy Lee

Fox has an interesting artical on Kristy Lee , She went up against PETA and came out on top, way to go
http://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/2010/08/03/exclusive-peta-takes-aim-kristy-lee-cooks-hunting-shoots/?test=faces

Trapping Season

Trapping Season started yesterday. We managed to get out for a few ours to have a look but everything we saw was a hag or too far from the road to have ago.
I made my own trap this year , well cant keep borrowing the sponsors. I also had a go at making some parachord jessies that I'll use in the weathering area and in the giant hood.

The BC only cost me $22 bucks in materials which surprised me really as a BC trap sells for $100+ , just goes to show more often than not your better off making your own.

The parachord was on sale at gander mountain, gander mountain will no longer be stocking parachord so i bought up 200 feet which should last me a while. It took me a moment to figure how to thread the chord back in on itself but i got there eventually.

6 days to go

Unfortunetly our mini-vans engine decided to give up the ghost so looks like trapping will be out for a few more weeks till we can either get a new car or that one fixed. I'm not full ready anyway as i want to get some more leather and make a few more hoods. Been doing lots of reading and reshearch on some other things. One of the things i am interest in is trapping in other states , so if you read this and your from another state or no of the regs in another state here is a question for you. "What are the rules and costs envolved in trapping for a non-resident falconer in your state?"

Good luck to all those OKIES that can go trapping in 6 days time !

On another note my friend Albert form TROC has a new encouragment incentive for troops in the middle east , he is currently there as a contracter . You can read all about his adventures and his idea Yo-Yo

Re-Queen Success !

Photos Courtesy of Latrell Oner

The only good thing to come out of this season has been the re-queening, honey levels have been very disappointing. we seemed to do OK and then all of a sudden nothing. It was rather pleasing going into the two hives i had re-queened and finding the new queen. Thanks to my wife latrell we have some photos 

Wedding Anniversary

Today is a Wedding anniversary , Latrell and I have been married for 3 years. She is the most amazing woman i have known, Cute, funny, a real titch ( Short at only 5 foot) and the dam sexist woman out there. She puts up with me in a hundred and one different ways and always runs with me even if she isn't happy or wants to. My falconry could never of happened if she hadn't have gone with it. The shed, she wanted became the mews. The Hawk she didn't want became Zoie. I wont be trapping on August the 1st because Latrell has drill weekend. I am not allowed to go unless she is there because now shes all about trapping and wanting to participate in nearly all aspects of falconry.

Love you babe !

New Bee Video

Made me laugh

Rest in Peace

Zoie passed away this after noon.... Massive kidney failure and the vet found a large mass.

** UPDATE **
Went down to Dr Moore in southlake ( Dallas Fort Worth ) and had a look at the results my sponsor Steve Armstrong came with me as he was also curios as to what had happened.

Basically a large mass was found in the latest x-rays. The mass was located at the cloaca on initial inspection and looked like an impacted egg. It was confirmed she was a female.

The blood work showed elevated white blood cells and elevated Uric acid, One kidney had shut down and the other was failing. After Dr Moore opened her up, the mass was located in her intestine. ( Photos to follow when he sends them to me) The course of the mass was a buildup of feces because a 4" Inch mesquite thorn has passed through her body, had softened over time and finally lodged. I never hunted her near Mesquite Trees and certainly never caught any game with a thorn in it.

It was decided because of her history and hindsight she probably ingested the thorn before i had her. Every time she passed a mute a small amount of feces attached itself to it causing a blockage and backing everything up.

Because of where it was lodged it was totally inoperable and she would have bled out. Every time she flew she was probably in great pain which i find hard to take or understand but basically she gave her everything to the flights we had and they where some good flights. In the wild i am told she would have never have made it to Christmas.

I weighed her this morning , her total weight was 740 grams. She had been bulking up on water to 1060grams. I'll take her down to one of our hunting grands and bury her near a tree over looking the lake ( more for me than her) bu as a first year bird she was the best .

On the way home steve asked me if i had known she would have lived only 8 months after i trapped the simple answer is yes. I'm a sucker for giving an animal a chance and think that's all we really do considering the number of birds that die

Not good

I've been on vacation in the UK for a week and Zoie has been on vacation with my sponsor. By all accounts she had a great time talkative splashing in her water bath ..... who would have thought 3 days later all that would change ....

Last night i cam home to find her collapsed by her bath pan , she had cast up into it and the fresh water from that morning stank like rotting flesh. She was limp , listless and had no fight in her. I grabbed her and drove in excess of the speed limit to my sponsor, We wrapped her in a towel and went straight to DR Moor in Dallas. Her breathing was heavy and she slept most of the way. She never struggled once.

Things do not look good.. She went from having a reasonable keele to having nothing and right now I'm waiting for the phone call that says "sorry Steve i had to put her to sleep". Initial prognosis is kidney failure that probably happened before i got her, phosphates from a mouse she ate in the wild. Everyone has said you didn't do anything wrong but i have spent most the night awake wondering what if... My wife has taken it quite hard, zoie was brought into the house with my wife kicking and screaming. my wife wanted a storage shed, it became a muse. I left her with Dr Moor on oxygen and standing up, blood samples are being taken from her talon and will be rushed to the Lab (as of last night).

On the way home from the vet my sponsor and i went over everything form the way she has smelt to the amount of water she has been drinking, what she was like during the hunts we had, and her general well being.

The last thing my wife said to me before finally falling asleep was "What will we do without Zoie" right now my dear i have no answer for that question.......everything is speculative and i will find out more today

New Resource

I found this link that might be of use for British Bee Keepers

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/gardening/beekeeping/

Falconer on the edge

I’ve wanted to read this book for some time. Mainly because Rachel Dickinson came to my blog and left a comment about a picture of a meadow lark I had taken. I have also wanted to read it for another reason in that I thought I could give it to my wife to read and say … see that’s why I’m like the way I am ( it has nothing to do with being British and a red coat).

The book is fairly easy to read in the main part. I’m dyslexic and tend to read teenager novels. Usually fantasy, Harry Potter, Percy Jackson & the Olympians and anything by Paolini. I also speed read which has its advantages and disadvantages. So with that I found this book a little dry in someplace however I did learn a few new words that I had never come across before. I am making a hugh assumption here but felt it was written for a more mature group.

I also felt the book also had a split purpose on one hand it was autobiographical of Steve Chindgren and then it was also about Rachel’s journey to see what really pushed her husband. This got a little confusing in some places. From a falconer’s point of view there where whole chapters dedicated to falconry regulations and history that didn’t really interest me and I assume would interest other falconers. I think it would however appeal to non-falconers as to why things are the way they are and the regulations we have to abide by.

I do wish there had been some photographs of the landscape and the journey that Rachel took. Some of the descriptions are a bit too long (I’m biased I’m a photographer) but I think it would have helped illustrate the book and give a real perspective on the subject matter.

My only other fault with the book was I felt it concentrated overly on longwingers, I can see why in that Rachel’s husband is a long winger. There is a Chapter on the the Nafa Meet in Kansas and the entire time appeared to only be about Longwingers with fleeting mentions of the odd dirthawker they accidentally stumbled across.

What I did like was the incite into Steve Chindgren and why he is the way he is. There are two types of falconers those obsessed with head count and those that are into the hunt. I never quite worked out which category he fell into.

Over all it’s not a bad book but I just felt I wanted more and I was never sure what direction or if the goal set out was ever achieved. I think its worth a read if only to read about Steve Chindgren and sage grouse hunting.

New Queen

Well my new queens arrived today via UPS. I know i should have taken pictures but i was in a hurry because the weather for cast is not good. Both had about 6 attendance and where marked with a blue dot.

I had split the hive i want them to go into on Sunday so i carefully went though both hives to see if i could located the queen. On Sunday i found about 10 queen cells fully occupied and ready to go. If this hive had not been so mean i would have just put three frames in a nuc. however i just split it in two. We double checked and then checked again and i could not locate the queen.

So i have placard them both in each hive, i have not uncorked them going to leave them in there till next Sunday and see what happens then uncork them. This game is about getting acceptance. We have been called out a number of times to different swarms all over the neighbourhood. i got another swarm last week that appears to be doing well.

Cat Proof

We have a family cat. One that turned up at our door and who has had kittens. She hates me and believe me the feeling can be mutual at times. Recently she discovered the pigeon coop and has promptly killed half of my pigeons. after much debate it was decided to keep her but i would convert the coop to make it cat proof. I did some research on the net and came up with a couple of you tube videos that showed me a plan. Seems I'm not the only pigeon fancier that has problems with cats.

The idea is quite simple there is a trap door set to the weight of your pigeons the pigeons can land on it and move in and out.

The fun starts when something weighing more than a pigeons comes along the trap activates and closes the door. In our case a cat falls to the floor and our pigeons are safe. That is the plan anyway. So far so good as i have not found her in the pigeon coop again and i haven't lost anymore pigeons.

Here is the video where i got the idea from....