Musket was doing very well flying free and coming back to me. The thrill never lessens. Now it was time to take it up a notch. Rudy had secured a place for us to hunt near his home in Lake City. The place was this old quail hunt preserve where he used to go all the time. It was apparently under new ownership, but they agreed that he could come out and bring us as long as we did not interfere with anything they were doing and let them know ahead of time. Its 200 acres of land that we can bash around on, truly incredible!
I met Rudy at his house to carpool out there. He had secured a small rabbit at the local flea market to use in case we did not scare up a wild rabbit. In falconry, they call the use of a live domestic animal to basically sacrifice to your hawk a “baggie”. It’s not very fair to the prey, but it helps to teach an inexperienced hawk that your activities out in the field will scare up game for it. It’s also a good technique to use if your hawk gets stubborn and won’t come down after an unsuccessful hunt. Rudy had this cute little white fuzzy baby bunny that he picked up. It was just adorable…sigh. We were determined to not have to use it if we didn’t have to, but the goal today was to put my fresh bird on some game no matter what.
We followed Rudy and his grand-daughter out to the preserve and met his other apprentice Tom who just wanted to come along. We found a nice place to start crashing for rabbits and Rudy told me to send the hawk up into a tree. Let me paint a picture for you. There are 4 people out in the brush stomping around and kicking bushes. There is a hawk in a little pine tree trying to figure out what the heck we are doing. She goes up into a tree, settles in, and immediately starts searching the ground for prey. We get pretty far from her to be of much use so Rudy asks me to call her to the glove. I held my glove out and blew the whistle, after a minute, she comes down to me from the tree (good bird), so I sent her back up into a tree closer to where we were working.
We start walking and crashing and again we get pretty far from her. She doesn’t quite yet understand that what we are doing is going to help her capture something so she’s settling in the tree looking around for prey. Rudy told me to call her again (the idea is to get her used to following us without my interference). This time she doesn’t come right away, so he tells me to throw out the lure, but not to give it to her. I don’t feel really good about this because before whenever she has seen the lure, she gets to eat a big meal, but I follow his advice and throw the lure out to her. She comes instantly! He tells me to put it away quickly, so I do. When she no longer sees the lure, she changes direction and lands herself in a really big pine tree with a great vantage of what we are doing below. This is what we wanted!
So we start crashing again, then it all happened so fast! Suddenly I start hearing shouts behind me, someone has flushed a rabbit and Musket has seen it. She launched herself from the tree and crashed to the ground. I come tearing over to see if she succeeded, inwardly grateful that if she did catch a rabbit that maybe we don’t have to sacrifice the cute white bunny that Rudy’s grand-daughter has been playing with. Before I get there, Musket is trying to launch herself from the ground. She had missed the rabbit, but saw where it went and was taking off after it! The poor bird was out of shape from spending almost two months getting trained, but they are not built to chase rabbits from the ground, so she had no chance. I was pleased that she tried anyway.
She managed to get herself into another small pine tree (she was pretty whipped by this point) so we started crashing around where she was, hoping to scare the rabbit again. It must have found a gopher hole because it was nowhere to be seen. By this late in the season, these rabbits are getting pretty good at escaping, unfortunately for us.
So it came down to it, we had to use the baggie. Rudy’s grand-daughter had been playing with it. Being a country girl and one of Rudy’s, she was used to animals dying, but it still made me nervous that we were taking her pet and sacrificing it. She had even named it Brandy… ugh! Musket was still looking around and starting to catch her breath. Since Brandy was a white bunny and we didn’t want to train Musket to catch white cats, we attempted to dye her brown. Yeah… that didn’t work out very well. I think we ended up more brown on us than the bunny, but it would have to do.
We took Brandy and (hidden from Musket’s view) put her in a bush. As you can see in the picture, she just laid there limp. We had to push her around a little to get her moving. Musket had no interest; it didn’t look like prey to her. Eventually we go her attention and she came over to see what we were carrying on about. She saw the rabbit and starred at it for what seemed a long long time. Eventually she decided that it must be prey and dove on it. A lot of things happened at once. Brandy started to scream, Rudy’s grand-daughter (though she had been making jokes about dead bunnies) started to cry, and we rushed over to Musket to help her in her capture. Brandy didn’t scream long, Musket knew what to do with her. She grabbed control of the head and held on. I think it’s an instinct to do that because Brandy immediately stopped screaming, this might help to not attract other predators. Musket sat there frozen, holding on to Brandy who was still trying to breathe. I was glad that she didn’t try to eat the poor bunny alive. Rudy coached me through what to do. I brought out a towel and covered up the rabbit. I got control of Musket’s jesses and offered her a chicken neck on the glove. Once she no longer saw the rabbit, her attention was on the meat in front of her. She let go and hopped onto the glove to eat her prize.
Hazen took the poor broken Brandy and put her out of her misery. I was hopeful for a moment that we could save her so Rudy’s grand-daughter could have her, but Musket had done too much damage. It was an interesting lesson. I was excited for my hawk and that she had killed and had let me take the prize (though she did get to eat every bit of it later). I had mixed feelings about the sacrificed rabbit, I wished it had not come to that and we had caught something wild, but I was not sad about it. It would have been much easier if Rudy had left his grand-daughter at home and that she had not formed an attachment to the bait, but he told me several weeks later that she did end up getting her own rabbit that would not be hawk food, this rabbit was fawn colored and would have been perfect bait, irony. In my mind, our first hunt was very successful. I walked out of the field with my bird.
I met Rudy at his house to carpool out there. He had secured a small rabbit at the local flea market to use in case we did not scare up a wild rabbit. In falconry, they call the use of a live domestic animal to basically sacrifice to your hawk a “baggie”. It’s not very fair to the prey, but it helps to teach an inexperienced hawk that your activities out in the field will scare up game for it. It’s also a good technique to use if your hawk gets stubborn and won’t come down after an unsuccessful hunt. Rudy had this cute little white fuzzy baby bunny that he picked up. It was just adorable…sigh. We were determined to not have to use it if we didn’t have to, but the goal today was to put my fresh bird on some game no matter what.
We followed Rudy and his grand-daughter out to the preserve and met his other apprentice Tom who just wanted to come along. We found a nice place to start crashing for rabbits and Rudy told me to send the hawk up into a tree. Let me paint a picture for you. There are 4 people out in the brush stomping around and kicking bushes. There is a hawk in a little pine tree trying to figure out what the heck we are doing. She goes up into a tree, settles in, and immediately starts searching the ground for prey. We get pretty far from her to be of much use so Rudy asks me to call her to the glove. I held my glove out and blew the whistle, after a minute, she comes down to me from the tree (good bird), so I sent her back up into a tree closer to where we were working.
We start walking and crashing and again we get pretty far from her. She doesn’t quite yet understand that what we are doing is going to help her capture something so she’s settling in the tree looking around for prey. Rudy told me to call her again (the idea is to get her used to following us without my interference). This time she doesn’t come right away, so he tells me to throw out the lure, but not to give it to her. I don’t feel really good about this because before whenever she has seen the lure, she gets to eat a big meal, but I follow his advice and throw the lure out to her. She comes instantly! He tells me to put it away quickly, so I do. When she no longer sees the lure, she changes direction and lands herself in a really big pine tree with a great vantage of what we are doing below. This is what we wanted!
So we start crashing again, then it all happened so fast! Suddenly I start hearing shouts behind me, someone has flushed a rabbit and Musket has seen it. She launched herself from the tree and crashed to the ground. I come tearing over to see if she succeeded, inwardly grateful that if she did catch a rabbit that maybe we don’t have to sacrifice the cute white bunny that Rudy’s grand-daughter has been playing with. Before I get there, Musket is trying to launch herself from the ground. She had missed the rabbit, but saw where it went and was taking off after it! The poor bird was out of shape from spending almost two months getting trained, but they are not built to chase rabbits from the ground, so she had no chance. I was pleased that she tried anyway.
She managed to get herself into another small pine tree (she was pretty whipped by this point) so we started crashing around where she was, hoping to scare the rabbit again. It must have found a gopher hole because it was nowhere to be seen. By this late in the season, these rabbits are getting pretty good at escaping, unfortunately for us.
So it came down to it, we had to use the baggie. Rudy’s grand-daughter had been playing with it. Being a country girl and one of Rudy’s, she was used to animals dying, but it still made me nervous that we were taking her pet and sacrificing it. She had even named it Brandy… ugh! Musket was still looking around and starting to catch her breath. Since Brandy was a white bunny and we didn’t want to train Musket to catch white cats, we attempted to dye her brown. Yeah… that didn’t work out very well. I think we ended up more brown on us than the bunny, but it would have to do.
We took Brandy and (hidden from Musket’s view) put her in a bush. As you can see in the picture, she just laid there limp. We had to push her around a little to get her moving. Musket had no interest; it didn’t look like prey to her. Eventually we go her attention and she came over to see what we were carrying on about. She saw the rabbit and starred at it for what seemed a long long time. Eventually she decided that it must be prey and dove on it. A lot of things happened at once. Brandy started to scream, Rudy’s grand-daughter (though she had been making jokes about dead bunnies) started to cry, and we rushed over to Musket to help her in her capture. Brandy didn’t scream long, Musket knew what to do with her. She grabbed control of the head and held on. I think it’s an instinct to do that because Brandy immediately stopped screaming, this might help to not attract other predators. Musket sat there frozen, holding on to Brandy who was still trying to breathe. I was glad that she didn’t try to eat the poor bunny alive. Rudy coached me through what to do. I brought out a towel and covered up the rabbit. I got control of Musket’s jesses and offered her a chicken neck on the glove. Once she no longer saw the rabbit, her attention was on the meat in front of her. She let go and hopped onto the glove to eat her prize.
Hazen took the poor broken Brandy and put her out of her misery. I was hopeful for a moment that we could save her so Rudy’s grand-daughter could have her, but Musket had done too much damage. It was an interesting lesson. I was excited for my hawk and that she had killed and had let me take the prize (though she did get to eat every bit of it later). I had mixed feelings about the sacrificed rabbit, I wished it had not come to that and we had caught something wild, but I was not sad about it. It would have been much easier if Rudy had left his grand-daughter at home and that she had not formed an attachment to the bait, but he told me several weeks later that she did end up getting her own rabbit that would not be hawk food, this rabbit was fawn colored and would have been perfect bait, irony. In my mind, our first hunt was very successful. I walked out of the field with my bird.
1 comment:
How tramatic! Glad I wasn't there but that is the way nature works! I agree that the grand daughter maybe should have stayed home but this way she will learn about it quickly I guess. Still... tramatic! Way to go Musket and Anni!
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