Monday, December 15, 2008

Lures and Baggies

Musket had an interesting week. I decided to work her on the lure again to reinforce the response since I have been teasing her with it in the field to encourage her to follow. Our routine has been to, weigh the hawk, free-fly her around the yard, getting her to come to the fist for tidbits and follow me through the trees, then give her the lure. It has been going well, for the most part.

Early in the week when I flew her and she was below weight, she was getting eager and took off just as we walked out the front door and I didn’t see where she went. When I came out, I blew the whistle and she came down to me from the trees for the first time! I can’t explain the feeling of wonder I had at that moment. I flew her around the yard and gave her the lure just as I had planned, it was perfect.

We did this little exercise several times throughout the week, and she was behaving well until she discovered the rabbits. I’d been covering the rabbits with a tarp on our little forays because I knew if she caught a glimpse of them, she’d try to kill them. She was following well and then stalled in a tree. I walked across the yard and whistled to try to get her to come to me, but she was distracted. I didn’t realize until too late that she had seen the rabbits! Sigh. I heard her bells and to me it sounded like she was after something, so I came rushing around the corner to find her under the rabbit cages trying to figure out how to get to them. Dismayed, I made for her, but she leapt and grabbed the cage from the bottom. She had the cage with so much force that I thought she had one of the rabbits. I pulled back the tarp expecting to see a mangled rabbit, instead I saw my breeder standing over the treacherous claws, sniffing them!!! Stupid stupid stupid!! I could not dislodge Musket from the cage, so I brought out my lure and tossed it to the ground. She hesitated, but eventually decided that she preferred the lure to the rabbit and went for it. Then, I traded for the lure and took her away from the rabbit cage.

I had hoped that this incident was the end of it. On Saturday, I waited all day for the squirrels to show up, but they stayed away so I decided to hunt her on a baggie. She was about ½ an ounce high but I wasn’t too worried about it. Lesson learned. At first she was attentive and flew to objects and back to my glove. I got her into a tree and she was following a little slow and far behind. Then she got into a tree above the rabbits and even though I had covered them very carefully so there was no way she could see them, she still knew they were there. Typical lazy red-tail, content to be patient waiting for the food to come to her, sigh, no amount of whistling could get her to budge. I had to pull out the lure to get her to come to me and away from those rabbits. She was sluggish so I decided, okay, let’s just go ahead and give her the baggie and end this. We used one of the babies, the cute grey one that had frostbite on two of its toes. She took a while to see him, but when she did, she shot down like a rocket and got him by the head. He never made a sound and she held on until he was dead, which did not take very long. She traded off easily for a chicken leg and I put her back in her mews.

Hazen said he was paying close attention to her when she went for that rabbit and she didn’t miss a step. It didn’t seem as though her eye impaired her whatsoever. Maybe she’ll just have to be a bunny hawk. But I haven’t given up on squirrels yet! She gets the next two weeks off while we vacation in California. My wonderful in-laws have agreed to brave feeding her for that time. Then I get to see where her weight is and start working her back down.

Merry Christmas!!

Saturday, December 6, 2008

Flying Squirrels


I should re-name my bird Crash after today!
I got in touch with Rudy's other apprentice, Tom Norris. We decided to meet up and hunt our birds together this morning. He has a small female redtail named Rose. He's had her a few months longer than I've had Musket.

We decided to meet up at my office since it is in a Wildlife Management Area and I've seen squirrels frequently outside. Right when we got there we could hear squirrels barking in the trees. He got his bird out and we headed out to the woods to see if we could track them down. As soon as we got near the trees, the squirrels went quiet. We put Rose up in a tree to see if she could see them better than us from the ground, but Rose was not very responsive; Tom said that she was a little high in weight. Well, she went up into a tree and followed us fairly well at first, but then, got rather sluggish and decided that she was pretty happy up in that tree. We got her to follow us through most of the pines and found a nice oak hammock where we could hear some more squirrels barking. But we could just not get Rose to come down to where we were. Eventually after calling her for 20 minutes or so, Tom decided to lure her down and end her hunt.

Then it was MY TURN! We got Musket and headed back to where we had heard the squirrels barking. Tom brought his bird with us, which I was at first unsure about, but Musket and Rose did not seem to mind eachother's company. I put her up in a nice oak tree and started to work my way through the brush. Musket followed faithfully keeping a close eye on me the whole time. At one point in the hunt, Hazen (aka eagle-eye) spotted a squirrel in a tree just as it flattened itself along a branch. He kept his eye on it and I coaxed Musket to where we were. I did have to tease her with the lure once, but after that, she was on me! When I'd blow the whistle, she'd try to come down to me or come to a branch over my head. She never hesitated to crash through the small branches in her flight, it was pretty fun to watch. All this was new for me since before, she's been happy to stay up in a tree once she's there, usually. I had her working all around this squirrel. We tried to get it to move by throwing sticks at it, but it knew that in order to survive, it needed to say perfectly still. After about 20 minutes working Musket around this tree, she finally saw the squirrel and took off for him. She grabbed the branch where he was huddling and footed it hard, just missing him. He shot off like a rocket and she was in hot pursuit. She lost her balance and landed in another tree facing away from the squirrel just has he took a desperate dive out of the top of a 50 foot oak tree. She didnt see the dive. But she heard the scuffle and saw the squirrel scurrying up the tree. She headed right for him and followed where he went. She lost sight of him eventually but jumped into a squirrel nest and flushed him out again. I thought she had him then, but he managed to escape again and flattened himself against a limb. Hazen said that he could see the squirrel and the bird in the same view from his binoculars, but she didn't see him. We tried in vain to get the squirrel to move so she would try for it again. Eventually I blew the whistle at her and she made over to me, but the squirrel still didnt move. I tried one more time to get her to go back to that tree to go after him, but she was intent on me and eventually made her own way back to my fist. At that point we were done. I called it quits for the day because she wasn't trying anymore, but it was an exciting chase anyway.

So, we still have no wild game. We've had two exciting chases this week though, and I'm encouraged to see her trying for squirrels so hard. Maybe we'll get the next one!

Friday, December 5, 2008

North Carolina and Nuisance Squirrels

It’s been some time since I’ve been able to update this blog. We spent a fabulous week with the Mitchell/Warren Crew in North Carolina. Musket came with us and was wonderful to travel with. When we take our dog, we have to make bathroom stops for her to get out and stretch. Musket calmly road in her Giant Hood, never making a peep and hardly moving her bells, you hardly knew that she was there.

The three story beach house that was rented for the week had a wonderful garage where we housed the bird. She spent the week being visited by friends and family and staying tied to her perch. She was quiet and stoic except when she decided whe was hungry and ate the glove sheath and the rag that was on her scale, which she knocked off and broke. Oh well, she can't be perfect. Despite the below picture, I think she's more proud of herself than ashamed. She cast up a pellet of rag pieces after we got back to Florida. Pretty funny.


I had hoped to have the chance to hunt her on some North Carolina rabbits or squirrels. I had to purchase a special falconry license to be able to fly her there, in addition to an out of state hunting license. Warren had picked out a good potential rabbit spot in a field across from his house. Not willing to lose her 12 hours north of us, I did some practice flights on the creance. The first was out on the beach where we attracted quite a crowd. Musket did not know how to react to that kind of stimulus. She saw the big blue ocean and tried to take off for it. I did manage to get her to come to me, but she was sluggish and unwilling, so I quickly put her up.

The next morning, I woke up early and tried her just the two of us in the street in front of the beach house. She was a little more responsive, but still a bit sluggish. I wasn’t feeling good about her response, so I decided that I would not hunt her. The next day, it started raining and didn’t stop until we left. Though I think some of the family were disappointed that they did not get to witness a hunt, I felt good about my decision and took my bird home with me.

This week I had to work a day out of the office because they were working on the electricity and the power was off. I kept a careful eye out the window in case one of the squirrels that we have been feeding all year decided to make an appearance. Well, lo and behold, in the early afternoon, two of the squirrels showed up on the feeders. My heart racing, I gathered all the equipment I needed to hunt with, covered up the rabbits, and took my bird out of her Mews. We came around the front of the house and I showed Musket the squirrel. She took off! But in the wrong direction. She wanted a better perch so she took to a pine tree in the yard. I watched her go and the squirrel that had been on the feeder had vanished. I searched for it and saw it magically transported to the end of property line. They can really book it when they need to.

I walked over to the gardens behind our house and tried to find the other squirrel since I didn’t see where it had gone. Musket followed me to a better perch. I was considering calling her down and walking into the woods to search when I noticed that she had her eye on something. She took off straight for the largest tree we have in the garden. I thought she might be going for another perch, but she slammed into the trunk of the tree and then I saw the squirrel she had been going after. She missed, but barely. It probably had something to do with her eye. She was brilliant though. She landed in another tree and tried to see where the squirrel had gone, but it had managed to get up into the tall branches and out of danger.

I called Musket down to the fist by teasing her with the lure and took her back to her Mew. She was pumped! Poor bird. At least she got to kill her lure. The hunt was thrilling regardless of the miss. I just hope she can get something soon.
The baby bunnies are getting so cute. It's amazing something so cute could come out of something so dog ugly (mom is no beauty queen). I'm trying desperately not to become too attached to them. Hopefully we get some squirrels soon!