It's raining birds!

So the week before last, I went with my co-worker Rebecca and picked up an injured adult red-tailed hawk. He was pretty awesome missing one eye (old injury), one toe-tip and claw and squirrel bites all over, definitely a warrior. He went to Rehab. Then I drove to live oak to rescue a downed Cooper’s hawk from Walmart and drove him to the rehabber. Then my co-worker picked up two injured bald eagles that were fighting and hit the ground hard. They flew away after they had rested about 6 hours. Then Friday a barred owl that was caught in a fence ended up in our office and I got a call that a rehabber had a red-tail for me. I went down to see the red-tail, and it turned out to be an adult bird. Sigh. Yesterday I went trapping with Hazen after getting skunked on Saturday with the constant rain. We caught a juvenile red-shouldered hawk. I let him go this morning after reading a review that they tend to take off as soon as they get a chance no matter how tame you get them. And today I got a call from my rehabber friend again that another bird ended up at the vet school in weak condition and he is definitely a juvenile red-tail, she got a look at him herself!

She told me that he’s a smallish bird, probably a male, but birds that emaciated have a tendency to die when they get that low. So it’s a possibility that he won’t make it. I need everyone to send happy thoughts to Gainesville and hope this bird makes it!

Boy… I wish this yoyo would stop!

morning view

Ever have the feeling that you're being haunted. I was day-dreaming about trapping a red-tail when I looked out my office window and saw this...

I've seen a bird use this tree before, but for some reason today it was eerie.

Full Circle

I had a conversation with a falconer friend who has been a falconer about 6 months longer than me. He recently applied for his upgraded permit from Apprentice to General Falconer and they took a good long 6 weeks to get his permit to him. When I asked him about the process he told me that I need to send a formal letter requesting the upgrade and Rudy (our sponsor) has to send a letter along with it basically approving my move from Apprentice to General. He also told me something that got me thinking, he said that they take your start date from the day you caught your first bird. Hmmm...

Monday I called the permitting office the lady told me that they really want to have seen me fly a bird for 2 solid seasons. I flew a bird for a season and a half since Musket was a late season trap and I have not yet caught a bird this year. I asked her if that hinders my ability to upgrade my permit. She told me that "if" my sponsor sends a letter telling them that I'm ready, they "may" agree, "but" it would be up the the feds to decide "if" I qualify for an upgrade at that point. OH BOY... went my mind, that's just too many "maybes" and ifs". I may have just shot myself in the foot here. So I asked her, "if I trap a bird in December when the season opens up again and fly that bird through this season, would I qualify?" She told me that I would. So... back to square 1. I'm going to be trapping another red-tail. I'm actually kind of relieved... that Cooper's was looking to be more than I bargined for.

Yesterday afternoon, I contacted a rehabber friend of mine, and she may have a bird for me. She wasn't sure what was wrong with it when I talked to her, but the bird was at the vet school, so I'll have to wait to see what the injuries were and if I can take it on. She's been getting a lot of hawks in the last few weeks, but only a few red-tails. I've also been seeing them all over. Looks as though the winter birds have settled in. I actually saw 2 adult red-tails sitting together on a power pole at the airport today right outside my office door, so it should (hopefully) be little trouble to find and trap another juvenile bird.

Ultimately, I've wasted a lot of time with this experiment... serves me right for trying to jump the gun a little. But I haven't been idle. I've found a good local supplier of day-old-chicks (DOCs) and I've made a few watercolors of raptors that I'm fairly happy with. So, time well spent I believe.

I scanned in my first 4 watercolor attempts to post on the blog. The scanning changes the quality of the images a little, it makes them much lighter and I had to darken them which threw off the color a little, but you'll get the general idea.

First Attempt-Eesh! I tried wet on wet and it turned into mud! I like the face on this one, but the rest... yuck. (it looks okay as a thumbnail though...)

Second Attempt-Getting the idea of blending down. I really like how the branch turned out in this one too. This was the bird that we saw in Texas going after those chachalacas.

Thrid Attempt -and I surely didn't spend as much time with this one... I tried doing details too soon, so it's pretty poor. I do like the tail on this one, but the scan didn't capture it very well. Also, I stretched the paper for this one, so it doesn't curl like the first two... it leaves ugly staple marks in it though... I guess that's what matting is for... not that this one will see a mat.

Fourth Attempt -I'm starting to get some of the techniques down and I took a lot more time with this one. I still like my second attempt better... I made the beak and feet a little too big on this bird. But, the feathers turned out much better, the eye is pretty good, the claws actually have a point and the shading is starting to do what I want. I don't know if I'm over the hump yet, but I definately feel that I'm improving with practice.

a sharp stick instead?

I was just purusing a falconry forum and they said, if you think you want to fly a Cooper's hawk. Get a stick, sharpen it, and poke yourself in the eye, it's less painful!

Hmmm...

The Buzzsaw

I just lucked into an affordable copy of the out of print North American Falconry and Hunting Hawks. It is "the" book on falconry and is in it's 8th edition. The promised re-printing of the 9th edition is looking less and less likely, so I jumped on this one once it fell in my price range.

I received the book today in the mail and I eagerly flipped to the section on Cooper's Hawks. What I found there was not encouraging. Let me put down the summary here, word for word, case for case as it is found in the book.

"Of all the birds in falconry, none requires consistent success as much as the Cooper's. NONE! The phrase 'a little success here and there' gives entirely the wrong impression of what these birds demand of the falconer. They need daily hunting with consistent success."

The book further recommends that you get and train a hunting dog to point quail a full year before you acquire a bird and recommends that you have at least 10 good quail sites that you can rotate so you can have success every time. The book says " Here is one for the experienced falconer living in the right area who wants to explore one of the pinnacle experiences that falconry has to offer." Sounds exciting, but I am neither that experienced falconer nor am I living in the right area. Quail are in decline here as they are in many other places and finding a good "consistent" quail hunting place is nearly impossible for me unless I could afford to belong to one of the expensive hunt clubs around here. Hunting every day is also impossible for me. I think I may be getting in over my head with this bird.

My sponsor is out of town until at least next week. I need to call him and discuss my options with him. He has flown these birds before so if he says I can do it, I might be able to, but he tends to be over-optimistic about accipiters sometimes.

I'm not sure what I'm going to do, but I certainly don't want a buzzsaw of a bird that I have to fly with a catchers mask over my face to protect me when we don't actually find quarry and the bird gets mad at me. EESH! Good thing I hung on to those gerbils, I might just trap a red-tail afterall.

Days Cooling Down

After the scorcher of a Halloween weekend (87 deg on Saturday), it has cooled a a comfortable 75 and sunny. Hazen even turned off the A/C and opened the windows and doors yesterday! We're slowly settling in for a fun Holiday season.

The first cool weekend though we actually did some necessary outside work and moved the "carport" to another part of the yard. This was going to be our holiday project (over Thanksgiving) but we got it done early. We'll have to come up with something else productive to do on our 4-day weekend at the end of the month.

Hazen has also been subtly bugging me to post a picture of "bird" on the blog. I managed to acquire a few shots of her, but she's a bit twichy (yes the pun is intended) and it is hard to get a good shot. She was a bit scared of the camera and finally settled down into a fluffed out pose trying to look BIG. She's a good size, but still a far cry from Musket, so I was more amused than impressed by her display. The leg is healing nicely. She hardly favors it anymore and seems more feisty, which I attribute to her feeling better. After a few more weeks of R & R, she's going to be caught for her new jewelry and manned so she will be easier to handle and transport when needed. I'm really looking forward to the day I can officially take possession of her and start getting her ready to hunt.

Also, for the record, the birds finally arrived after the second cold-front. For the past week or two, I've been seeing red-tails every time I turn around. I saw a nice speedy-looking smallish red-tail near the airport across the road from work on my way in the other day. He took off in a vertical leap from the ground and landed on a telephone pole, his movement reminded me of the red-shoulders we have in our neighborhood that would pop out of nowhere when I'd fly Musket around the yard. This one was definitely a red-tail and a juvenile to boot.

I was mournful of my decision to wait for the Cooper's hawk after seeing that bird. But, Hazen talked sense into me and reminded me that if she does work out I will have a really fun hawk that will share years of enjoyment. If it turns out that the near-starvation and recovery experience makes a hawk into a better hunting companion... This situation might not EVER present itself again. He reminded me that I can't buy a bird like that and if I let her go and jump on a good male-tail (which in and of itself isn't a sure thing) I might get what I want in an RT and have a decades-long excellent hunting companion - but next year you could reasonably get the same level "male-tail" and I might not ever get a cooper's like her, EVER. ... He made a pretty good point, so I've stuck with my decision. I haven't given up the gerbils just yet though in case she just never heals well and I'll have another chance to catch an RT starting December 1st.

To help ease my eagerness to work with a bird, I have taken up drawing them. I'm going to try my hand at watercolor on some of my sketches. I drew this from a picture of a wet Cooper's hawk that I found in Google, I loved the "look-of-death" so I had to try it. We'll see if it turns out after I fill it in with color.

Original Picture

Drawing

Change of Plans

Something exciting and unusual has happened today. I was talking with my Sponsor, Rudy, and it turns out that he has acquired a juvenile female cooper's hawk that was on it's way out. Apparently, he got a phone call from a friend who came across the bird in a parking lot. It was hardly able to stand when Rudy came to see it. He took it home and is nursing it back to health. He is very excited about the bird, I guess it is really really tame even now that she is starting to gain her strength back, which, according to Rudy, is very unusual. He is reluctant to release such a find since "passage" Cooper's hawks are difficult to come-by so he is trying to find her a falconry home.

I cannot have a bird besides a red-tail or a red-shoulder until I can upgrade my permit to General Falconer. Lucky for me, my upgrade is due in about 3 months. Rudy said he wouldn't mind putting the bird on his permit and hanging on to it for 3 months until I get my upgrade. So, I'm putting the red-tail hunting on hold in light of this very unusual opportunity. After I get my upgrade, he is going to transfer the bird to me. I am lucky in that I kept Musket for so long and hunted her for two seasons, so I will qualify for my General permit whether or not I trap a bird this fall.

What this means is no squirrel hawking in Texas and no Falconry hunting for me until the season is half-over. Also, Rudy tells me that you can't hunt a Cooper's hawk on squirrels, they are just too dangerous for their little feet, so I'll have to work hard to find some nice bunny hunting areas since Migratory Bird Season will most likely be over by the time I can get this bird. We may have to do some conventional small game hunting to build up on hawk-food. This probably means also that I'll be keeping my bunny breeding project going.

It's a crazy opportunity. I've worked so hard trying to find my new bird and have not come up with anything yet. I'm taking it as a sign. The next bird I wanted to do was a Cooper's hawk, so I'm very pleased that I will be able to do it sooner than later. Rudy is a austringer- which means he hunts with accipiters- and he's been doing it for over 40 years. I wanted to learn the techniques from the best, and for accipiters, he's about the top of the pile.

Wish me luck! Rudy will be taking a vacation in November, and he'll need me to watch the bird for him while he's gone, so I'll get to spend at least some time with her before I get to take possession.

What a strange and exciting turn of events. I'm a little sad that I won't be trying to catch my next red-tail, but this is something that I cannot pass up.

Cold Front Update

Well, the cold front did bring some birds, but not the ones I want, unfortunately. Hazen and I have seen an adult ("Haggard" in the falconry world) red-tail almost every day we've gone out. Those birds weren't here last week, so it's an improvement. We've also seen an explosion in Red-Shouldered Hawks. I don't know if we're just getting better at spotting birds, but there sure seems to be a lot out there.


If this wasn't my last apprentice year, I'd be tempted to try a kestrel. I've seen probably a dozen or so birds with consistency. They're pretty darnned cute, but I think you hunt bugs with them or maybe sparrows, I'm not really sure. I am starting to re-think my desire to get a small male, I may just have to settle for whatever I can get. But any hunting partner is better than no hunting partner!

Eventually, I'll have something more interesting to post. My life has pretty much revolved around looking for a bird.


I took of yesterday afternoon and I might take off today too. My boss dug up 6 camelias from his yard. I'm going to see if they'll take in mine so I can get those early blooming flowers.


I took some time to snap some nice pictures of butterflies in our "weed" garden. I'll include some here. Right now it's awash with buzzing life of all kinds. It's great!






Thanks for all the encouragement everyone! I'm really looking forward to squirrel hawking in Texas this year!

Trapping Season Blues

Still no red-tail for me. Boo.

I must have put 1,000 miles on my truck so far looking for a bird. It's hard to not get discouraged by the lack of birds. The few I have seen have either been in a soar or I didn't have my gerbils with me. Well, I solved the second problem by buying a small carrying box to take the little goobers with me everywhere. The little fellas fit in my purse! I feel like I'm carrying around a pocket dog or something!

I think we got a nice cold front come through last night though... so I'm going to kick my searching into high gear. The birds have a tendency to follow the cold fronts.

Wish me lots of luck, I need it bad! It's only a matter of time.

First Day of Trapping Season

Finally Septmber 15th is here!! I've spent all weekend putting together my falconry equipment. I wanted everything to be ready in case I trapped a hawk today.

Well, I came home hawkless, but, we did see a juvenile Cooper's hawk going after a bird (which was awesome!) and we saw two juvenile red-tails. Amazing!!

The first bird we saw was near Alachua, Hazen spotted it. It was a little male, just what I was looking for. Unfortunately, we just weren't ready for it and we spooked it when we set the trap. Hazen was pretty dissapointed, and I'd be lying if I said that I wasn't either, but I was pretty encouraged because I had no expectation of really seeing any birds, let alone having a chance to trap one!

We headed towards home and took a road that I drive twice a day to work. I was remarking to Hazen that I never see birds on that road and sure enough, he spotted a red-tail sitting on a pole. I slowed down and sure enough, it was a juvenile! I slowed down the truck, tossed the trap out and drove away to turn around. Lucky for us there was a nice little road just across the street from the bird. We waited for about 20 minutes watching it. It was clearly looking at the trap, trying to figure out what to make of it. Eventually, it fluffed, pooped, and took a low dive off the pole right for the trap!! We waited a few minutes while the bird tangled with the trap. Finally it looked like it was caught and we gathered our towel and gloves and walked out to it. When I was about 15 feet from it, it took off, not caught. Boo!

When we examined the trap later, it had triggered several of the loops, just not enough to get tangled. But, I'm actually okay with it. That bird was every bit as big as Musket, and I want a male this year. It would have been really really hard to stick to my guns and let her go if it turned out to be a heavy bird. So, it's fine.

We'll try again tomorrow and see what we see. It seems that 6:30-7:30 seems to be the magic hour. I'm really excited that we saw so many birds on the first day of trapping season too!

Wish me luck!

Videos of Alaska

I dont know how well this will work, but here are some videos of our time in Alaska. They speak louder than photographs.

The inside passage where crawled through sprawling hills and mountains that came right out of the ocean.

A view of the Harbor in Ketchikan.

Lovely Creek Street.

Salmon Running in Juneau... anyone know what kind of Salmon these are?

Historic Downtown Skagway

"Soapy" Jeff Smith's Parlor... Skagway. Video says it all.

Leaving Skagway.

A case of mistaken identity. From a distance, this really did look like a seal until I looked at the image in my zoomed in camera... oops. I think the commentary is funny though, I hope it makes you laugh.

This time it really was a seal.

A shot of the Ziprider from the bottom. EESH!

The Hubbard Glacier as we were leaving. It was hard to find a spot to get a clear shot with all the people on the deck.

Puffins and Auklets swimming underwater durring feeding time at the Aquatic Sealife Center in Seward.

The Steller's Sealion, quite a monster!

Well, that's it! I hope you enjoyed the videos. I hope the the next time I post on the blog, I'll have trapped my new hawk! Trapping season starts tomorrow!!

Alaska!!!!!

Taking a page from Melissa's blog, I'm going to tell our story in pictures!

These were totem poles that greeted us at the Vancouver airport right off the plane.

Vancouver from the shuttle to the train. It looks pretty creepy. The driver said that they built all of these buildings relatively quickly. It looks like Russia. The driver also told us about the corner where you can "get anything." Crazy ride through town.

Our first glimpse of the Millenium. It was love at first sight.

Ahh, the inevitable lifeboat drill. We just want to eat... again.

This is Hazen's friend Steve the Hero. He realized the day before the criuse that his passport had expired. He is pictured here celebrating his 23rd hour with his new passport. He hopped a plane from Orlando to Huston Texass to go to the passport office. They took pity on him got it to him in 4 hours. He made it to Vancouver with 12 hours to spare. Amazing!

Here are Hazen and I posing at the inside passage. The land was this close on both sides of the ship. I'm amazed that something that big could fit down the passage. The scenary was beautiful! We stayed out the whole time and saw lots of bald eagles and whales.

Hazen and I perched on Evan and Caroline's (the bride and groom) veranda on the first formal night. Isn't he handsome?

Here we are in rainy Ketchikan Alaska. They get about 200 inches or rain every year. I can't even count the amount of times where we heard that they had beautiful weather for 2 months that ended 3 days before we got there. Oh well, we got authentic.

A fun scupture in Ketchikan that I made Hazen pose next to.

Creek Street. Beautiful! There were salmon running this stream, though we saw many more further north.

Hazen seeing a bird. I love this picture. We later discovered that it was a swallow that we had both seen before, but the discovery is the fun part.

Black bear fishing for salmon in Ketchican. Earlier, we saw a mother bear and 3 cubs in a tree not 50 feet from us, but my camera wouldn't cooperate.



One of the may totems that we saw in Ketchican. We got to meet the man who made this beautiful scupture.
Hazen feeding reindeer. They told us that reindeer were the first domesticated animal, after cats and dogs.



We toured an abandoned sawmill. Hazen was enthralled by the machines.

This was an amazing piece of scrimshaw. They let me take a picture of it. I think it is from a walrus tusk.

Hazen and I posing in beautiful Juneau just after Evan and Coroline's georgeous wedding.

Our bus driver did us a solid and stopped at the Mendenhall glacier lookout. That's it behind us. It's hard to see, but it was quite a sight.

Hazen took a glass blowing class in Skagway. He was the only one from our ship to take it, he had such a great time and made an awesome blown sculpture.

Hazen snapped this picture of me outsideo our cruiseship in Skagway. We were watching a distant glacier peaking over the mountain range and new birds.

I was facinated by this building. Our tour gide for the Ghost and Goodtime Girls tour told us that the park service bought this building for a whooping 2 million and it will take 10 years to fix it. It belonged to the town organizer Soapy Smith, it was the unofficial center of town. Soapy Smith ruled the town with an iron fist and pretty much made it what it was. He was pretty corrupt though and eneded up getting killed in a duel. Every year on the anniversary of his death, the town drink to his honor and then go pee on his grave.

Ahh.. our home away from home.

Dungeness crabs in Huna! They were huge, but we didn't eat them.

"Presenting the ship!" I was trying to hold it in my hand, but that never really works for me.
Here's a shot of our cruise ship while everyone is on deck while we are viewing the glacier. I got cussed at by a lady in french for taking this shot. Aparently, I was being rude by standing in her way, but she said some mean words in french and shoved me. Now who's being rude?


The Hubbard Glacier. After seeing this, I think everyone needs to see a glacier in their lifetime. It was indescribably beautiful. I could not stop taking pictures. See those tiny specks in the water at the foot of th glacier? Those are seals. This thing was huge!

Another shot of the glacier. This is not photoshopped folks. It looks even more stunning than this shot!

The sealife center in Seward Alaska. Warren suggested that we visit this place. We were not dissapointed. I got to take lots of shots of puffins. These were the only ones I saw on the trip.

Here's a puffin. Isn't he cute? They all thought I was going to feed them so they came swarming over to me. I could have spent all day with them.

We took a train from Seward to Anchorage where we caught our flight home. The train ride was spectactular! 4 hours of beautiful views and glaciers! We even saw some moose. I loved it.

Well, that's it. We had a great trip and saw some new birds. We had a wonderful time with friends and are looking forward to our next cruise to a warmer destination.

Magic Eyes!

I almost can’t believe that it’s happened! I had my Lasik surgery on Wednesday and it went fabulously!

I was nervous that I would get to the Lasik center and they’d tell me, “thank you, now please pay us $5,000 bucks on your way out the door”, but that never happened. I am stunned and amazed at how smoothly this process worked for me. It literally took all of 1 minute surgery time per eye to have to whole process done. First they use a special laser to create a flap of skin above your cornea by creating a layer of bubbles just under the skin. That’s seriously the scariest part because the suction they use to hold your eyeball in place while the laser works is just bordering on painful and then looking through the layer of bubbles is a lot like trying to see through wax paper. I had this small moment where I thought… well, I’m blind now! Then they walk you over to the other laser and use a device to hold your eyelids open. On the table, you lie down and stare at a green dot. The doctor pulls the flap of skin away from your eye and the green dot gets bigger… that was weird. Then the doctor told me that the laser was starting and in 30 seconds, it was done, repeat for second eye. That was it! I must have spent 5 minutes in the operating room. They gave me a pill to sleep it off and when I woke up the next day, I could see!!! It’s nothing short of a miracle! Unbelievable that something so very simple could do so much!

Since the surgery, my eyes have felt like I’m looking through old contact lenses. However, my eyes just continue to get better every day. I’m using a lot of special eye drops but every day as I wake up and have healed a little more the haze gets less and less and the world becomes even more clear and wonderful. It’s amazing how bright and crisp things are, it is different than when I was near-sighted. Wow… when I was nearsighted! What a fun thing to be able to say!

The rest of the trip was fun. Mari and Jeremy brought their little bird Maynard and I had a fun time playing with him. The wedding shower was only a little bit awkward, and it was great seeing the niece and nephews again, they are getting so big!

Now I’m looking forward to spending a few weeks at home before we head back to Cali for the wedding!

Here's me after the surgery and my doctor. They sent it to me in an e-mail. My eyes are numb, so I look pretty strung out.

Spring has... passed??

We went from freezing days to the near 90's in a matter of a week! I think we just skipped over spring and headed right into summer. The good news is that we seem to have planted our vegetables in time this year. We have a few tomato plants that are starting to put out flowers and the Columbine that I planted from seed last year and abused over the winter has decided that it wanted to bloom! I have these spectacular dark purple and white tube flowers, I'm just thrilled!

Hazen and I spent a long weekend with visitors from California down in Orlando. Since I've been in Florida, I have been to the Disney Parks 3 times, and always with the Californios. I guess I'm just not as loyal to the mouse as they are! My parents came over with my Aunt Cheryl and Uncle Taylor and their two youngest. We had a wonderful time casually strolling around the parks, taking in a few rides and shows, but mostly enjoying eachother's company. It was a fun weekend and it's always nice to see my family when I don't have a long plane ride just before and after. I'll take I-75 any day over LAX!

Still no sign of Musket. I made Hazen pull off the road the other day so I could examine a bird carcass that I thought could be a raptor, but turned out to be a very squished turkey. He says that he'll give me until Independence Day to be a spaz about the bird. Though I still keep my eye on the sky, It think it is starting to wear off now. I'm beginning to look forward to the next bird with eager anticipation.

We have a full summer ahead of us with two trips to California and one to Alaska, so there will be plenty of fun stuff to talk about in the absence of my normal obsession.

I love you all, thanks for reading! I promise more pictures soon!

Nowhere

It's been four days now and still no sign of Musket. Hazen and I have gone back and checked three times, but still nothing. As I drive, I have been scanning tree-tops and power poles to see if she'll show up. I haven't seen a red-tail since I let her go.

It's been unseasonably cold the past two days and the wind has blowing steadily. She probably got herself up onto a nice breeze and pushed out of the area. I'm a little sad that I haven't had a chance to see her again, with the cold, I'd really like to be sure she has a nice solid meal. I'll keep looking for her, but I feel my chances of seeing her slipping away with every day.

On another note, I took my first horseback riding lesson in 3 months. Meredith (the lady who owns the barn) has a new warmblood horse that she let me ride for the lesson. He's just huge and his trot is unbelievable! The gal I was taking the lesson with rode him once at a trot without her stirrups and she bounced right out of the saddle and on the ground. She refuses to ride him any more! I had a lot of fun with him, but I'm seriously saddle sore this morning... eesh!

Musket's Release

Well, I did it. I let my bird go. I decided that she was not destined to be a squirrel hawk and that is was just not fair to keep her unless I can get her on some rabbits. So for the past two weeks I have been feeding her as much as she would eat through her food chute. Even still, when I would come in to her mew with my glove, she would jump up to it without hesitation and let me change out her jesses. They say that the whole bond is about food, but I also think that it’s about the time you put in with your bird. After two weeks of very minimal handling to try to break the bond, she was still easy to work with and when I went into her mew Saturday evening to put on her jesses and leash for the last time, she hopped up all the same just like it was any day. I had not intended for this to be my last evening with her, but Hazen suggested that it was better to pull off the band-aid quickly then to spend a sleepless night dreaming about getting up early to release her. Ultimately he was right.

I put Musket in her box and loaded up a pile of chicken necks so she would leave me with a full crop. We drove to this creepy barn where Hazen wants to go one day and take black and white pictures. She was easy as I opened her Giant Hood and guided her on to my fist. Hazen readied the camera, and with my heart in my throat, I cut the anklets loose. On cue, he tossed out her meal and she hesitated before leaving my fist and I had to urge her to go for the fresh meat lying in the grass. I’m sure the hesitation was due to her lack of hunger, but eventually her animal instincts took over; she just cannot pass up a free meal. She glided from my fist to the ground and spent the good part of 10 minutes searching for all the chicken. Eventually she realized that she had found all of the food and finally jumped to a post.

I watched her for a few minutes and then we backed up and drove off. I watched the rear-view mirror as her image disappeared. I am sure that picture will be burned in my brain for the rest of my life. Hazen and I took a little drive and came back just to see if she would still be sitting in the same place, but she was nowhere to be found. I hope she has put herself up in a nice tree to spend the night in. Hopefully she will catch a nice thermal and get the urge to migrate north. Maybe one day soon she’ll make new little red-tail babies of her own. In the meantime, I’ll head back and check on her for at least the next week or so.

We went back the next day and drove up and down the road where we released Musket. On the way we passed two live squirrels and one dead in the road. Maybe she’ll be more successful on her own than she was with me. We searched the tree-line and the power poles, but no sign of Musket. As we headed back, I saw a large soaring raptor, but it was too quick to get a positive ID. Hazen thinks it might have been a red-shouldered hawk, but I’m not so sure… Hopefully I’ll get lucky enough to really see her, at least one more time.

Looking forward, I am excited about the next bird. In September I will try to trap a small male red-tail with big feet. I know so much about training a hawk and I think I can avoid the mistakes that I made with Musket. There’s nothing like living with a red-tail, and I can’t wait to have one of these amazing birds back in my life. Until then, I feel like a small piece of me is out there somewhere and I am starting to wonder if I’ll ever be the same again.

I've posted my release video on YouTube. I should show up on the top of the sidebar to the right of this post.

Wildfire

In my last post I put up some pictures of a nice tame prescribed fire. Several weeks later, Hazen was called to particpate in a wildfire near his work. His co-worker Clell took a moment to take this video before he got scolded by his boss for not checking for spot fires. After this video was taken, they found that the main fire had thrown spot fires over 300 feet on the other side of the road. This was a tremendous fire. These trees ended up as black sticks. Oh, and that's Hazen standing in the fore-ground.

Fire

I promised some videos of fire, so here they are.

Hazen spent the entire day away from me on the other side of a 2200 acre burn, but I did manage to sneak a video. Hopefully I can get on another burn at Blanding where I can get some decent footage and spend some real time with my Husband. I always liked buring with him.

In one of the clips, you can hear what sounds like firecrakers going off in the distance. Those were 50 caliber blanks from miliatry training that they had in late December. It sounded like world war 3.

Enjoy!

So... It's March.

It’s been fairly quiet this week around the old house as I stayed at home and Hazen spent the week teaching at Engine Academy. The cold weather keeps making it’s way down from the north to give us a few days of freezing. All the outdoor plants that are not cold hardy have finally given up the ghost. I told Hazen that I want to replant our dead citrus with plums to see if we get a better result. Our sad little lemon and orange trees have completely frozen over and dropped all their leaves. I don’t think they’ll be coming back.

Musket was too high of weight to fly on Saturday and Sunday was full of high wind gusts and rain. Oh well. Only four more weekends to hunt and then she goes up for the season. I’m getting a little worried though, for some other falconers have seen small groups already starting to migrate, and Musket could easily get swept up in one of those sudden urges to move this time of year. I’m going to keep her in treed areas so she does not get a chance to go up into a good soar. Hopefully that will keep her with me for the next year.

I have reduced the size of my rabbitry by two does. My original breeder girls have found new homes, one as hawk food and the other as a beloved pet to a friend who is crazy about animals. She’ll have a good home, and I’m happy for her, she is an awfully sweet girl. The other who was not so fortunate, was not quite pet quality, and though I tried to find her a home, it fell through. With a heavy heart, I asked Hazen to do the deed, and he humanely killed her for me. Ultimately, it’s a good thing. That one rabbit was eating enough for the rest of my herd; she had a roll of fat under her chin and would push the other babies aside to shovel food into her mouth! It’s still not easy, but I’m getting better at separating myself from the cute factor of baby rabbits and the necessity of fresh, hormone-free food for my predator.

This week will see the return of the Mitchell Clan to our home to again block the trash-pile that has taken over my neighbor’s yard. I have all the parts to enhance our electric fence and I have been told that my hedge plants should arrive sometime in March. She won’t like it, but it is time to do what we need to do so I can start enjoying my yard again.

All and all things have been pretty quiet. I have had the chance to get out and do some prescribed burning the past few weeks. I’ll have another chance to do that again this week, and I’ll try to get some nice movies of fire. Ahh.. fieldwork… delightful!

TTFN

Fun February

It’s been an interesting few weeks. I’ve moved my office from Olustee to Lake City, about 10 miles down the road. That was a huge chore! I have a much smaller office with a different drive and a bland view, but at least I have a window and the AC/Heater work wonderfully. The last building I had to keep a small space heater in the room with me, even on hot days because the building would cool to freezing and I wasn’t allowed to adjust my heat or the whole system would crash! There were times where I had the roaring of the AC blowing in my office and the fan on the heater blowing and it was difficult to hear my phone ring. So, things are better in some ways, but it’s difficult moving and adjusting to a new pace working at the regional office.

Hazen and I went to the Hogtowne Mideval Faire for the 5th year. Time has been flying living in North Florida. It’s become a tradition to dress up and head down to the faire for an afternoon back in time. This year the lady who does the falconry display lost one of her Harris Hawks as it climbed to the top of a power transformer and fried itself. It was very sad. Thankfully, I did not go on that day, I would have hated to have seen that. She had another Harris Hawk that she was obviously training at the presentation I saw that probably was a replacement of the bird she lost. That’s one of the hazards of flying in urban areas.

For the past week I have been suffering from the results of a tooth extraction and a bone graft to fill the socket. I spent four days just eating, sleeping, and taking my pain medications, that was kind of nice actually. But after the “honeymoon” period, I had to go to work and deal with the realities of daily mouth pain… eesh! I had a dull ache for so long with the bad tooth that I thought I could handle this other kind of pain, but I’m pretty tired of it. It’s hard to eat and I bet I’ve lost at least 5 lbs in the last week. Things are definitely improving this morning though, so I’m happy to say that I’m finally on the mend. In 4-6 months, I go back to the dentist and have them put my dental implant in. Then 4-6 months after that has had time to heal, they put the crown on my tooth. It’s a difficult and expensive process, but I think it will be worth all the pain and money in the end.

Hazen watched Musket for me while I was out for the count. She took to him pretty well.

In other news, my horse sold this weekend. She went to a nice home where she will be a lesson horse and serve as a low level dressage mount for her new owner. I’m happy for Zaby Baby, she’ll have a nice life with this lady and hopefully a good retirement. I had a surprising message to one of my ads from the woman who owned Zabra for a big part of her life. She sent me an e-mail out of the blue asking if my horse was the Iberian warmblood registered as Zabra Star Groove. Well after talking to the woman I bought Zabra from, it turns out that yes, this was the same horse. This woman had purchased Zabra in California back in the early 90s and had moved her over to Jacksonville in 1997. She told me that Zabra had at least one foal that she knows of and that she was born in the spring of 1992. That made her 16 years old this year turning 17 in the spring. Fully 3 years older than I thought she was. Well, it was a fun conversation with this lady and I made a new friend out of it. I am hoping to go watch her and her Friesian stallion show in Clay County next weekend. Small world. Oh, and the woman who bought Zabra brought my old horse Cisco to the barn for someone else to try out. She took Zabra home with her and Cisco stayed at the barn with his new owners. Weird how things work out sometimes.

We spent a wonderful weekend with Warren, Jenny, and little baby Lincoln. They did a low pressure “practice” trip down to visit us over their long weekend. Unfortunately, the weather changed for the worse and rained for the first time in two weeks. This Monday though, is just stunning, now that they have headed back… oh well. We spent Saturday at the Waldo flea market and had some boiled peanuts and popcorn and ate a fabulous lunch in Gainesville. Warren brought some snow goose from his January kill that we ate grilled and wrapped in bacon. It was wonderful!

Sunday we went out to the barn and hunted Musket. We had her chasing a squirrel for about 45 minutes, but she was pretty lack-luster about it. At one point though, she finally saw him and went for it, but missed. I was sure she had it this time. The squirrel bailed and ran for another tree. Musket followed in hot pursuit, but in the end, the squirrel managed to get himself in a good spot and got away. We ended the hunt by throwing out a bagged rabbit, that Musket had no trouble catching. I did the final killing of the rabbit, it was my first time breaking the rabbits neck. I didn’t know if I’d be able to do it, but I did! Musket traded nicely to a chicken leg and I let her eat the whole thing. Now, I bring her weight down and try again next week.

The First One Bites the Dust!

I wanted to get this blogged immediately, but the flu struck me hard over the weekend and I wasn’t able to actually sit down and get this typed out.

We experienced several nights of freezing weather last week. In fact, I think it was hard enough to finally kill the lemon trees, so much for growing citrus in North Florida… sigh. Well, those cold cold nights were enough to take Musket’s weight down to where she could be hunted again. I decided that I would get everything ready so once the morning hit, we’d be able to hunt squirrels in the yard without having to go outside. Musket was eager, she was armed with new bells and a hungry attitude. She was as low as she’s been the entire season. I was pumped.

Two squirrels were casually raiding my feeders surrounded by maybe 100 local birds (they empty our feeders every day now). Hazen came armed with his air rifle to wound the squirrel if I needed him to in order to give my handicapped bird a fighting chance. We came around the house beside the RV and everything that was in the yard took off for cover. Musket put herself in a high tree, and didn’t immediately make for the squirrel as it blindly ran across the yard. Undaunted, I went searching for the squirrel, intent to flush it or work my bird around it. It had lodged itself at the base of one of the tall pine trees. Hazen asked me to walk forward to scare it away from me towards him so he could take a shot. Instead of hanging on to the tree, it decided to make a break for it and jumped off the tree across the bare ground. Hazen was standing aiming at it, knowing he didn’t have a prayer to hit it, however, there was this hawk, who happened to be in perfect position, a bullet with a set of eyes! She came diving out of this tree onto this squirrel and nailed it, dead on. It happened lightning fast! I rushed over to protect my bird from gnawing squirrel teeth (they can be nasty) and pulled him off of chewing the back of her leg. Then I just held on until he gave it up.

I clipped Musket in so I’d have her secure in case she decided to take her prize into a tree, which I’m glad I did because after she settled, she did try to carry it away. After a couple of tries, I finally managed to trade her off to a chicken neck, but later in her mews I gave her the whole squirrel, her prize. She was full from the meal of chicken I gave her as a reward, but that didn’t stop her from protecting her rightful kill. She spent the next two days on the ground with it, hunching over every time I came near to take a picture or to check on her. By Monday, there was nothing left, and she was fat and happy. It was amazing. I feel like I have finally arrived, like finally, after all this time, I can call myself a falconer.

It would not let me upload my video of trading Musket off of her squirrel. I've posted it on YouTube. You can probably see it in the video bar next to this post.

Yarak

Last night was COLD! It got down to 22 degrees with a wind-chill of 14. In the spirit of bringing Musket’s weight down, I did not feed her and let her spend the night in the cold. When I came out to check on her and the rabbits this morning, she was not on her perch. Worried, I hurried over to the mew and found her perching on the ground… hmm… not a good sign.

I grabbed my falconry glove and went into the cage to collect Musket. She was fluffed up and freezing. Her eyelashes had droplets of frozen water on them. Eesh! I weighed her and she had lost 30g in a day an a half, that’s quite a lot! Well, I thought she’d had enough of the cold so I brought her to work with me to keep her warm.

Generally at work she just sits and keeps to herself, but I think this cold weather and no food has put her close to yarak. Yarak is a falconry term that describes a bird that is in a condition that it is most keen to hunt. The whole world then revolves around how to get a meal… NOW! It’s probably natures way of making the hawk aggressive enough to catch it’s next meal when it’s gone for a few days without food, the second wind. Musket was sitting calmly in her box this morning with the heater on her to get her warmed up. I guess she got warm enough because she waited until I stepped out of the office for 1 minute to hop out of the box and search for food. I came back from bringing out the garbage to find her reaching at the end of her leash for the tidbits I brought in a bag. Without thinking, I reached down and snatched them. I probably shouldn’t have done that because she was not happy about it. I tried to pick her up and she footed my glove… hmm. I hid the tidbits best I could and got a couple on my glove, then tried again. This time she came willingly. I put her back in the box and turned around to put the tidbits away, and she came walking out of the box again. Sigh. I went through the same procedure, but she was getting pretty upset with me by this point. When I put her in the box the second time and she footed my glove hard a few times. Double sigh. I’ve been trying to disassociate her aggression from my glove, but until we can get out and slaughter some things, I think she’ll still be fist-bound. So I thought, I bet she’s upset because this glove has taken food from her, so I let her have a couple of pea-sized tidbits. The first she took nicely, the second she leapt from her perch in her box and footed the glove with both feet. Triple sigh…just making it worse. So, I took her out and let her just sit on the glove for 20 minutes, eventually she calmed down and stopped footing the glove.

Just to be clear, the aggression is something I definitely want… it will make her a better hunter. I just need to direct that aggression away from my glove to the lure or the prey. I’m sure that in this situation today she was looking for any source of food and the glove was the only thing she could find. Not that big of a deal, I guess, but it feels discouraging.

As far as getting more food, I’m going to stick to my guns and not feed her anything more than the washed beef tidbits I’ve prepared for her. She’ll stay inside tonight though. Careful what you wish for.

Smart Squirrels + Fat Hawk = D'oh!

It’s been a long couple of weeks pairing down Musket’s weight to get her hunting ready again. She still has another 50g to lose, but with the overnight temperatures dipping down to 22 degrees for the next two nights, she should be huntable by this weekend (fingers crossed).

Despite her higher than ideal hunt weight, I could not pass up the opportunity of 5 squirrels casually raiding my bird feeders yesterday morning. She had fed the day before on the creance with a slow response, but I still wanted to try… temptation is a dangerous mistress! Carefully and sneakily, I whisked the rabbits away. Hazen kept a watchful eye on the squirrels as I cautiously removed Musket from her mew. They must have heard the hawk because as soon as I came out of the mew door, I heard a scuffle in the back yard. I knew the jig was up, and when I got back to the house, Hazen told me that they were all riled up, nervously swishing their tails and on high alert in the trees. I waited with Musket inside for about 15 minutes, but the squirrels were slowly starting to retreat. This was the opportunity; I either give up or seize it. So I stepped out on the back porch with the hawk and must have set her off balance in my nervous excitement because instead of taking off for the squirrel that was so obviously running away, she was fussing with her jesses! Argh! The squirrels climbed to the safety of the tall pines and Musket was completely unawares. I thought we had blown it.

Eagle-eyed Hazen however, spotted a squirrel standing stock still on the corn feeder. His fat little body was frozen, knowing that any movement would attract the predator’s eye. Well, I started walking towards the squirrel and Musket finally did see him. She took off and flew high to try to cut the squirrel off, but he ducked behind the tree and she took to a high branch. Unfortunately, this is where her high weight hindered her hunting drive. The squirrel was climbing through the branches and she sat calmly in the tree enjoying the high perch. She wasn’t interested in hunting really. I walked back to the original scene of the hunt, and there was not a squirrel visible anywhere. So, I called her to the lure and ended the hunt.

Another miss, but I can hardly count that as her fault. I knew she was far too high to hunt, but I was hoping that the freedom of being on the wing after a month in the mew would light a spark in her. Nope, it’s all about weight and hunger… that’s the drive, nothing else. It’s amazing when it works though. We’ll get that squirrel soon!

On another note, we visited Merritt Island National Park this weekend. It’s right next to the launch pad for the space shuttle. We had a nice trip, saw lots of fun winter birds, and enjoyed a nice meal at a fancy fish restaurant. Merritt island was an easy place to bird, no exercise required!

Sneaking Snacks

The weather has been ridiculously warm since we got back from California. It’s been in the 80’s or high 70’s most days, which makes it difficult to get Musket to shed those ounces. I was reading the hunting logs from some falconers up north where it gets below freezing every night, and they feed their birds lots of food, sometimes whole squirrels and they are ready to hunt again in a day. If I fed Musket a whole squirrel, it’d be a week before she’d be ready to hunt again. Oh well, my choice to live in warm sunny Florida.

But, apparently, my bird is getting her food from another source besides me! I went out this morning just as the sky was starting to lighten to check on the rabbits (my Red Bunny had 8 babies yesterday) and Musket was not on her usual perch. This concerned me a little as she’s usually on her perch half asleep at that time in the morning. Musket was sitting below her perch, looking possessive. Well, I took a short video of what I discovered. Apparently, a little toad had wandered into her cage and even with the dim light, she saw it and caught it! I don’t know if a frog counts as a first wild kill or not, but I was still pretty happy about it. But her hunting in the mew hinders my attempts to take her weight down; she was scheduled for NO FOOD today. Oh well, it was funny.



On another note, all “bunnies which are too cute to kill” have found new homes. In fact, more people were interested than I had rabbits for. Hopefully this will be the only time I have to give away perfectly good hawk food, but I think it is for the greater good. I spent the day yesterday with one of them and she sure was sweet. I’ll have to try to hunt the other ones before they develop personalities!

Hazen is taking the Pack Test today. In order to fight fire, you know, those times where he leaves me for weeks at a time but makes a pile of money, he has to take a physical test. The test involves walking 3 miles carrying 45lbs in 45 min or less. I took it one year and passed by the skin of my teeth, but I’ve decided that Hazen can be the bread winner where that is concerned. He re-takes it every January and if he passes, he gets his Red Card that allows him to be called out on federal fire incidents. I hope he can do it this year, we need a shed!

Happy New Year

Back to the normal routine after the Christmas Break in California. Hazen, for my birthday, agreed to let me purchase a video camera, so expect frequent movies on the blog!

I have decided to start making some changes in my life, call it my new-year's resolution. After careful thought, I have decided that I need to cut back on my hobbies, I just have too many and not enough time to dedicate to them. Falconry and Dressage (horse-back riding) both take up a lot of my time and one needs to go, and Falconry has won the battle. I will be selling my beautiful Andalusian/Thoroughbred cross Zabra to a new happy home, as soon as I find one. It was not an easy decision, but it is the right decision.



So that gives me more time to dedicate to Falconry and the Blog!! Though, I have decided that this blog will include non-falcory events, just to keep things interesting.

Musket will be spending the next several weeks loosing the 5 ounces she gained as a result of getting a nice fat meal every day without having to work for it. I'm sure she is not happy about returing to the "will work for food" routine, but I hope to have her back in shape in a few weeks so we can get that first kill!

Baby Rabbits for Sale? I have two baby rabbits that are just too cute to be hawk chow. When my sweet Mother-in-Law, Marthanne, threatened to break momma rabbit's neck if she hurt those babies when I told her I put mom back in with them, I knew I had to do something. She has developed a fondness for dark-colored baby rabbits, so Boo Bunny and Mittens need a home! If anyone has any ideas, please let me know.

That's it for updates, I think. My last post was pretty bland as far as the pictures were concerned, so I thought I'd make up for it today. Presenting, pictures of things I love part 1. (Love you all by the way, thanks for looking!)




TTFN!