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!
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2 comments:
Hi Anni! Love your blog, especially all the photos. You have such great hobbies....
Go Musket! The toad didn't know what hit it. It's cool that you can post the video from your new camera on your blog. I have to learn how you did it... I'm not so good at those things! My best wishes for Hazen's test. I am sure he'll do great!
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