Tuesday, April 28, 2009

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!

Wednesday, April 8, 2009

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!

Monday, April 6, 2009

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.

Saturday, April 4, 2009

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.