Fat and Happy

Goblin is doing much better now. It's taken about 5 days of constant feeding, but he has finally reached a point where is is gaining weight!

It's been a process. I was told that it is almost as hard to put weight back on them when they get low as it is to take weight off of them when they're fat. Well, as usual, the experts were right. I managed to get him to eat fairly easily and I gave him 2-3 feedings per day. Basically, when he'd put over his crop, I'd feed him more. After 3 days of loading him down with food and after his energy level appeared to be improving, I finally weighed him. To my utter shock, he weighed the same if not less than when I pulled him soaking wet out of the mew that horrible day! Wow! At least this time he had energy and he seemed to be more eager about taking food and he was definately taking larger quantities.

Monday he started futzing around with his bells and jesses again, so I knew he was really starting to feel like his old self. When I weighed him, he'd put on a significat load of weight. Yesterday he spent the day in the mew and Hazen stayed home and was able to watch him. I took him in to spend a warm night indoors and when I picked him up this morning, he was noticably heafty. I've gotten him back up to a good weight. For good measure though, I am going to give him a few more gorgings and then start bringing his weight back down.

I feel much better now that I know that he is feeling good. Even at this higher weight and with all the food he can handle, he is still allowing me to handle him with minimal resistance. It is interesting though how closely our relationship ties around food. Even though he does let me handle him, he couldn't care to give me a second glance right now where I could hardly keep him off of me when he was lower.

In the picture, he has on a hood that I made this weekend. I spent a whole day on it, so of course he doesn't like it! Even though it doesn't touch his eyes, I think it's a little on the small side, so I'm going to try again this weekend to make him another one.

I still think that we'll have time to get a few hunts in this season. I hope to free-fly him before we take the trip to Texas. When we get back, I'll have to manage his weight again to get him in the right condition and hope for a few good hunts before the season is over. Whatever happens, we'll knock-em dead next fall.

Listen to the Nagging Voice!

The last week with Goblin has been fairly challenging. I have been following a training method set out in Gary Brewer’s book Buteos and Bushytails. I had my doubts at first, but once I got Goblin out of the house and flying to me on the creance, he was a superstar! Then, we had some bad weather days. The day after our first spectacular session on the creance was raining, so he just got to eat some food in the mew. The next day was insanely windy. I watched a tree fall in the 1 acre woods behind the house as I was trying to fly him. He was a little shaky, but I couldn’t blame that on him, the weather was terrible. The next day the weather was perfect and he did well on the creance, but after a few minutes, he would start to lose interest and look around. We also had a bad day since Sabel had torn up a toy in the yard and he attacked it and tried to eat it. He traded off well (which was something I hadn’t even worked with him on) but after that little incident, he was more focused on the ground than on me. The next day was better, but he lost focus early so I terminated the session early. I tried to figure out why his response would slow down. He seemed to be making a good effort, but it looked like a lot of effort. I thought maybe his equipment was too heavy or maybe since he’s coming off of a low perch, it takes a lot of effort to get altitude. I also had the thought that he might be too low, but I felt that if he was too low, he would be insanely aggressive about the food.

The next day I went to my class in Tallahassee. I didn’t get back until just at dark and by then, he had already gone to roost. I was anticipating not feeding him on this day and hoped that he would show keenness during our next session. Then came the flurry of storms. We had about 4 hours of thunderstorms descend upon our house dropping more than 5 inches of rain in that time. The whole time I was sitting at work on pins and needles wondering how my bird was fairing the storm or if the high winds or chance of tornados would rip the roof off the mew. When I got home, Goblin was soaking wet and sitting on the bottom of his mew… uh-oh! When I went in to get him, he was eager to take the food but had trouble getting on my fist. He was too low! I called my sponsor and he walked me through what to do. I imagine that the stress of the storms combined with low weight was enough to put him over the edge. He had dropped a ridiculous amount of weight since I last fed him. Musket could take several days without a feeding, but this little guy’s metabolism must be much higher than hers.

I took the poor sopping wet bird inside and fed him as much as he would eat. I stuck him under a heat lamp and he started to feel better and look around. I’ve never felt so horrible in my life. Rudy made me feel better about it, it happens, and now I know his low weight. Now I also know to listen to that nagging voice in the back of my head telling me that he seems a little weak, and that might be why his response is slow. I’m going to bring his weight back up and then down again. This has set our training back at least a week, but I don’t care as long as the bird is healthy. Right now he’s sitting nice and cozy with a foot tucked up and a full crop of food.

And time goes on.

It took Goblin 4 days to get brave enough to eat from the glove. I had to coax him by shoving a piece of meat in his mouth. It was fun watching his reaction to the meat hanging out of there. I could see his little tounge lightly touch the meat and then his eyes got wide as he realized what it was and he snapped it up. Then he gently reached down and eventually convinced himself that he wanted the food on the glove. The next day he was a little hesitant, but he took the food with no coaxing and the day after that he eagerly went for the food.

It took me two more days to convince him that he need to step to the glove now to take his food, but he did it! Yesterday, I got him to hop to my glove from this perch you see in the picture. He was entirely focus on the food, it was amazing. That first leap was hard, and the next two or three were similarily difficult, but I think after building his confidence (and stomach) for a few days of these excercises, I'll be ready to move him to the mew (hawk cage) for his next phase of training.

I love watching his progress as he learns that I'm not going to kill him, and now I'm feeding him. How confusing that must be for a solitary hunter. Now when I look in at him in the hawk box, he starts to smack his lips (as much as a bird can) in anticipation of feeding. He is also starting to settle down, and does not jump off my fist as much (though he still takes the leap whenever the mood strikes). But those moods are becoming less and less frequent. He's starting to feel like a falconry bird and less like a wild beastie. Now that he's letting me do things with him and I'm starting to settle into a familiar routine, it's hard to not call him Musket. He looks so much like her but in miniature. I still miss that bird.

Wish me luck as we move on the the next phase. Soon I'll be asking him to come to my fist in the hawk cage, which should be interesting...

At last...

After thousands of miles, countless hours, a lot of frustration, and some tears; I finally brought home a beautiful little red-tail! We call him Goblin.

After our wonderful vacation to Texas to spend Christmas with Hazen’s family (and seeing tons of beautiful hawks lining the roads) we started back at trapping. Since the days are so short now, we had to wait until New Year’s Day to have the opportunity to get out and look for some birds. As forecasted, New Year’s morning was windy and wet, but it cleared out and turned into a really nice sunny day at about 2pm. After watching the Rose Parade on DVR (I love DVR!), we headed out to look for a bird. Secretly, Hazen and I were thinking, “this time we’ll get one.” I figured that after a bad weather morning, there would be birds all over trying to catch a meal before the sun set. Well, we saw birds, but no juvenile red-tails and the other birds seemed pretty scarce too.

After that day, I was feeling pretty down. Hazen later admitted to me that he felt the same way, but on the outside, we were both trying to remain optimistic even if we felt differently.
Saturday morning came and we got up early and headed south this time. We took the back roads to Ocala—Horse Country. I figured that Ocala would provide lots of open fields and we might have a better chance at seeing a bird. It took us over 2 hours to get down to the Ocala area, and that whole time we saw only 2 adult red-tails where we had seen 8 the night before. I was really starting to get depressed at this point. The way I figured it was this was my last weekend to trap with help since Hazen is teaching a class starting next Saturday. After that I’d be on my own, so I really wanted to catch a bird this time. Also, time is running short for the trapping season, it ends on January 15th.

We hit Ocala and then tried to figure out where to go next. I decided that we should make it a loop and start heading back for home so we took a turn and headed North-west. After we got out of the town of Ocala, we started to hit some open fields. Hazen saw a bird and casually informed me. It took me a second to register and then even longer to get off the road. We were too far away by the time I stopped to get a good ID on it so we made a U-turn and headed back towards it. As we were watching, a person on a bicycle drove right under the bird… d’oh! But it didn’t get scared and stayed put. It was a red-tail, but more than that, it was a juvenile! Hazen identified it before I could through the Kowa spotting scope lovingly passed down to us by Hazen’s folks. (Thanks for the scope, it came in quite handy!)

After making a game-plan, Hazen and I drove across the road to set the trap. (another U-turn) we got a pole’s length away from the bird, threw out the trap, and drove away without frightening the bird (we’re pros at this now). We came back around the road to watch the bird where we could easily drive up and grab him if he went for the bait (2 more U-turns). After about 5 minutes, he looked across the road and left his perch… curses! But he didn’t go far. He landed on a tall stake on the fence-line, not too far away. As we were evaluating our next move, he made a dive for the ground after some small animal concealed in the hedge-row… more curses! After a few minutes, he left the ground and flew, without anything obviously caught in his feet, to a small billboard. Even though he had shunned the bait before, we decided to go for it. I figured that he’d still be in hunting mode at this point. We came around the road (yet again, another U-turn) and set the trap. As we were driving off, he took to the air… I figured that we had spooked him. But I watched him in the rear-view and he was making a B-line for the trap.

I didn’t know what to do so I slowed down and Hazen told me to hurry up and loop around so we could get him. From what I could see in the rear-view, he looked caught… if only we could get to him before he managed to get loose. 2 final U-turns later, I made it back to the trap. Hazen dove out of the truck and leapt on the bird. I ran out, everything looked fine, so I went back to grab my video camera and took a short movie of Hazen with the bird. Little did I know that Hazen did not actually have a hold on the bird, he was just pushing him down, and the bird slipped out of Hazen’s grip. Realizing what was happening, I dove for the bird and in my panic yelled at Hazen to not let him go. Luckily, he was pretty bound up in the trap and I got a good hold of his legs and worked on getting him out of the nooses. About this time, a concerned citizen drove up to offer assistance. He thought the bird was hung up on something and came over to free it. He was very concerned with what we were doing and why we were trapping a bird. He asked if we had proper papers to trap a bird and I assured him that we did and offered to show them to him if he would like to see them. He was still very concerned when he left so I was sure to call our Law Enforcement Dispatch to let them know just in case someone else called with similar concerns. After the man left, we finished getting the bird secured, discovered that we were missing a few essentials like scissors and a towel, but we had enough to secure him safely.

An hour later, we had him home and in his new outfit. He’s a feisty little guy…perfect light colored male red-tail with large feet and squirrel bites on his toes. This little fellow has probably already hunted squirrels. I can’t wait to see what he does in the field!

On day three now and he still hasn’t been brave enough to take food from my glove. He got really close last night, but couldn’t quite make that extra effort. I’m sure he’ll eat tonight though, then we can really start training! He’s coming around nicely; I can see little improvements every time I handle him. Thank you everyone for listening to my whining for the last few months. I’m on cloud 9 right now, all that hard work has finally paid off and I learned a lot about trapping a bird too.

I doubt the Snuggie Corporation ever envisioned their product being used while manning a hawk!



Thanks for the perch Mom and Dad!!

Hazen with Goblin on the trap. Unknown to me at this point, he doesn't have a good grip on the bird.

First time on the glove.

Goblin is quite the fighter. Even not being able to see, he still tried to bite and claw at our voices. I'm fully impressed with his ferocity.

Christmas in Texas 2009

Hazen and I spent the Holidays in Texas this year for Christmas! We took the 17 hour drive in one day (each way!) and exhausted ourselves with that little excursion. But the long drive was worth the time, we had a great time in Texas!

Hazen's folks have moved into a nice new apartment. It was so fun to see all of the paintings and furniture pieces that Hazen talks so fondly about. I felt at home right away, his parents are always so warm and welcoming! We spent the week before Christmas relaxing and catching up. We saw the movie Avatar that was stunning and fun to watch. I finally got to see some home movies of not only Hazen and Warren, but also of little Johnny Mitchell (aka Big Mitch) and his family growing up. I came away with a lot of information and finally faces to put all these names to. I also got to flip through the childhood picture albums that had been away in storage for so long. Unfortunately, there were no embarrassing nude photographs of baby Hazen to blush over. Oh well.

The week went by quickly and before we knew it, Warren had flown down and we were picking him up at the airport on Christmas Eve. We were treated to a skillfully prepared Turducken and spent the evening catching up with loved ones around a warm campfire. Christmas morning came and we awoke at a leisurely pace set by the last several days of finally being able to sleep in! We found that not only did we have lovingly constructed Christmas Stockings, but we each had enough to fill at least two grocery bags! Santa was very generous to us this year!

We opened our presents and ooooed and ahhhed over the gifts. I was particularly amazed at the hand-blown glass bowl that Hazen made for me in Alaska this summer and had skillfully hid from me this whole time. I'll take a picture of it and post it so you can see, I just love it!

Hazen's parents also passed down their birding scope. Hazen and I were just stunned when they gave it to us. I'm still a little in shock about it. We will use it well and I'm sure see many new lifer's with it. Thank you so much for trusting us with it! We've already put it to good use!

My parents also spoiled us for Christmas sending Hazen a huge Lego set (see the video below for his reaction) and many other goodies including a wonderfully fuzzy sweater-jacket that was a big hit! I'm still amazed at how spoiled I was this Christmas where they not only gave me the portable hawk perch that I've been drooling over for the last 4 months, but a piece of Vera Bradley Luggage overflowing with gifts! Mom... Dad... you really outdid yourselves this year. Thank you for the gifts, I feel so loved on Christmas and I miss home so much especially on that day. I hope to one day live closer to you. But, as it is we'll see you soon in Mexico!!

We spent Christmas Day sorting through the Mitchell treasures that could not fit into the new apartment. Hazen and I brought a truck-load of furniture home with us. We are so happy to have the extra storage and some of the beautiful pieces that Hazen has told me so much about to grace our home. Though we did discover a piece that I am sure we were not meant to have, we'll try to figure out how to get the clock back to you. Christmas evening, Hazen's uncle John made his standing rib-roast that was smoked to perfection. The meat was tender and delicious! I'd heard about this elegant meal from Hazen but had never partaken of it since the last time I was there and he served it, I was still a vegetarian... sort of.

Sunday we made the long drive home, hearts heavy at having to leave. Hazen's mother and Warren were hot on our tails hauling a trailer to North Carolina similarly laden with familiar furniture. Thank you so much for the time we spent together over the Holidays. We'll see you soon!!

Hazen opens his gift from my parents.

Warren opens the box of Christmas Goodies Hazen and I put together.

The Mitchell Treasures.

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!