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!