8; 9 & 10 DOUBLE DIGIT PARTY WOO
Re-enabling custom comment pages until LJ gets its shit together. Sorry if they annoy you; they annoy me too, but less than the new comment page does.
Anyway, Pele caught #8 on the 19th in a new field that I had my eye on for a while but had not tried out. It wasn't great, but not terrible either, I suppose. She chased a bunny, ignored some meadowlarks, and then tried to be a redtail and follow along in the trees as I walked. I would be fine with this, except that she often chooses to go to the trees when I'm too far away from her for them to give her much of an advantage, so she's too high up and too far from most slips to be effective. What worked out perfectly this time was that at some point I turned away and headed back out toward the center of the field, she flew to my glove to catch up, and a sparrow flushed just five steps later. She missed it, but I think it proved to her that being on the glove has its advantages in terms of having a slightly better chance. She did catch one not too far after that. While walking back to the car, some guys working on some farm equipment at one of the nearby warehouses were clearly saying something to each other about a "falcon", haha. They were busy, and Pele was unhooded, or I would have introduced them to her. She did meet the woman who owned the shop that I had parked in front of, though, when I was getting ready to put her back into the car. She was hooded by then, though, haha.
Yesterday we tried some fields out east of town, which I have been told is a great area to hunt. Well, yesterday, that was not the case. The vegetation was mainly this nasty woody vine, which didn't seem to harbor many sparrows and mostly just made it impossible to walk. We had one flush the whole time on a sparrow, which she missed. We drove around to find somewhere else to hunt, and I tried a grassy ditch that ran along behind some other buildings, and Pele had a few chases on bunnies and birds, but again, it made for tough traveling and didn't produce much game. Then it started to rain, and somehow Pele lost half of a tail feather, so we gave up. I was exhausted from slogging through treacherous vegetation, up and down the banks of 12 foot high canals, and she was getting wet and annoyed at the lack of slips.
To make up for it, I headed back out to our favorite field today. Within an hour, Pele had chased a bunny and a ton of sparrows, two of which she caught - and, somewhat hilariously to me, the last she caught while I was on the phone with my graduate advisor, who needs my help tomorrow morning trapping a Coops that got stuck in someone's warehouse. She almost got a third while we were heading back to the car, too. I expect she'll be fat tomorrow, given how slow her metabolism has gotten lately, but she's also been so responsive to me, and so eager to hunt, that if she's only a few grams too high I might try anyway. I'm now flying her consistently around 400, and the difference between here and where she started off at 385 is incredible, though I don't know how much is attributable to her higher weight and how much is a result of her increased confidence and experience. I suspect it is the latter that allows me to fly her successfully at 400 grams, and that added weight gives her more energy to fly harder and faster. So if her hunting weight creeps upward, I can't complain, so long as she stays attentive and eager to chase.
Anyway, Pele caught #8 on the 19th in a new field that I had my eye on for a while but had not tried out. It wasn't great, but not terrible either, I suppose. She chased a bunny, ignored some meadowlarks, and then tried to be a redtail and follow along in the trees as I walked. I would be fine with this, except that she often chooses to go to the trees when I'm too far away from her for them to give her much of an advantage, so she's too high up and too far from most slips to be effective. What worked out perfectly this time was that at some point I turned away and headed back out toward the center of the field, she flew to my glove to catch up, and a sparrow flushed just five steps later. She missed it, but I think it proved to her that being on the glove has its advantages in terms of having a slightly better chance. She did catch one not too far after that. While walking back to the car, some guys working on some farm equipment at one of the nearby warehouses were clearly saying something to each other about a "falcon", haha. They were busy, and Pele was unhooded, or I would have introduced them to her. She did meet the woman who owned the shop that I had parked in front of, though, when I was getting ready to put her back into the car. She was hooded by then, though, haha.
Yesterday we tried some fields out east of town, which I have been told is a great area to hunt. Well, yesterday, that was not the case. The vegetation was mainly this nasty woody vine, which didn't seem to harbor many sparrows and mostly just made it impossible to walk. We had one flush the whole time on a sparrow, which she missed. We drove around to find somewhere else to hunt, and I tried a grassy ditch that ran along behind some other buildings, and Pele had a few chases on bunnies and birds, but again, it made for tough traveling and didn't produce much game. Then it started to rain, and somehow Pele lost half of a tail feather, so we gave up. I was exhausted from slogging through treacherous vegetation, up and down the banks of 12 foot high canals, and she was getting wet and annoyed at the lack of slips.
To make up for it, I headed back out to our favorite field today. Within an hour, Pele had chased a bunny and a ton of sparrows, two of which she caught - and, somewhat hilariously to me, the last she caught while I was on the phone with my graduate advisor, who needs my help tomorrow morning trapping a Coops that got stuck in someone's warehouse. She almost got a third while we were heading back to the car, too. I expect she'll be fat tomorrow, given how slow her metabolism has gotten lately, but she's also been so responsive to me, and so eager to hunt, that if she's only a few grams too high I might try anyway. I'm now flying her consistently around 400, and the difference between here and where she started off at 385 is incredible, though I don't know how much is attributable to her higher weight and how much is a result of her increased confidence and experience. I suspect it is the latter that allows me to fly her successfully at 400 grams, and that added weight gives her more energy to fly harder and faster. So if her hunting weight creeps upward, I can't complain, so long as she stays attentive and eager to chase.