NAFA Field Meet Day #2 (for us) Wednesday Nov. 21

Our second full meet day in Kearney (on Wednesday) was spent mostly driving around looking for possible locations to hunt.  We followed a lead up North, looking for a field where there might be squirrels, but upon finding it no one at the house answered the door.  We did select a different farm yard which turned out to be a really good location!  I don't have pictures here, but do have some on our last day as we did return, so I'll tell more about the landowner's then.  Suffice to say, despite the warmth (low 70s) and the high wind, I consider Hit Girl to have caught her second rabbit, although it did not come to the bag.  We were flushing bunnies across this grassy valley, and the daughter who lives there asked if she could let one of her dogs do some flushing.  Hit Girl has never flown with a dog, but I thought it would be a good chance to try.  The young lady indicated she had really good control of her dog, Zeus, a pit bull . . . and she did.  However, when we flushed a bunny, and Hit Girl stooped and caught it, and bunny cried out, Zeus thought that was just too much fun, and he ran in on the hawk, who released her bunny and flew up to a pole and sulked for 10 minutes.  The bunny got away.  After she got her beak out of her snit, and the dog was put back in the house, we flew some more, but no further catches.  After securing names and phone numbers, I was invited to come back later in the week. 

Rich and I drove around a bit looking for someplace for Sassy to be flown.  We found a spot that I thought would probably be game-poor, but at least she could stretch her wings, and it was motly out of the view of the public.  When we returned to the meet weathering yard to collect her, we met the two gentlemen above who were in town purchasing a plane, a corporate jet, for their company.  Really!  They asked if they could see Sassy fly, and I said 'sure'!  As suspected, the place I chose did not have much in the way of game.  We did kick up a covey of quail, but they simply fly too fast to be caught by the Harris Hawk.  We did push a marsh, which kicked out one bunny, but Sassy did not catch it.  Mostly, again, they just got a good flying show.  In the middle above is Rob Binder from Vancouver, Canada.  On the right is Dave Grieve, from Powell River, Canada.  Thank you gentlemen for coming out and taking a walk with us.  Sorry you didn't get to see more of a show, but that is why it is called 'hunting'.

Rich and I returned to our room to clean up, and attended the conference that evening.  The guest speaker was a young lady, falconer, who spent a year in Mongolia learning eagle falconry.  She was a very interesting speaker, and afterwards Rich and I won a few items on the raffle table.  Nothing too exciting, but I have a new shirt, and he has another hat.