Today I invited a young lady to go out hawking with me and Seneca. As usual when I invite someone to go hawking I will inform them that they:

1.  Will see a hawk today.

2.  Will see a hawk fly.

3.  May NOT see a hawk catch anything.

Today Seneca fulfilled her destiny, as Jenna suggested over Messenger, that we could have "fun" with a telemetry chase.

I went to meet Jenna near her home in Stillwater.  She works with the education birds at the University of Minnesota Raptor Center, and has extensive bird handling and training experience. She is interested in seeing falconry. Seneca has increasingly become intolerant of me having anyone else in the field with me for hunts. True to form, once released, she bounced quick.  However, she also immediately was challenged by a pair of resident hawks, and the game was on. She took off over the hill and quickly moved out of sight.

I've advanced in my falconry that I really don't worry too much about this. Certainly, I don't want to lose a bird, but fly offs can happen. This is particularly part of the reason why I plan to release her back to the wild this Spring . . . she just really wants to go claim a territory, and a mate. The last several hunts she's challenged the locals. 

We walked back to my car, then drove around the field in the direction she flew off. Fortunately, she had just taken a tree across the road. I never had to pull the yagi (receiver antenna) out. After a tiny delay she did come down for the garnished lure. What you don't see because the video drifts out of frame as Jenna must have started watching without the camera, is that the Saucy Girl grabbed my hand. She was really jazzed up about challenging the locals.

Once secured and fed, I put her away, and we proceeded to drive around looking for any passage birds (first year hawks) that we could attempt to trap. Just about the time we gave up and decided to go get food, we saw a bird. I prepared the trap, and as we were about to place it the wild hawk we were watching bumped and flew across the busy freeway. We followed, and after some searching found an adult pair, and then a juvie. With minimal effort, we convinced him to come explore the trap and get caught. Size and weight indicated a male, which I have no interest in keeping. I let Jenna release him, which is always fun for people, even those who handle birds all the time.

Let's try again some time Jenna, maybe this time closer to my home.