Today dawned clear blue skies, still rather cold, and breezy, but I was determined to go hawking, regardless. Stepping CC onto the scale, she weighed 1245 grams. This is just about the perfect weight for her. We dawdled around the house this morning, but got ourselves together and got headed out to go hawking in the afternoon.
After arriving and getting CC out and beeped up (telemetry on) I decided to hood her in order to walk to our starting point. She has not been hood trained, so hated it, and it would turn out to be an unfortunate decision on my part, as somehow the hood seems to have fallen out of my jacket, somewhere. After the hunt we re-traced our steps but did not find it. I guess it could be worse . . . Justin tells me he lost a $300+ transmitter. YIKES!
Anyway . . . back to our story.
We flew at one of my best hunting spots, which can be counted on for many bunny flushes. Upon striking the hood and attempting to toss CC up into a nearby tree, she caught the wind and flew way down the track. Well, where she landed is an area I've wanted to check out, but never have as I've usually caught game in the usual spot, going the other direction. So we followed her. Very quickly, Rich kicked up a bunny, and she chased it, but it got away. Keep moving down, following. There were many brushy piles, and a lot of bunny sign. I kicked up a bunny and she went for it but missed, crashing the ground. I called her up from the ground to give her a little reward for her efforts. Back up into a trees, and try again. Third time was the charm! I kicked the bunny out, she was right overhead, and scooped it up easy as you please.
Rich caught all the action on his GoPro, but as of this writing he is having some technical problems with the software, which seems to have automatically updated and changed something, but wants him to purchase an update of some kind to work. Once he gets it all figured out, I'll post a video, which shows all the action.
CONGRATULATIONS CC (Cha-Ching)!
You presented me with a challenge when you first came to live with me, getting sick and needing some gentle care and rehab time to recover from your respiratory issues. You took all the handling in stride, and thus far, have been a fairly sweet hawk to handle. Now you are entered as a falconry bird. I'll give you the weekend off, as I have to work, but we'll get out there as soon as we can and try to put some more bunnies under you. Soon, we'll try for squirrels as well.
I'm quite a bit more happy than yesterday when I wrote the previous post. To celebrate, I took Rich and myself out for a really good hamburger.
And now I have the video.
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