Okay. So I just don't have a handle on this bird's weight. He has been fat for a week now after eating a crop full of duck. He is hungry every day and flying as hard if not harder than he was at weights several ounces under where he is now. Of course with a Red Tail, it may just be that he is better manned now and understands the game better which allows him to stay sharp at a higher weight. Or maybe this bird was actually a lot lower than i thought in the beginning. I think that I am going to be playing this game all season... Right now every time I believe that I have a handle on the relationship between Rebel's weight and his hunting efforts, I discover something confounding... Ahhh, the joys of being an apprentice.
I have lived my life being a very decisive person. I am only half kidding when I state that my motto seems to be "Often wrong, but never in doubt!", but in falconry, it seems to be just the opposite. There is no end to the conflicting advice on this issue either, making the murky water even more dense if that were possible. Well, so far at least, things are still going pretty well, even if I am frequently perplexed.
So despite the weight issues, Rebel was once again showing a much improved fist response. A couple of days of half-hearted hunting and feeding in tidbits off of the fist has solidified that aspect of his flights I think. Don't get me wrong... I don't think that there will ever be a time when I can call this bird off of an active hunt straight to the fist with that kind of distraction, but it is markedly improved overall.
Rebel and I headed out to Doc's land with the dogs in tow for a walk / flight and more work on the fist. rebel was weighing in at a portly 41.8 ounces! When we got there, I immediately saw a ginormous fox squirrel slinking up a small live oak and got excited. Rebel was still in his box and by the time I got the dogs out, the bird free and my equipment on, the damned squirrel was nowhere to be found. Oh well.
It was a beautiful day with bright sun and a steady breeze, and to be honest, I thought that Rebel wasn't going to pay me too much attention. I figured the dogs were a pretty big distraction and I would be lucky if he would follow and come down for the lure. He headed almost immediately up to the top of a tall pine, and you know what that typically means. I let him hang out while I checked the pond for ducks and let the dogs run. I was heading back his way to hit the woods when I saw a mob of crows start swooping in and diving on him. Rebel seemed completely unaffected. I grabbed my air rifle out of the back of the truck in hopes of a decent shot but it was not to be. They flared off and I wondered why. Rebel had changed perches to another tree a few yards over so I went over to look at him after putting up the gun.
There was Rebel, in the top of that pine, once again locked up talon to talon with the local Hag! They were both completely silent and then the hag let go and flew off. Rebel looked pretty proud and held his perch looking like he was daring anyone to come closer. He looked pretty good so I started walking on expecting him to follow.
He actually followed vey well from that point on. He came to the fist every time I called and stayed within a reasonable distance of me while hunting. We came out of the woods and I went back to the front side of the lake to check for wood ducks and inadvertently got a squirrel moving. This tree rat was right in the middle of an oak on my friend's driveway! Fat as Rebel was, he flew HARD. He crashed through those branches like a bull in a china shop. He missed the varmint on his first pass and then turned and quickly made several more. The squirrel disappeared into his nest and Rebel went in right after him. Rebel started tearing that nest down around its ears! This is usually an advanced, learned behavior and I was thrilled that my little guy was getting used to it very early.
The squirrel slipped down through the bottom of the nest and made a break for it but Rebel was right behind. He pulled fur but missed latching on to the evil tree climber though and it got into a knothole. This was only after about five minutes of chasing and nest shredding. Damned hard flying and keen instincts in a bird who is supposed to be way overweight...
We headed back to the car by way of the other pond hoping for a duck slip. No luck. At one point my little dog, Holly, was out of sight and not coming when called. I started heading in what turned out to be the wrong direction when Rebel flew ahead of me and looked down the road then back at me and then down the road again. She seemed keen on something so I followed in case she had seen a squirrel that needed to be caught. There was Holly making her way back from whatever interesting smell she had been exploring. Rebel just looked at me like "Right there, dummy". There was no way that that bird had just pointed out where my dog was... was there?
Well it was fun being out with all three of them. No kill but some hard flying, a scrap with a local hag, and a first time nest attack. Pretty good stuff.
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