Oct. 12 - First Squirrel

On the fifth day of free flight, I decided that we would again work on following but if an opportunity presented itself, we would jump on it.  I harbored no illusions that this bird was going to get a squirrel on his first attempt because even in the wild with an experienced hunter, the odds of the hawk catching a squirrel are fifty-fifty at best.  Add the fact that this bird is only a few months old and only has probably a month or so of real hunting experience behind him and that ratio has to fall dramatically.  On a positive note, the day prior, Rebel had briefly chased a squirrel in a neighbor's yard as we returned from a following session out near the pond.  He chased it a few times then flew away, frustrated.  I was still a bit worried about thim on these squirrels.  I was thinking that I was going to need to arrange a baggy to get him thinking of them as prey.

So anyway, Rebel was playing the following game well, soaring beautifully from perch to perch and coming on command.  He was looking good and interested in everything around him.  He was perched up in the tall pine in the side yard (same perch where the squirrel had almost walked out to meet himon his first free flight)when I saw a squirrel up high in as adjacent tree.  I am pretty sure he saw it but didn't focus on it at first.  His attention was still all on me.  When the squirrel ran along the fire wood stack and hopped up onto the roof, he finally decided to check it out.  Well, maybe it wasn't so much the squirrel as it was me, running and yelling like a crazed Santa Claus "Ho! Ho! Ho!", waving my arms in the air like a lunatic. 

Either way, Rebel launched and flew at the squirrel as it hopped up into the cedar tree.  He crashed the branches like an attention starved Barbie-doll wannabe at an Obama fundraising event.  He barely missed the squirrel on the first try and swept out to a neighboring tree.  The squirrel tried to run down the trunk, but I chased him back up into the tree.  Rebel took another pass barely missing him.  He then systematically started laddering up the tree branch by branch pushing the squirrel higher.  On one hop, the squirrel raced down the center of the tree past him and Rebel took off like a bullet.  He caught him halfway down and came right to ground with him!  It was Amazing!  I was able to watch him fold into a teardrop and drop straight down through those branches to catch that squirrel.

I ran over and saw that the squirrel had ahold of his Right fourth talon and I was worried.  I quickly grabbed the squirrel with my glove and slipped in and dispatched him.  I opened him up a little and let Rebel crop up.  I was so psyched.  Laura came out and tried to take a few pictures.  She was pretty sporting about it but this was clearly not her cup of tea.  I, of course, pulled out the phone and took a few pics as well as called my sponsor immediately.  He couldn't believe it and neither could I.

Rebel ate about half of that squirrel right there and I finally  traded him off.  Not very well I might add.  Full crop and a happy bird in the mews for the night, but I think he would have liked to finish that squirrel!