Well I raced home from work to try to get a flight in for Rebel. With the days getting shorter and daylight savings, it is getting harder and harder to make it home in time to fly, and this bird demands plenty of exercise. He was a solid 40.6 oz. today and itching to get out of the mews.
Jordan came with me out to Doc’s land and we took the dogs. Rebel was like a shell out of a Howitzer taking off from the glove. He quickly took a high perch and started scanning. Jordan and I moved off to the pond to see if there were by chance any ducks. No luck in that regards, but Rebel followed very closely which was encouraging. We headed out around the other small lake hoping to scare up a rabbit or find a squirrel. The truth is, as beautiful and convenient as this area is, game is fairly scarce here. The squirrels prefer the cultivated yards in the neighborhood… Sheesh, even our squirrels are snobby in Waverly…
Well, Rebel was flying great. He was following beautifully and I called him down a few times to reinforce fist response and he did well. The dogs were having a blast and I was having fun watching my daughter try to walk through the high grass and brambles in her Sperrys with no socks… we were loud enough laughing at each other to wake the dead. It wasn’t much of a surprise that most of the squirrels were well tucked away by the time we approached.
We did have a few great flights on a particularly wily buck squirrel as dusk was closing in but after chasing him through ten trees, he finally made it into a hole and safety. Rebel was a bit pissed at that point. He flew on ahead and Jordan and I got distracted by a beautiful doe and her fawn bounding across the path ahead of us. I have gotten this pair up several times back here and I am always so appreciative of their grace as they ghost through the foliage.
Well Rebel was in the top of a pine and it was getting dark, so I blew the whistle to call him down. Strange that he wasn;t coming because he had showed such perfect fist response earlier. I looked up and saw a hag circling overhead and decided that this bird had Rebel spooked so I headed his way. As I got closer, I saw him in the tree. Right next to him was another hag! They were doing the stare down thing, not yet crabbing talon to talon. As I approached the hag took off. I think this was a mated pair and probably one of the same birds that Rebel has tangled with before.
Well I was done with that. I called him down and he left his high perch and flew off the other way after the blasted hag! Okay. Now I am worried. You see, I had forgotten to place Rebel’s telemetry on him when we set out because I was in such a hurry to beat the sunset. I had called him down in the field to put it on but he was way too excited to fly to be still for me to put it on one handed. So now I have the perfect storm of a situation with a distracted bird, no tele, headed in the opposite direction.
Lure time. I had a pair of DOCs on the lure and I pulled it out and began blowing his lure call. He left he hag and came low through the trees to us. As I had hoped, he was more concerned about those hawks getting his lure than he was about running them off of “his” territory. After his snack, I slipped the bullet jesses back in and we headed back to the truck and home.
It was great to be out with Jordan and the dogs. We all had a blast even though we really only had one chase on game. We saw some beautiful deer, avoided a cage match with a pair of hag RTs, enjoyed a beautiful sunset, and got a little exercise. Not a bad way to end a day in my book.
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