What follows is a quick account of the Missouri Falconers Association Early Winter (Late Fall?) Field Meet. (as per a personal request/vendetta ;-)
The day was doomed from the start. About 7 O'clock to rain started; this was, mind you, the time we were supposed to meet and begin hunting. Two hours later, it had slowed to a light drizzle and a portion of the gathered hunters could stand it no longer. They began flocking to the cars and the talk was of falconry afoot. A few minutes later everyone stood at a field called the "crazy man" and the debate was consumated over who would fly first. Our esteemed leader, el presidente of the association 'volunteered' his bird (a 5x intermewed RT) to fly first and we were off.
Some small Jack Russel Terriers snooped around below as the bird stood sentinel from above. In almost an instant the bird dropped from her perch and into the midst of a brushpile. No dice, and it was back up again. From there, things went to pot. The bumped from perch to perch, trying to escape the 20 or so people following her. We chased her all across the field until the falconer had enough. He had us all hang back and tried to call his unresponsive bird to the lure. This embarassing incident ends well through, instead of comming to the lure, we all watched from the ridge crest as she flew past him and smashed the brush halfway up the slight incline. About 5 minutes later, he walked past us carrying a sagging bag and a content hawk.
Next up were myriad Harris Hawks. I only have one word to say about the whole Harris Hawk fiasco. Voles.
After watching countless voles die at the feet of Harris Hawks, I volunteered to go. Most of the Harris Hawkers joined me, while many disinterested parties stayed at the edge of the field to watch. I was nervous, it was time to place feathers were my mouth was, which would be quite a task. I only hoped that there was, by some fluke, a dead deer somewhere in the field so that he would legitimately live up to my boasts ;-) I cast him up into the tree and we began working down the wooded draw which divided the field. Once we got to the end and turned, a HO from the end of the line meant that one was running through thick brush where the bird could not see it. I had everyone swing out of the field onto the manicured grass and push into the field from without. In a few moments I saw the bird take off of the perch. A few more moments and he had reverted to a glide. Then, with the grace of a brick thrown from a third story window he smashed headlong into the brush. No squeal, but the comments from the peanut gallery were thus, "If he didn't catch that one, he deserved to." Mike Mallet was the first on the scene. "Did he impale himself on one?" Was the query from behind me. I didn't hear the response, but given that Mike was doing nothing but watching, I made in quicker. Sure enough, it was a perfect head shot. No one commented about my earlier cockyness. I made in and gave the bird a few tidbits. Now here, it is a good time to mention that I will never listen to he who will not be mentioned, but you who were there, you you know who I mean ;-) "Don't worry Jason," he tells me, "The aggression you see can be triggered by bad field manners. Don't make in so fast and mess with the head. They hate that, it can breed aggression. Let the bird kill it." I did this, I waited, there was no movement from the rabbit and the bird was calming down, so I drew out the lure and let him start to eat it. One foot came off the rabbit, a murmer arose from behind me, "Get ahold of it" they told me, but too late. The second foot came off and the rabbit began to run as if its life depended on it... because it did. I dove over my bird to grab it, but my efforts were in vain. I landed almost on top of the hawk, who didn't seem to mind as much as I would have expected. Sadly, I lost the kill, but let him crop up on the lure, then put him away for the day.
More Harris's, these actually killed a rabbit, the only kill by Harris I saw the whole day.
Mike Mallet flew his Red Tail, who hammered the first slip it saw as well. Mike kept his rabbit ;-) We had to leave him in the field going for two (I don't know if he got it or not *editor's side note* Mike did take doubles after we left) to fly a Harris by Ferrugi hybrid. We follwed the advice of he who will not be named and tried to find rabbits near a construction site where they were building a new road. No dice, we eventually found some, but they were at the border of an old bean field, and the bird was out of position for most of the slips. The flight I saw was good, though the bird checked off of one rabbit to chase another. We lost it as it was chasing the rabbit across the open and into a subdivision. Crossing the yard, we saw it go down after a rabbit in an open yard. The bird missed, and the rabbit ran circles around the helpless bird. Eventually we got the bird to follow us back, though it did not want to hunt.
That was pretty much it for the first day. We later learned that a couple with a combined 5 head of Harris had taken 6 head of rabbit for the day it offically pushed the Harris Hawks above the Red Tails in head counts, BUT, anyone who was there has to admit that the Red Tails (as a whole) did better than (sheer numbers taken into account) the Harris Hawks. My personal assessment is that the Rain played a major roll in the meet. The early birds did not do as well as the later ones, and I think that the moisture content of the air and the grass had something to do with it.
On a minor side note, I went out the next day (still officially part of the meet BTW) and killed two with my Tail, no problem. - that's 6, 7, and 8.
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