IAmTheWeasel
18-01-2005, 08:26 PM
Not sure if I ever told this story about my run in with an armadillo, but here it is anyway.
Yes, believe it or not, Armadillo's are quite mobile creatures. Especially when there is a hawk attached.......<screen gets wavy as we go back a year>........I climb out of the truck and look up at the trees, scanning for the quarry of the day as I carry out the routine of putting on the equipment. Get the lure, the tid-bits, the hawking stick and last but not least the hawk that's screaming in the giant hood like an imprint! As I walk into the woods I turn her loose to a nearby tree. A rouse and a slice later, she's off. We work the line of trees along the fields edge as I pull vines and briars when out pops a squirrel and the first chase is on. This particular area is very dense with briars which makes the going slow even with chaps on, so the chase had worked ahead of me a little bit when I lost sight of the squirrel. My bird was staring at the crotch of a tree very intently so I new it was somewhere in the vicinity. I circled the tree and shook vines while doing my best imitation of a vicious animal yell to try get the squirrel moving again (glad I was alone). Nothing was moving and after about a minute the bird flew to another tree. Oh well, that one will live to see another day.....As the briars got thicker I moved to the edge of the field so I could actually progress at a decent pace when I turned around to notice she hadn't moved. She was looking right at me so I blew the call to bring her in to the fist for a reset and remount in a different spot. In she comes, but instead of coming in low and flaring up to the fist, she's soaring in the wind about 20' above me. She holds her wings in and slowly descends to what I think is my fist but then over shoots and crashes to the ground with an odd hollow thud about 5 foot behind me. I then see the tall grass start to move as an armadillo waddles( best term I could think of) away from the bird without that much panic. The bird jumps up and nails it on the back with another thud. By now, I'm laughing as I run after the bird with this slow ass critter getting whacked on the back without it getting to rushed about seeking cover. The bird is now standing in the grass watching this thing walk away from us and without trying to sound anthropomorphic, she looked at me with this glare and beak open as if to say " damn! why can't I get a hold of this thing". Just as the armadillo is about to make cover she makes another attempt to subdue this "thing that could be dinner". This time she grabs the tail with one foot and the dillo is now not so calm. It starts running along the tree line with my bird attached with one foot and the other dragging behind, wings flared and crest up. Now, anyone who has spooked an armadillo before knows that they can move at a hefty pace when need be, so I'm running now to try and help with the situation. As I reach them all I can see is my bird wedged into a wall of briars, holding herself out with her wings. I reach in and grab her foot which is still attached to the dillo. Out come both from the briars......know I'm thinking about how to dislodge the hawk from the dillo since she was not planning on letting go. I was not in a good position to do a trade off so I looked carefully at the grip she had on the tail and found that she had a poor hold. My only choice at this point was to gently pull the two apart, let the dillo go and move her out of the briars where she couldn't chase it any more. I then let her have a good chunk of food from the fist and called it a day as the light was fading quickly. Hawk and a dillo.......it's a first for me!
Cheers,
The Weasel
Yes, believe it or not, Armadillo's are quite mobile creatures. Especially when there is a hawk attached.......<screen gets wavy as we go back a year>........I climb out of the truck and look up at the trees, scanning for the quarry of the day as I carry out the routine of putting on the equipment. Get the lure, the tid-bits, the hawking stick and last but not least the hawk that's screaming in the giant hood like an imprint! As I walk into the woods I turn her loose to a nearby tree. A rouse and a slice later, she's off. We work the line of trees along the fields edge as I pull vines and briars when out pops a squirrel and the first chase is on. This particular area is very dense with briars which makes the going slow even with chaps on, so the chase had worked ahead of me a little bit when I lost sight of the squirrel. My bird was staring at the crotch of a tree very intently so I new it was somewhere in the vicinity. I circled the tree and shook vines while doing my best imitation of a vicious animal yell to try get the squirrel moving again (glad I was alone). Nothing was moving and after about a minute the bird flew to another tree. Oh well, that one will live to see another day.....As the briars got thicker I moved to the edge of the field so I could actually progress at a decent pace when I turned around to notice she hadn't moved. She was looking right at me so I blew the call to bring her in to the fist for a reset and remount in a different spot. In she comes, but instead of coming in low and flaring up to the fist, she's soaring in the wind about 20' above me. She holds her wings in and slowly descends to what I think is my fist but then over shoots and crashes to the ground with an odd hollow thud about 5 foot behind me. I then see the tall grass start to move as an armadillo waddles( best term I could think of) away from the bird without that much panic. The bird jumps up and nails it on the back with another thud. By now, I'm laughing as I run after the bird with this slow ass critter getting whacked on the back without it getting to rushed about seeking cover. The bird is now standing in the grass watching this thing walk away from us and without trying to sound anthropomorphic, she looked at me with this glare and beak open as if to say " damn! why can't I get a hold of this thing". Just as the armadillo is about to make cover she makes another attempt to subdue this "thing that could be dinner". This time she grabs the tail with one foot and the dillo is now not so calm. It starts running along the tree line with my bird attached with one foot and the other dragging behind, wings flared and crest up. Now, anyone who has spooked an armadillo before knows that they can move at a hefty pace when need be, so I'm running now to try and help with the situation. As I reach them all I can see is my bird wedged into a wall of briars, holding herself out with her wings. I reach in and grab her foot which is still attached to the dillo. Out come both from the briars......know I'm thinking about how to dislodge the hawk from the dillo since she was not planning on letting go. I was not in a good position to do a trade off so I looked carefully at the grip she had on the tail and found that she had a poor hold. My only choice at this point was to gently pull the two apart, let the dillo go and move her out of the briars where she couldn't chase it any more. I then let her have a good chunk of food from the fist and called it a day as the light was fading quickly. Hawk and a dillo.......it's a first for me!
Cheers,
The Weasel