Strange Quarry

[IAmTheWeasel]

Well, I went out to East Texas to hunt squirrels this weekend with a few falconers in a 1600 acre tree covered property. It looked as though it would be great for squirrel hawking, but as the day went on, we saw only one..... My bird was up first so the whole gang of spectators began following us around like a pack of kids around a soccer ball. We worked a large area of woods for about 20 minutes without seeing anything at all. Then my bird started acting snakey headed at a large brush pile.....Down she goes and crashes into the brush just out of my field of vision.....This is when all heck breaks loose! I began to hear alot of loud growling from a very ****ed off animal that she had attached herself too. At first from the amount of noise, I thought it was a bobcat, but even after I jumped into the brush pile after my bird I still could not see the animal she had. It was under the brush and she was laying on top of the pile with her wings spread out as she fought with the quarry. Then I saw big teeth as they bit repeatedly into my birds leg and toes, it turns out that it was a very large male raccoon that was not at all happy about being attacked by this bird nor I. I jammed my staff into the raccoon to stop it from biting my bird and another falconer jumped into the action with a large knife and dispached the animal, but not before it clawed and bit his hand a good bit.( Just a note, we certainly did not want to have to kill this animal, but it boiled down to my bird or the ****) As soon as he killed it the bird jumped off the ****, and if birds could have obvious expresions, this was like "what the F*** is that!" as she stood on a log nearby all slicked back with no interest at all about going back to it. My sponsor ran around me and the bird was more than happy to climb onto his gauntlet to get out of the milling people. With that taken care of, we returned to the truck with the bird and ****. The good thing about our location, was that we where very close to the rehab group that was doing an ed show, so they looked at the wounds and we dressed they until I can go to the vets today to check it out.....So far it does not look like and infection is setting in, but I will stick to the old addage "better safe than sorry" and hear to the vet this afternoon. The falconer that was knawed on by the **** is going to send the head off to a lab for testing this morning for possible rabies. The vet says that anyone in contact with any part of the animal will need the series of shots if it comes back positive. More than likely it will be a negative, but ***** can carry the virus without showing symtoms.......Fingers crossed!
The Weasel

[Gaz]

Sorry to hear that Noel,hope everything turns out allright :wink:

[Finnish]

Let us no what happends mate!!

[The Late Lord Lucan]

Geez Weasel type dude, you do like some strange quarry don't you!
Racoons, Armadillo's, I hope to God your not going to try the Mountain Lion next!!!!!
I hope your all clear on the old Rabies score, I've not had to have the jabs myself, but I am told they are very unpleasant.
Maybe one day we'll have to get together, you can hunt the weird & wonderful, and I'll go for the endangered species!
Isn't it bizarre how your bird will always take the last thing you want it too!
If fifty birds were to get up in front of mine, she will always take the rarest one of the bunch....gutting sometimes, but thats life.

Regards,
Lucky........(Lucky I'm not a Racoon or Armadillo!)

[Bird_Dog]

Hey Weasel,

Are going to make a ****-skinned hat like Daniel Boon? Was Keith the one who was bitten? There's something about squirrel hunting that must turn RTs into crazed killers. I heard that Krys found his bird yesterday. Well I'm headed to Montana to grouse hawk for a week... I should be back in time for the sky trials, tho. Say hi to the RT crew for me.

-- BIRD_DOG

[Shaun Byrne]

Good job the **** didn't bite you Weasel! I wouldn't fancy trying to give it a shot for what YOU got!!! pmsl!!!

[IAmTheWeasel]

Will do Bird dog! That hat would of had an awful large amount of holes in it both from the RT and the knife. Yea, Krys found his RT. It came to an empty lure at 150grams overweight after being in the wild for over a week. Well Hope to see ya at the skytrial!
Cheers,
The Weasel

[Wightwings]

crickey and we worry about squirells :shock:

[IAmTheWeasel]

I'll post a picy of it when I download the shots...

[Peregrynne]

Sorry to hear about the luck Noel....hope things get better for you soon....

[North East Harris Hawker]

look forward to seeing the photos :o

[Wightwings]

me too :shock:

[IAmTheWeasel]

Here is a link to a few pics...The bird, **** and I.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v699/Iamtheweasel/100-0024_IMG.jpg


Here is a picture of us trying to dispach the **** after the bird bailed off...You can see her looking at the **** in the background from my sponsors fist. My friend is busy with a buck knife and I have the head pinned down with myhawking stick.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v699/Iamtheweasel/100-0007_IMG_2.jpg

A good squirrel hunt.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v699/Iamtheweasel/Circeafterthehunt_IMG.jpg