Tasha55403
28-12-2005, 02:16 AM
Today was...interesting. First off, I drove to a spot I haven't been to yet this year that's about 35 minutes away(took almost an hour because of a bad traffic planning situation). When I get there I realized my tidbits were sitting on the dishwasher at home-I didn't have a single shred of bird food with. Since I had gotten a call from Greg as I was on my way out I knew he was on his way home so I gave him a call. He is SUCH a wonderful sweetheart!!! He had planned on working with the gos, but in the face of my desperate need he drove all the way out to where I was with my tidbits and came hawkin' with me, instead. So I had someone else to man the camera. It was nice being able to just beat the brush and try to keep track of the bird without having to worry about the camera or taking pics. It would've been easier to keep track of everything if I could see, though. I HATE glasses! They were mostly fogged up for the whole freakin' hunt. We kicked up a rabbit first thing as we walked into the field and had a nice flight, but it got into some pallets up against the building. It was in there somewhere, but it wasn't coming out. As we headed back in the direction we came from Reppa was on a nice high pole and a rooster pheasant flushed! Reppa was on it and did a nice wingover into the brush where it landed. Greg yelled that I better get up there, he might have it. Then yelled that he was up. Dang! Bear flushed another pheasant while he was still getting up to a perch. We kept on going while Greg ran back to the truck to put something away. He rejoined us as we reached the tracks. We started heading down the tracks and had a nice flight when I spotted a bunny hippity-hop under a log. At first I thought it was just Bear, but it seemed awfully small. So I went over to the log to check it out and sure enough out pops a bunny. Bear was right there and was right on it's butt yipping for all she was worth. It was a long flight down the strip of woods. Unfortunately, Greg and I were both on the wrong side and didn't get to see much. When we got there the bunny was gone. I'm swearing quite a bit at this point because I can't see a thing-glasses suck! Once we figured out that he missed and was up we kept on going down the tracks. I saw him do a nice flight into the woods ahead of us. Greg and I both thought he got this one-he was mantling and plucking. When I ran up I saw he was eating a really nasty rabbit that had been dead for quite a while. He transferred off nicely to a small tidbit and we walked away-quickly. There wasn't enough snow to cover it up so we went back the other way. As we were walking back to the tracks Bear managed to flush a vole, just to make matters even worse. When we got a respectable distance away and were getting into an area we hadn't hit yet I put him back up. He didn't really want to follow anymore-I could tell he was thinking about heading back to that rabbit, but he stayed with us. After a minute he moved up. Greg went on the opposite side of the strip of woods and was beating on that side (since that was the side all the flights were happening on, anyways). A minute later Reppa launched off his perch and went into a hover then dropped about 10 feet behind Greg. Not another mouse flight! He'd already had several, but missed thank goodness. I didn't yell to Greg because I thought it was a mouse flight-till the bunny squealed, anyways. Oops. He got some nice pics of Reppa on the kill, though. Bear has been pushing things a bit-Reppa's going to remind her why she doesn't want to do that soon, I would guess. That's why Reppa has his hackles up in the one pic.
Tasha
Tasha