I enjoy seeing the flight of my birds on rabbits. I don't want it jumping from limb to limb, I want to see it fly and catch game. The tiercel HH I had caught a couple of ground squirrels, but, I always pulled them away from him so that he would get discouraged from hunting them. He caught one squirrel and he was down for several days because of the bite he got from it. One good hard pumping flight on a rabbit is just as good as stareing up into the tree while your bird jumps around looking for a squirrel. Besides that a rabbit taste better than a squirrel. To each his own.
Post by birdguy888 on Dec 15, 2006 12:54:48 GMT -5
Because of the bite there is a definate danger to the hawk, hence those awsome looking chaps. We dont really have squirrels here in Utah. We have a few up in the mountains but they are just common gray squirrels and are really small ....... maybe 1/4 pound if your lucky! Needless to say they ae not a common prey base for our birds! We have lots of cottontails and our jacks are about 8 to 10 pounds and our snowshoe hares are about 18 to 20 pounds!!! They are huge; one reason I'm looking for a 5+ pound RT or a huge hen gos! Our small squirrels are definately loud and territorial though. You go trompsing through the woods and the squirrels start screaming their warning call! Cute but annoying!
Eddie, I am going to have to come up and fly the eagle on those 10 pounders. We have blacktail jacks that run between 4 and 7 lbs here in California. Occasionaly you might get one heavier than that, but, its not the norm. This last year in the High Sierra's I saw my first snowshoe and it was extremely huge and extremely fast going up the hill. I didn't even know we had them in California. For you squirrel hawkers that think its easy for these Rt's, HH and goshawks to catch jacks, you would have to see some of the flights to realize how powerful those big jacks are. The birds get the crap kicked out of them { and a lot of the time the jack kicks them off} until they learn to grab the head and turn the rabbit. Cottontails are no big deal, but they have the advantage of going down into the holes whereas the jacks just keep running.
Post by birdguy888 on Dec 15, 2006 15:42:42 GMT -5
Many birds get injured or ruined when taking jacks & snowshoes. Some birds even get killed by those huge, powerful kicking hind legs or get a broken wing or leg or get blind in one eye......usually tiercels! We definately have some big ones down this way. One of the best places we have for jacks is an old highyway. It is still used but traffic is relatively lite and the cottontails & jacks are everywhere! There is also some train tracks there too with lots of sagebrush..... it's a great place & only 20 minutes away from me!
i have to agree rabbits taste better than squirrels, but i dont eat either one so i dont care about that. If i had to live off of rabbits my bird caught i would starve to death. They just arent here! The ones we do have are in the most god awful thick crap in the world. The birds dont stand a chance of getting through it.
I dont know if you have ever flown on squirrels before but its not just hopping from limb to limb. Obviously you have never seen a good squirrel hawk in action. Have you seen a hawk learn to take a high perch and time his flight to strike a squirrel at the exact moment that he his transfering from one tree to the next? When they learn this mid air strike it is awesome!!! Or how about seeing a fast spiral down a tree trunk? I have hunted rabbits with coulson and i have hunted squirrels for years and believe me plenty of good flights in squirrel hunting. nothing boring about watching a hawk learn how to hunt squirrels. I'm not going to comment on which one is more fun because It depends on your abundance of game and terrain. When i was with coulson, we caught ten rabbits in a afternoon and all i ever saw was bushes moving. I now bush hog my fields in strips so that i have some open area to see the chase. most of my rabbit spots are strictly T perch hunting and watching a bird drop off a perch and crash the bush (usually at a rat) really isnt much of a flight.
Its about slips and action. If i can keep my bird flying hardcore for an hour at rabbits, then i gaurantee you im having fun. If i can fly nonstop for an hour on squirrels then just as much fun. Both squirrels and rabbits suck if all you do is beat a bush with a stick for an hour or shake vines for an hour and get no action.
I gaurantee you though if you lived here you would hawk squirrels or you would just be taking nature walks with a bird.
We don't do any "bush hawking bunnies" here. We do use T perches, but, we have very open fields and the flights are clearly visible. Sometimes they are anywhere from 100 to 200 yard flights. Most are in the 20 to 30 yard flights especially on the bunnies. The jacks here just keep running until they either out run the bird or get caught by them. But, once the bird has caught the rabbit or misses it, we continue to hunt. There are many flights made in a single hunt. Its not just one 25 minute flight. I had the female HH out yesterday and she caught a bunny within the first 25 minutes we were out there. She made a lot of flights after that and finally caught a jack after we had been in the field for about 3 hours. If I lived in an area that only had squirrels, I would be a squirrel hawker, but, I don't. I will post a picture of the tiercel HH chasing a ground squirrel and you can see how the fields are.
I sent 3 pictures to be posted. This sequence was the tiercel HH chasing a ground squirrel. The pictures were taken with a 200mm lens and he shot these pictures from a distance. The ground squirrel made it back to the hole before the HH could get it.
I have to say that in general I'm in a GREAT place for falconry because of quarry. We have plenty of rabbits, lots of ducks and pheasants and lots of dickie birds for kestrels, sharpy's, merlins and coop's. I can drive 10-20 minutes in one direction and be in a brush/grass area for rabbits or drive 10-20 minutes in another direction and be near water for ducks and pheasants or go 20-30 minutes in another direction and be in a forest area for rabbits, groundhogs, snowshoe hares and pine hens (also called blue grouse)!
Post by harrishawker on Jun 30, 2007 3:57:38 GMT -5
If i had an RT then squirrel would be my only quarry. I would try to get my RT totally on them. Impossible probably but i would certainly take it to where there are plenty of them
I enjoy shooting squirrel and this year have been feeding my FHH a constant flow of them in which she devours them in the moult at present. She caught 2 last year one with me in which she took clean in the head. But i know the risks and have seen bites from other mates HH's. But my philosophy is if you fly a BOP you must let it hunt for what it would hunt for in the wild or it starts to become a pet. Tally took a monk jack last year and almost got kicked to death by it. Now i have never fed her that so that is what she would have done wild. That's why i hate flying off the fist, its not natural but i do not want to get into that debate as it gets out of hand. But i have to admit i am concerned and winced when she took it but to stop her or him goes against all my principles. I am getting on a bit now and only a RT i think i would be interested in before i pack up. Maybe
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