Wrapped Up
A decent season overall. It's now early May, and this is the first post since January. Cisco steadily caught squirrels and when he hit my target number I moved him to hunting non-existent rabbits west of Katy to close the season out. I took him off squirrels mid season for a month or so as well, because of his chronic toe injury that he's had since I first got him. It's the remnants of a rodent bite that periodically pops up, festers some, and heals up again. Arnold the dog was great, and really worked with Cisco in the woods.
Cisco caught one cottontail each in Amarillo and Abilene and he caught some birds and a cotton rat or two. Farrah caught two rabbits total this season, a big swamp rabbit in a recently flooded lot by Buffalo Bayou, not long after the Harvey flood water receded. The other was a small cottontail out west of town. Farrah's catch on birds was good.
One of my really good (and huge) fields is now under development. When I saw a huge pile of sanitary pipe piled up there mid winter, I had an uneasy feeling......
I noticed something interesting this last winter. I saw wild Red-tails and one immature Red-shouldered Hawk hunting from billboards and low signs. My hypothesis is that they were hunting field sparrows. We encountered almost no rabbits and very few cotton rats in that area. Lots of field sparrows though, and a versatile species like a Red-tailed Hawk could successfully hunt them.
Cisco caught one cottontail each in Amarillo and Abilene and he caught some birds and a cotton rat or two. Farrah caught two rabbits total this season, a big swamp rabbit in a recently flooded lot by Buffalo Bayou, not long after the Harvey flood water receded. The other was a small cottontail out west of town. Farrah's catch on birds was good.
One of my really good (and huge) fields is now under development. When I saw a huge pile of sanitary pipe piled up there mid winter, I had an uneasy feeling......
I noticed something interesting this last winter. I saw wild Red-tails and one immature Red-shouldered Hawk hunting from billboards and low signs. My hypothesis is that they were hunting field sparrows. We encountered almost no rabbits and very few cotton rats in that area. Lots of field sparrows though, and a versatile species like a Red-tailed Hawk could successfully hunt them.
It's much worse than it looks..... the end of a field
The wrong side of the creek......
Farrah with a little rabbit thirty minutes west of Houston
The sanitary pipe that let me know this great field was doomed
wow Chuck, very cool indeed . . . great pictures, great hobby. Wish I knew that too
ReplyDeleteThanks Tom. Hope all is well. There should be a few seconds on me and the hawks next Wednesday on Channel 11. Between 5 and 7, likely twice at twenty after
DeleteHardly very long - don't expect the "Chuck Redding Falconry Hour.....