Eagle Journal

Hello everyone,

In a word hot! I left the house at 6:45 am and it was already 72′ …not
good. I figure the farmer is going to cut the large hay any day now so I
figured I’d go back there until they do. The entire 20 plus acres has been
flooded. All the water is gone but the ground is still wet, which is nice
because it’s a little cooler, but all the moisture makes the fields very
humid.

I went right out into the middle of the field thinking that if Widow still
wanted the longer slips this would give her the best chance. As I made my
way out I flushed a jack and Widow launched but immediately shut down and
floated to the ground….humm. This could be interesting because she is either
realizing that close jacks are not worth it or she is a little frustrated
with hunting. I have seen eagles that do get frustrated chasing jacks and
stop doing it for awhile, switching over to other prey like ground
squirrels. But they do come back to jack rabbits……it’s in their blood! My guess is
she is sold on the long slips and does not want to waste her time and, more
importantly, energy on the closer slips which require a large outburst of
effort. I continued walking out into the middle of the hay field with Widow
looking over the entire field very intently.

Suddenly something caught her eye and she was off, flying low and gaining speed. I looked in the direction she was flying and saw a pair of ears moving through the tall dark green alfalfa hay. Widow closed on the jack and flared both her wings up, coming to a sudden stop, and dropped straight down, missing the jack completely.
This is why young eagles need time to perfect their hunting technique —
unless that jack rabbit dropped dead of a heart attack she wasn’t going to
catch much.

Widow has not come full circle yet. She has figured out that the longer
slips are best for her but she has not realized that she needs to finish the
flight by going in with her powerful feet, grabbing the jack rabbit. This
will come in time. Widow had 4 more opportunities, on two of which I thought
she had one. On those two flights she went in with serious intent, feet first,
and slammed into the hay. She will get it. Failure is not a bad thing. It makes
raptors more intense…….they try harder. With the temperature climbing
(80′) I turned for the truck with a tired eagle on my arm, her wings drooping after
making several 150-200 yard flights and I’m sure a little frustrated. As I
walked back to my truck Widow reached over and preened out one of the other broken primaries she had on her wing that needs replacing……we’re making
progress.

Hope all is well,
Joe