Eagle Journal

Hello everyone,

I thought I’d do something a little different for day 41, a behind the scenes look at what it takes to get the eagles ready to go flying and also what it takes to get the eagle journal posted. Getting two golden eagles out in the field does take some planning, particularly now that I am soaring Widow at the ranch which is twenty five miles from the area where I fly JH. Just having two eagles in my truck at the same time requires planning “ hooded, hungry eagles aren’t overly picky about what they eat, including other hooded eagles. But first, things start the night before when Joe has to remember to take out the right amount of frozen quail for the morning feed.

Each morning starts with a parade, me being followed by all our dogs, going down to my shop to prepare the quail and, well, we have a lot of dogs, too many really, all shapes and sizes. Most are mutts, seven in all, but they are all nice dogs. They all follow me down to the shop to watch me prepare the food for the falcons and the eagles. I feed quail like almost every falconer in the world, but I remove the guts from each quail. Well, our pack of dogs have all developed a great liking for quail guts, so each morning they all convene in my shop waiting for me to clean the quail, all sitting perfectly, crowding around my feet, waiting for their little treat which I give out according to age.  These morning rituals are very important to them, to the point that you had better watch your step going in the shop door, they might run you over racing for the best spots closest to me. It is a big moment in their day.

Flying every other day can be a little tricky. I want to keep enough food going through the eagles to promote good feather growth, as they are usually molting as I’m flying them, but also have them hungry enough that they want to hunt. Well, eagles will always hunt but they do need to be hungry enough to want to come back to me. Widow, being a female, eats more than JH so she gets one quail plus the two back legs of a jack rabbit. JH, on the other hand, gets a quail and only one hind leg of a jack rabbit. I will vary their amounts somewhat depending on how each bird is flying. And if JH does not catch a jack I want to have enough food with me to reward him.

After weighing whichever bird I’m flying that day I load them in the truck and away I go. I fly JH first and Widow second, so I’ll get home from hunting JH around 10:30, do some chores, grab a bite to eat, and leave again with Widow.

Once the day’s hunting and flying is finished I’ll come home and write down the day’s events. That’s where Cordi comes in — she is the editor of the eagle journal and is in charge of posting everything onto the website. In addition, she edits all of the various articles I write for most of the falconry magazines here and over in Europe. Why, you ask, do I need an editor? Well, when you spell so badly that the spell check has no idea what in the world the word is, well, you need an editor. Cordi, aside from being my editor, is the main shooter (that’s what we in the business call a cameraman or woman). Cordi shot 90% of the footage on our DVD Eagle Journal, the Movie. The eagle journal really started just by me e-mailing some friends that liked eagles or wanted a falconry fix during the off season. It just kept growing and growing from there. Once Cordi realized how big the journal was, she couldn’t, in all good conscience let me send the journal to all parts of the world without some editing. When she was up in Canada watching our oldest daughter at a horse show I would send the unedited journal to her and she would edit and post it onto the website from Canada. I think I mentioned this in a journal entry — I still think it’s cool.

So where you have it, a glimpse behind the scenes as it were, to the process of getting the eagle journal posted on our website. Speaking of the website, as of today, there have been over 1600 hits which, considering it’s me and our two daughters that I make look at it daily, that’s not too bad. At least somebody is reading it. Cordi and I hope that you enjoy reading the eagle journal and we are looking forward to bringing you the journal from Oregon if we ever get moved up there!

Hope all is well,

Joe

Photos

Pic 1: The Eagle Journal editor/magazine article editor/CorJo Wildlife Productions

Pic 2: 5 of our 7 dogs in their spots waiting for their treats — trust me, the others are stampeding their way in!