Eagle Journal

Hello everyone,

JH was in a much nicer mood today which was good because we were joined in the field by Derek Marshall. Derek has witnessed many an eagle flight over the years. In fact, Derek was helping me fly a cast of eagles a few years back when things went horribly wrong and Derek was flown down by a female eagle. She struck him in the shoulder as he attempted to run to a tree. He tried to bust a move on the eagle but Derek’s not that fast and the eagle hammered him. It wasn’t that good a flight anyway!

I went to the postage stamp field and didn’t get very far before a jack flushed and JH launched. He closed on the jack which kind of went up a pile of gravel causing JH to pull off. JH then went over and landed in a tree, something he rarely does. The trouble was that the way JH landed he was looking straight out into the goat field! I could see that he was interested in them. I could not get his attention, no matter what I did. JH flew out of the tree heading right at the herd of goats. I started running in that direction and jumped over the low electric fence, hoping he was going after a jack and, please, not a goat!! He flew 200 yards out into the field going over several goats, did a wing-over and was out of sight.not good. The goats were getting out of Dodge fast and I could see JH running around on the ground kind of watching the stampeding goats go by. There were a ton of jacks running around mixed in with the goats, so I could only hope that he had gone in on one of those and not a goat. I quickly got him back and we left the field.

We went to the big hay field, walked just about the entire field, and at the very end a jack flushed and JH flew it down nicely. The rest of the field was under water so we headed to the smallest hay field. We worked the field in a way that we hoped would cause the jacks to run more out into the middle and stay away from the fences. Twenty yards in front of Derek up popped a jack, running in a straight line right at the fence. JH got off clean and was flying fast but he seemed to be tracking the jack, almost waiting for it to make a move. The end of the field was approaching fast and JH was coming in fast. The jack finally made a sharp turn to the left and JH hit another gear, grabbing the rabbit.

The next field we tried was the tumbleweed field but as I was unloading JH we noticed the goat farmer busily stringing electric fence in MY tumbleweed field!! So we went to the field from hell and walked in a line across the front end of the field. We made a big turn to the left and started heading for the truck. A jack rabbit flushed and immediately went into evasive maneuvers. JH was closing fast and the jack knew it. Running and turning to the left was a big mistake. JH easily over-took the third jack rabbit of the day.

Hope all is well,

Joe

Pic 1:  second jack in the small alfalfa field

Pic 2:  third jack in the field from hell

Pic 3:  me, JH, and three jacks, photo by Derek (he begged me to give him the  photo credit)