MM and JH 4/1/07

4/1/07

JH 8.5lbs

MM 7.6lbs

 

JH:

I have been looking at a field to the east, on the other side of the big alfalfa hay field, but the last few weeks there seemed to be something going on near the field. Today, however, it was quiet so I turned left into it, going to the end. There was a fence there, barely standing, which hardly slowed me down as I walked into the field. Most fields here, you could say, are going to be lost and covered up within the next months, but this field is down to just hours. Earth scarring equipment have already started their work and soon it will be asphalt and concrete. The field is fairly long but not wide, and I had no doubt that there would be jacks in there. I was correct. No sooner had I moved out than a jack was up and running, JH hot on its tail. The jack ran directly for the only thing out there that could get in the way, a flat bed trailer. The next four jacks all used this trailer for escape. JH had flown over and landed on a ten foot pole, something that used to be part of a gate or something and, in my moving around to get him off the pole, I flushed a cotton tail that JH promptly caught. As happens sometimes, when JH stepped on the fist, the cotton tail ran off. His talons had gone completely around the rabbit, doing little damage.

I went to the middle hay field where JH caught two more jacks from nice slips and I fed him up.

 

MM:

I started out in the fiddle neck field and had some good slips; the best one MM was looking off the other way. The others he flew nicely but the Swainsons hawks kept hammering him each time he flew…..down they’d come, clipping MM and, poof, feathers would fly. Man, they are a nuisance…….I had a female eagle years ago that flew at 14 lbs and she was an expert at flipping over at the last second and jerking the, in her case, red tail hawk, out of the air. She’d come in handy right about now. Anyway, after working the field completely, I went over to the goat field and it was clear that dogs had been in there because not one jack was to be seen. I worked the field anyway and was walking crosswind, from left to right, when a jack flushed 60 yards out and headed downwind. MM got a great launch and, using the wind, built speed quickly. While closing he was going as fast as he ever had. MM went in low and fast, dust flying everywhere, but he missed. The very next slip a jack flushed and went crosswind but angling slightly upwind as well. MM launched and was over the jack quickly, matching each switch back the jack made, and hooked it!! Number 4….nice flight.