Widow 5/25/08

May 25, 2008

Widow has been grounded for several days because of high winds but today Cordi and I took her up on the mountain to fly. What a spectacular day — huge clouds with brilliant blue sky. Widow did not disappoint us. She flew for more than an hour, at times going more than a mile out over the valley and going up to a speck. She stooped on something out in the middle of the open sage and when I got to the cliff edge I could see her on the ground with a wild female coming in on her. They fought over something and the wild bird left. I started to go down the very steep mountainside and at the halfway point Widow flew off. I continued down and looked around but could not see any sign of a kill. Widow flew off, caught a thermal, and went back up into the clouds. I called her down several times to the lure on the side of the mountain. Just great flying on her part.

I served her a pheasant when she was 3-4 thousand feet up. Widow put on a magnificent stoop and closed easily on the flying pheasant, missed it, and flew it down over the cliff. A raven stooped as well and was there to help if necessary.