October finished how it started and carried on right through - WET. While it has been wet and raining most days it is mild so while the rain has been a pain it has been warm rain. The waterproofs have always been close at hand.
Back to the birds. The flying team is getting smaller and smaller all the time. It always happens at this time of year. There are no more big displays, corporate events are few and far between and it is just bookings over at Cameron House and in the centre over the the coming weeks. I have decided to give Brel and Oran both of whom are Harris Hawks a break and I have stopped flying them. I always stop flying Brel at this time of the year as he does all my display and demonstration work. As there are no big demonstration or corporate work there is no reason to keep him going. He only flies from April till October. He spent yesterday eating a large squirrel. I also decided to stop flying Oran as well. I was going to keep him going up until the end of the year but with Cooper doing so well so quickly I decided to stop flying him. To be fair he needed a break. Oran is a great bird and has worked really hard over the last 18 months. He flew all of the summer 2010, he then got about 6 weeks off in the autumn 2010 and then was brought back for Christmas 2010. I was going to stop flying him after the New Year but we were busy and I just kept him going. He did get about 5 weeks off around April/May 2011 and then was back flying again all summer mainly doing the hawk walks over at Cameron House. He has been a star with only the 1 screw up back in September. I decided to stop flying him because Cooper was flying well and also because he was looking a bit scruffy. He did finish off with a bit of a flourish on his last hawk walk at Cameron House for the season by catching his 3rd duck. When I caught up with him he was in the water, using his wings as paddles to get to the waters edge with the duck held firmly in his talons. Saying that the duck was an easy target and he knew it. The duck had a broken wing. In the end a bit of a mercy killing.
Ok I go hunting with the aim of killing something. Using a bird to catch the prey is maybe not the most efficient way compared to a shot gun or rifle but 1 thing I will say if the bird catches the prey and the prey breaks free then the prey should be ok with nothing more than a few cuts. The 1 thing I don't like about guns/rifles is that if you don't kill the prey and it escapes after being hit and you can't find it then it is in for a long and slow death due to blood poisoning and infection with broken bones and serious injuries. That was what happened to the duck that Oran caught. It had a broken wing. Once I had killed it I could take a closer look at the wing. The wound looked a few days old, with the bone coming through the skin. On closer inspection I found an air gun pellet lodged in the wing with the bone shattered around it. Anyone who uses a air rifle to shoot at duck is just being cruel. There is no other way to describe it. There is no skill in shooting at duck on the water or ones that are on land. Most air rifles don't have the power to kill a duck unless you shoot it in the head, unfortunately most people who have an air rifle don't have the skill to do that. It's the first time I have come across something like that and I hope I don't see something like that again. It has kind of hardened my views and opinions on air rifles and who should have them.
On a more cheerful note Cooper the Harris Hawk continues to do well. The fact that he is flying so well made me think that Oran should be finished up early. He has been doing a few bookings at the centre and has done a full lap of the grounds of Cameron House with me flying him - all of which he has flown well in. This weekend I will be relying on him with 5 bookings in the next 2 days. He will be used in at least 2 of them.
The other big news is with Pele. On his first hunting day this season he caught a rabbit. He had had a few attempts at rabbit and pheasant and then he caught a rabbit. It was a good size weighing in at 3lb3 1/4oz. Pele was flying at 1lb 5oz. Saying that I suppose it is not that big news as it was Pele. At 9 years old, he has been used in the last 8 seasons for hunting and having caught many rabbits, pheasants and various other things he knows what he is doing. He is always very calm and I get the feeling he is a bit calculating compared to the other the harris hawks. Unfortunately his second hunting session was rained off.
The next few weeks are quiet in the diary but it is November. Saying that while it is quiet I will be busy as I gear up and prepare for Christmas advertising. Time to start dealing with the real world.
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