Cisco's Fifth Season

Cisco's Fifth Season, Dart's Second - 2009/2010

Update 4/12/2009: Cisco began to molt on April 5th - that concludes the 2008/2009 season. The previous season log can be found at Cisco's 4th Season
Newest updates towards top of page, except for field meet logs, where order is reversed
Please email me. Click on hypertext below, or copy and paste address using your email client.
cisco@virtualvideo.cc
The red-tail and Harris' can be seen via webcam during most weekday daylight hours here:
Buzzard Cam1
Buzzard Cam2

Seasonal Tally Box

Quarry	Cisco (RT)	Dart (HH)
Gray (Cat) Squirrel
Swamp Rabbit		1
Eastern Cottontail Rabbit		1
Mouse
Cotton Rat		5
Eastern Wood Rat
Norway Rat
Bird
Total Quarry:		6
Approximate Biomass Taken

Cisco, 4X intermewed passage red-tail hawk (Bob Dalton)

Dart, October of 2008, intermewed captive raised Harris' hawk (Picture by Bob Dalton)

9/30/2009 - An early morning cottontail with a hawk at flying weight
I finally got Dart to his flying weight of 635 including his harness and transmitter. A beautiful morning, nice and cool, and sunny. He chased a bird or two, a cotton rat, and put in a nice flight on a rabbit. That flight very long with my trying to keep up. The cover is still affecting him, but a few minutes later he speared a nice female cottontail. A good outing in Katy at "Tariq Field," where Mike flies his Barbary. A cell phone picture of Dart feeding on rabbit:

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9/27/2009 - "A man's (hawk) got to know his limitations" Harry Callahan (Dirty Harry)
Late in the day, I flew Dart out at DeSoto. Big swamp rabbits and heavy cover, his two least favorite things. Skunked. Nothing but exercise. He chased - there are tons of big swampers there, but wouldn't close on them.

From an email:
I just now got back from a very warm afternoon hunting with the Harris' hawk in a field much better for Cisco. Heavy cover and enormous swamp rabbits, and Dart does not care for either. But I left some antibiotics over at Steph's (sinus infection) and had to go back over there (to Oak Forest), and that field is nearby. Gawd, it was hot! And my little hawk wouldn't attack those huge rabbits, the wimp. :-) I was beat when the sun went down. (Maybe I'll put this in my blog).

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9/26/2009 - A morning with Dart and Fury
I got up very early today to take the Harris' out. Rather than hit the same field, I found another, that coincidentally is adjacent to a machine shop that I am familiar with. After an hour, I gave up out there, and called Rob. At another field Dart caught (another) cotton rat. I ran out of steam, we put his red-tail out, but it was too hot. Rob called later in the afternoon to brag about Fury's (his red-tail) catching her fourth rabbit. She's putting team Cisco to shame right now.

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9/19/2009 - A morning with Dart and Tariq
Cameron met Mike and me at What-A-Burger at 0615. The plan was to have a quick breakfast and get out to "Tariq Field" by 0700 to fly first Mike's Barbary, Tariq, and then Dart. We drove out to the field west of Katy and put the Barbary up first. He did fine, chasing a couple of doves, taking a higher pitch than I have seen before. Then Mike swung the lure, brought him in, and fed him up. Dart is converging on his hunting weight, coming in at 629 plus transmitter and harness. He was not overly fired up, but chased a couple of birds including a quail, a few rabbits, and caught a cotton rat. A few pictures from this morning below. We all tried some anti-tick spray today and it seemed to have worked.

Rob called to tell me that his RT, Fury, caught two rabbits today.

Getting ready	Getting ready
D'artagnan with cotton rat	Tariq released

9/13/2009 - Another cotton rat for Dart, and Rob Evans' bird catches the first Houston rabbit
I had not planned to fly today, believing that Dart would be fat after yesterday's cotton rat. I weighed him at noon, and he was about 640 grams plus transmitter. This evening we went out, this time with Cameron Turner. It was warm at 1800 when we got to the field. Cameron encountered two large water moccasins, almost walked into a wasp's nest, and found two or three ticks on himself. Dart had little interest in closing on two rabbits that he could have grabbed, but finally caught another cotton rat. He was eating it on top of a bush when suddenly he began dancing excitedly around the bush. Turns out he had dropped the varmint and couldn't reach it. I reached in and got the rat, and let Dart feed on the fist as we walked back, something I rarely let him do.

I found a few ticks also.

Probably the biggest falconry news of the day came from Rob. His intermewed red-tail, Fury, caught the first rabbit of the Houston season, along with a mouse. Rob's on his way to another successful season.

Later, on a hot Houston afternoon

Out in the field, taken with a cell phone.

9/12/2009 - Season opens: Dart scores while Cisco molts
After flying Mike's Barbary-in-Training (BIT) we took a very heavy (649 gram) Dart along the ditches in the same field. A few lazy rabbit chases, and Dart caught a cotton rat. First kill of the season for Team Cisco. This is a great field for a Barbary, RT or HH. Exciting. A big huge open field with a bunch of wet ditches. There are plenty of rabbits, mice, cotton rats, snipe, and deprecating black birds. Dove too fly over. We had to chase Mike's bird down the road a little bit. He was sitting on a power pole over a huge bush full of blackbirds. I picked up two ticks.

8/2/2009 - More summer stuff

Marc Ellett explaining some fine points to my new apprentice, Charli Rohack (Photo by Stephanie Jennings)

7/3/2009 - Mike Wiegel's new captive bred barbary tiercel
Mike got the bird from Garrett Starr up in Washington state. Came in last night. A very mellow and already pretty well manned little tiercel.

7/1/2009 - Molting
Cisco is slow as usual, with Dart's ripping through fast. He will be ready by late September easily. Cisco, next February (not really, I hope).

4/30/2009 - Birds are fat and molting
Cisco at 1020 grams, Dart at 700, both 48 hour weights.

Cisco's nightly ritual - a drink	A bath by the sprinkler (Stephanie Jennings)
Cooper's hawk in Danny Bynum's yard about 1/2 mile from mine
Bill Rhinehart's FRT, "Sugar," on black-tail jack in California	Former THA Director-At-Large, Jay Lehmer with his 3/4 gyr X 1/4 peregrine tiercel, "Cowboy." Taken at sky trials in February 14, 2009, where he placed second.
The boys out to weather on Sunday afternoon - Mike Wiegel's house

Nothing silly about these four pictures...........

6/27/2009 - Dart and I watch falconry videos.
He's watching Cody Fields' red-tail chasing rabbits. Video taken up in Amarillo back in 2005.