Cisco's Nineteenth Season

Cisco found a small squirrel to catch today. Little thrill, Cisco had its number. Arnold was a spectator, contributing nothing, but wasn't in the way.

Cisco came in at a hefty 920 body weight. It was cool and sunny. Early on I second-guessed him after he watched a couple of squirrels before following. Too high, I thought. I was wrong. Most of the time when I second-guess Cisco I'm wrong. Within a minute or two Cisco had a squirrel pinned on the side of a tree. He neatly pulled it off and dropped straight down into a big grove of palmetto. Crash! Unfortunately, palmetto can be loud; his austringer ran in to help him. When I hit the palmetto, it sounded like a cannon going off and a squirrel was gone.. Cisco didn't want me to feel bad so he went back to hunting. It was a little slow for a few minutes but pretty soon he peeled off another. This time he glided off about 100 ft instead of dropping into the palmetto. Arnold helped. He was pretty good today. He got a small squirrel tidbit to eat. All is good.

A beautiful weather day. Truly doesn't get better than this. After Cisco caught a junior squirrel on Friday, I strove to reduce his weight a little more. Not much improvement. He's still about an ounce heavy. 925 grams body weight.  I released Cisco and he soon pursued a squirrel. Quite good, but the squirrel bested him. The chase went about forty or fifty yards. After that, we didn't see any squirrels. We were out for about an hour or so. I really do need to get Arnold the dog involved. Might make a difference. I tested my "short-range receiver," just a SDR (software-defined radio) receiver that plugs into my Pixel 7 phone. Works well, easily picking up Cisco's signal from 100 yards. I use it occasionally when I want to know if a buzzard is "close." If I don't hear a signal I know Cisco is a long way off and it might be time to get my serious tracking receiver. 

I took Farrah and BB out west of Katy to let them fly. They did well. Both caught a little game. It was super windy and I believe BB's first real field outing since March. He stayed on the ground a lot, avoiding the wind. We had luck around the detention ponds rather than in the open.

.... comes with me. I took Cisco out flying for the first time since March. With him, I don't do any prep work. No zip line or creance flying. About ten or fifteen years ago I took him hunting two weeks before he was done molting. He caught a small swamp rabbit. Farrah I transition over a couple of weeks. Not because she's likely to fly off, or won't return to the fist, but because she's so jumpy. I might reach in and she's instantly up in a tree. Cisco was at 930 gram body weight. 900 is the arbitrarily picked hunting weight. He hunted like a heavy buzzard, but his recall was perfect. He made a couple of high-in-weight squirrel chases, and sat and enjoyed the cool morning. I pulled out a chick leg and he was on my fist. It was a boring hour, which is fine. I might have taken Arnold, but didn't, just in case I had trouble with Cisco. Wednesday he's coming with us. Cisco should be closer to a motivation weight too. He ate two chickens. I expect he'll be a...

Apologies to Hemingway for butchering his short story title. Cisco nabbed a small cat squirrel today, minutes after screaming the classic Red-tail scream. I typically set my timer for twenty minutes of delay as his screaming is often a response to stress caused by wild Red-tails, Bald Eagles, crows, or Red-Shouldered Hawks. There were crows and RSHs today. Surprisingly, minutes later he nabbed a half grown cat squirrel. After he grabbed it, Cisco was up on the side of a brushy limb, wing up, and awkward looking. Not knowing it was small, I wondered if he would lose it. A bigger squirrel might have gotten away. 

I hope I can get another season out of this field. A major wound I discovered today. What you see at the right used to be grassy. It's now a detention pond and a huge concrete pad. The grass is cut short on the east side of the pipeline. On the west side there's a long strip of grass. Farrah chased a few birds and caught one. I picked up a tick, discovered on the way home. I do have a better access road to hunt on the west side of Willow Fork, but the grass is cut too short maybe. Sometimes you can't tell. Farrah behaved well. I thought for sure Farrah was going to kill a Cattle Egret, but  it flew off as she was about to dive, and she just landed. Whew.