My Little Carrier

We had a good weekend...kinda. LOL
Friday and Saturday were EXCELLENT days for Scarlet. Her fist response was instant. Her lure response was perfect...thankfully, I never thought she was going to get the hang of that. The only thing I learned was that her attention wanes after she begins to fill...and it generally does not take much. This makes complete sense as she does not eat much. Her metabolism has sped up and she is not eating 10 grams at lunch and 16 grams in the eveing. I still worked with her twice a day for the purpose of repetition.
Sunday rolls around and I end up going car hawking with Kenny and his Harris' Hawk, Biggio. It is right around lunch time so Scarlet is at perfect weight: 104.5 grams. It is a gorgeous day, perhaps the prettiest day we have had in a while. I decide to load Scarlet into the car and take her with. If I found the perfect slip then I would go for it, but I was not going to hunt her unless that happened. As we begin driving around we relaize there are birds everywhere. Biggio takes slip after slip, one after the other. We end up by the grain elevators when I see the slip I was hoping for. There is a parking lot for a closed business that is just COVERED in starlings. This particular lot is no stranger to starlings and this is not the first time that we have found it full of them.
Kenny and I switch seats, I load up the lure and her food for the day and we head into the lot. We drive around a little and the starlings keep spooking and moving around the lot. We finally decide to just sit still and a few minutes later they all land around the car. I lower the window I lift Scarlet up so she can see the birds. It took her about 30 seconds before she bolts out the window in hot pursuit. She ends up missing and landing in the wheel well of a semi. I get out of the car and go to get her when she disappears into the the truck. I start looking inside for her when I hear the familar bird screams. She drops out under the truck, clutching a sparrow. That little bugger was chasing them around inside the wheel well! Of course, I am estatic. I am thankful that she is as gamey as I hoped. I let her start plucking, put the mouse on the lure and slowly start inching my way towards her. She is having none of that. For the next 5 minutes we play this game - she starts plucking, I try to make in, she bolts. She finally decides she has had enough and flys out of the back of the truck, across a field and into a tree. Just great. I take off running across the field until I get close to her and then slowly inch my way in closer. She is now sitting in the tree plucking away and has broken in. I have no idea what to do. I know that her response disappears when she gets full which tells me that I need to get her back before she eats too much. I decide I need to climb the tree. Kenny offers but I figured it best if I did it as she is used to me. He gives me a boost, I get up on the first branch when she bolts again. Now I am hanging, Kenny is trying to help me and I am telling him to just watch her. She flies quit some distance. My grips begins to give out and I drop straight down out of the tree. After my back surgery a few weeks ago I am now hurting pretty bad. My doctor is going to love me.
So, to make a long story short (well shorter anyway) I was pretty sure I had lost her. We chased her from tree to tree, under a train, in bushes, all over the place. Over an hour later she made it into a large bush by the main road, past 2 fields, some railroad tracks....let's just say a long way. There were a couple of times I lost sight of her and was very thankful to have Kenny in the field.
So she's in the bush right by the main road - still clutching the dreaded Sparrow, of course. She is steadily plucking and eating by the time we figure out which bush she is in. We each take a side of the bush and begin to climb in. Finally I get pretty close, Kenny distracts her and I am able to grab a jess between two fingers. I crawl a little farther, get both jesses and she is pissed. She drops the sparrow and I cast her in one hand and pull her out. I can not tell you how relieved I was to finally have her back. I knew that I would not be able to get the sparrow back as it dropped into the bottom of the large bush but there was not much left anyway. We make it back to the car and I offer her some food on the glove to thwart the fact that she probably felt robbed. She did not want it. I return her to the giant hood and call it a day.
I must say, I was very surprised that she turned out to be a carrier as she has shown no signs that she would be. I purposely chose a starling slip, just in case but I guess this is proof that nothing ever goes as planned. I am just thankful to have her back and we are going to do a little more training before going hunting again....and a little more recovering on my part.