Jay Tuttle (he's interning for me this winter at the center) and I met up this morning for a couple of flights. The conditions were not great today, warmer weather and heavy wind up high, but we managed to get out and get the birds up.
Jay's bird took a nice pitch on the first pond that held ducks and seemed to pull up short on a pair of Gadwalls that we had flushed clean off the water. The falcon was called down for little reward with the intention of flying again after a rest.
First Green Head of the Year.
Several minutes later we found another small pond holding a pair of Mallards. We put Tulsa in the air and he started off pulling the same bologna he's been doing off and on the past few weeks. He started climbing strong then set his wings and coasted down to about 200 feet. Since there was two of us, I had Jay stay just under the dam wall and I walked away from the pond. It didn't take long for the falcon to follow me and he quickly regained pitch. I yelled for Jay to flush when Tulsa was wide of the pond and climbing. The drake was struck about 20 feet off the water into a small stand of shrub trees. And my bird quickly secured his 1250g+ meal (nearly 2x his weight), duck #3 on the year
Jay's First Okie Duck of the Year
After getting my bird back in the truck and getting on the road, we found another pond that was loaded with Mallards only minutes away. Time to give Jay's bird a second chance. His falcon quickly gained a good pitch, quite a feat considering he just flew less than an hour before. Jay and I came up over the dam and flushed probably 30 Mallards off of a postage stamp sized pond. The falcon locked on to a hen Mallard that was trailing the group and, with the precision of a surgeon, cut through the duck's wing. I saw the wing break right in front of me and it was obvious that Jay had got his first duck of the year. Not the Gadwall that he's been hoping for but a nice start. And if there is one duck we have in northeastern Oklahoma, its Gadwalls.
Now for a nap....
-RVZ
No comments:
Post a Comment