I just unloaded a couple of birds. Rainbow, the Cooper's Hawk has moved on to a true austringer. Someone who can really appreciate what that Cooper's Hawk is truly capable of. I liked the bird just fine. I imprinted her my way, and hawked her my way, and really had relatively few problems. Nothing like the imprint horror stories that you hear so often. That bird was only hawked from March through May and ended up catching 136 head. Not too shabby for such a short time. But, in the end, hawks are just not my thing. They don't get me excited to go out and fly each day. Not to say I wouldn't fly another one...but any hawk I fly in the future will be a passage bird.
Now falcons are a different story. Something about the true falcons have had my attention since I was a young teenager. I just don't get tired of them. So I was glad to help out a friend by raising this Gyrkin for him.
He was fully summed a few weeks ago and moved back to his home where hopefully he'll father lots of baby Gyrs and Gyr hybrids in the future. (Don't worry my daughters are used to lovin' 'em and leaving 'em, so there is no emotional harm) Now if we could just get rid of these crazy temperatures, get the ducks migrating, and get this hawking season underway already...
-RVZ
