And Boom Goes the Dynamite

After my last post about the Gyr, I was sliding into acceptance that this falcon was just "being a Gyr" as some of the old timers have implied about them.  However, my brain finally put together something that I was missing.  Pulling off of ducks while stooping, raking feathers off their backs, not stooping....All signs of too fat.  After a miss one morning last week where he should have easily knocked a Ringbill out but instead just knocked a few feathers loose.  I called him down to the lure for nothing, took him home and put him on the block.  Something I would do for most falcons that I assumed were overweight but somehow I had convinced myself that this bird was at the "perfect" weight.  Later that afternoon the bird was nearly an ounce lower than I had ever had him before and I went out in search of another slip.

Located the ducks, put him up, and lo and behold he blasted off the fist with a ton of energy, ate up the sky, and at about 800' I flushed for him.

No screwing around this time! Teardrop stoop, fell in a little behind an unlucky Gadwall and without loosing an ounce of speed, cut through the ducks wing, smashing the bone inside.  There wasn't much of a wingover, more like a quick pit stop on the ground just past his target, followed by the falcon springing back in the other direction to get to eating. 

I had this bird's weight today at nearly 100 grams lower than I started flying him last year and he didn't loose an ounce of energy.  In fact having a little more edge on him seem to motivate him more to really show what he is capable of doing.

Two days later he was back to weight and ready for more.  I found a pond with 3 Mallards on it, he had blinked these larger ducks in the past but being that he was at his new better weight my confidence that he would take a shot at these was much higher.

Again he took off with a new-found determination and began to mount.  And mount he did, after a brief check over the pond, he turned into the wind and took a long run out.  When he returned he was well over 1000' in the air.  Just a dot to the naked eye.  I allowed him to make one more run over the pond and as he turned and made his way up wind, I flushed. 

I could hear the "sizzzzzzzzzzzzwhouuuu" from way up and I knew that the velocity he was bringing was going to end violently.  After several long seconds, the end came, and I instantly got that sick to my stomach feeling that one gets when seeing a football player get hit and go instantly limp.  The Gyr hit the duck hard and literally bounced off and to the side.  The duck never moved after hitting the ground.  I gathered myself and ran over to the point of impact where I found the duck laying on its side with a compound fracture to the wing and saw Mongo sitting about 20 feet away, leaning back on his tail staring into the sky.

This instantly brought back memories of my black hybrid, Rhythm, and one of my first few blog posts.  Rhythm hit his last duck hard, killing it instantly, but in the process caused himself terminal damage and he died several hours later.  The necropsy showed that he had ruptured his pancreas in the impact.

I picked up the duck and tossed it in front of Mongo.  The falcon just looked at it for a couple of minutes while still acting dazed but eventually did snap out of it and began to pluck feathers from his prey.  After another flew minutes he was back to his old imprint self.  I set him up for a picture and then took him home to put over his crop and relax.  I think I'm gonna give him a couple of days off just to be sure. The amount of force these falcons can endure and survive (most of the time) is simply amazing.

I'm definitely more excited about the future with this bird.  And to think a little over 20 grams made all this difference...

-RVZ