The 4th season has now began. It has been a whirl wind of a season already. I trained an eyass coop(my first) and it was a great experience. We caught some game out the window and at night and a very limited amount off the glove. I was amazed by the imprint's sweetness, but it was just a vapor. The aggression eventually surfaced and I released her for the sake of my children and eventually myself. I still would not trade the experience for anything. I then turned my focus to my male HH from last year. We caught some game at night as it was still in the upper 90's during the day and a bird off the tperch . I decided to feed him up and focus on the new CB juvie mHH I bought from Tenn. During the time of being fed up unfortunately my HH got frounce in the opening of his crop. After nearly two months of treatments and surgeries, I finally had him put to sleep. He will be sorely missed. He was a great gamehawk and very gentle.

This year has been pretty disappointing for me in some ways. I have caught birds at night and out the window and even a meager few off the glove/tperch, but I had hoped to really rock the rabbits around here. It hasn't worked out too well. I am convinced that the most joy for my EVERYDAY falconry lies in squirrel hawking while living in GA. I am going to fly a Red Tail on squirrels some for the last part of the season. I sold one male HH and I have put the other male HH up on my breeding permit. I have bought a couple of feists and Parnell's Carolina Cur. It is really a feist too, but of a specific line out of Stephen's Curs on one side, so he is almost completely black.

I have now flown an imprint coopers, passage HH, two captive bred HH's and a RT this season. I am near triple digits for the season, but most of it is what I call utilitarian hunting, meaning that I am carhawking and night hawking. I hunted the male HH's over a pack of dachshunds and flew him some with a friends female for socialization. I have a propogation permit now for HH's but unfortunately lost my adult male this year. I have aquired a pair of birds. The male is a Sadie/Fleetwood male and the female is a Dolly/Fritz female. They are both from very popular blood lines and I hope to produce some young this year. I also bought a CB male from the Coulsons. He is a Yiko/Zeke offspring. He is a stunning little bird. I bought him for future breeding and to keep Rocky socialized. He seems to be adjusting well to life in our household. He is very easy to handle! I hunted them together until I sold Rocky(couldn't produce enough rabbit slips for one hawk, much less two). I am having a very hard time this year providing rabbits slips for my hawks. I am not satisfied at all. Last year was tough, but this year is proving to be even worse. I am learning that to be a truly successful falconer in this area catching the amount of game that I deem necessary to be really successful, you would be hard pressed improve upons squirrel hawking. I caught a RT just after Christmas and have been doing pretty well with the RT on squirrels. We have a lot of squirrels here, so finding game has been fairly simple and very rewarding. I ended up with almost a 100 head of game. Birds and squirrels made up the majority of it.