GoatSass Farm

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Spent a beautiful day with falconers in South Western Indiana about two hours from home. Learned a bit more about the folks that carry on the ancient tradition of hunting with birds of prey. I think the connection these folks have with their birds speaks to the type of people they are. Welcoming individuals all, that make a person feel at home around them.

There were several young ladies and children involved with this group. I was surprised at how the young gals worked so hard at fighting their way through heavy brush and briers to flush rabbits for the hawks to attempt to capture.

I also got lucky to catch two hawks of other species in the field. A red shouldered hawk in the first pic in the post today, a hawk not used by falconers. A coopers hawk in the second pic which are sometimes used.

It is quite a journey to become a falconer I am learning. Perhaps at a future date I will do a post on that. For now I will just share a few pics of a day spent afield learning and observing…

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This young red tailed hawk landed on another photographers head instead of its handlers glove. Young hawks have to learn too…

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It has been sort of the slow days of early winter since getting back at it after the holidays. The eagles seem to be satisfied with condition of the nest and not working on it except for adding a little grass. I am not finding any eagles fishing along the rivers. Not cold enough yet for them to be required to feed a lot I suppose. Did watch one commercial fisherman running a net. They are allowed to net fish for the asian carp year around. This one seemed to be catching as many striped bass as asian carp. Throwing the striped bass a game fish back. I hope the loss of these nice stripers was not too great…

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