Classic (Farrah) squirrel hawking

This was another typical squirrel outing with Farrah. If she really wanted to catch squirrels, she could shame Cisco into retirement. Her maneuverability in the trees, her ability to fly almost straight up, and her skipping up vines, make her a potentially deadly squirrel buzzard. She has some downsides. Her footing is sloppy, and her grip is not quite what Cisco's is. Cisco is not the most powerful Red-tail I've encountered by far. His grip is respectable but not close to the crushing grip I've seen on a couple of others. And Farrah doesn't quite match him from what I can tell. Farrah gets to the squirrels and can get her feet on them with little effort when she wants to. But about the time you think she's going to grab one, she'll drift off. She's been bitten enough. Cisco catches an order of magnitude more squirrels almost exactly. And it isn't because I don't expose Farrah to squirrels as much, which I don't. It really doesn't make too much difference how much I take her out on squirrels. She doesn't catch very many. Typically after about two or three in a season she's done. 

Today was typical. I keep going back to these woods because I figure my glove is out there, even though it's probably in a landfill. Today Farrah found and cornered two or three squirrels and quit chasing. I had to get home and headed to the Honda. She must have spotted a small rodent up in the tree. I was expecting her to come down but instead I looked back and she was ripping up something on a branch about 15 feet high. I suspect it was a mouse or rat that decided to hang around the trees. At the house her weight was not particularly high, so It was not a huge rodent.

When the weather cools down I'll put her out in the open field more. This morning she met my very modest Farrah squirrel hawking goals. If I really wanted her to catch squirrels, I would cut her weight 10 or 15 g and she'd probably be deadly. But she'd likely get bitten a lot more.