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Determined and terrified. That pretty much sums up the beginning of my falconry season. I’m too scared to train the puppy. I’m too scared to train the hybird falcon. But I’m slowly getting out there. Terror is a small hurtle compared to the smog of apathy I floated through in my last two seasons. Drive past Whitewater an hour out to the desert to look for another hour and find nothing but glassy ponds? A frustrating way to spend $40 in gas. Why get out of bed? This season I really want to get out of bed. I do get out of bed. And then I stare at the puppy and the hybrid and get the shakes. Nevermind! We’ll get out in the field another day.

But I did get out this Sunday. I drove and drove and drove and started putting the pieces together in my mind. I lure flew the peregrine and confirmed what I already knew. He’s ready to go. I talked to land owners, noted depressions in the dipping landscape that were aching for rain. And I thought I could see how this all could come together. I took the dogs to the dog park for the first time and saw the spark in the puppy when she truly got to run. And when I kindly left the front door open for them, they took advantage of my distraction to take what must have been a 30 minute run. I jumped in the truck to go look for them, but they beat me back home. (And when I got a whiff of what they had been rolling in, I kind of wished they had stayed “lost” longer.)

My dogs aren’t going anywhere.

There will be places to fly. 

I can train a falcon in a strange place and quite possibly not lose her permanently.

But I left the hybrid at home with the dogs this morning and just went out with the peregrine. I started looking for ponds at dawn. Imagine my surprise when I found one…with ducks in it. Mallards, but good enough. I hooked up the peregrine and pulled the hood. I swear he gave me a look like, “about damn time!” before he took off the glove. He sat for a minute on a pole, but I flashed the lure and he was in.

It was 8:30 and already warm. He had to be out of shape…it was only his second time out. So when he got to about 500 feet, as he was turning away and still climbing, I flushed the ducks. They cleared the pond cleanly, 6 mallards, a hen quacking protest when the peregrine drove her into the ground. Had it been a gadwall, I would have had my first duck, but mallards are made of rubber and steel. She escaped with everything intact except a couple of feathers and her dignity. The Jedi got all he could eat anyway. At that moment he was my favorite in the whole wide world.

The best part? It turned out I was only 15 minutes from work.

So much to be said for an intermewed bird. So much to be said for taking chances. So much to be said and instead I’m daydreaming about the peregrine’s stoop.