Anakin's First Flight
…wasn’t really a flight, in all honesty.
He sat on the roof of XB’s truck. Then he sat on a pole. And then he thought ponderously about coming to the lure, finally arriving, but protesting heavily that I wasn’t swinging it by strafing the stationary leather pouch five times before tackling it.
At least he got in the air. At least I got him back. At least I can say I’ve started.
In typical falconry fashion, right before this bit of nothing, XB put his bird over a pond –really two ponds adjacent to one another. One full of coots, the other with a gorgeous array of waterfowl. Booth, my Brittany, anxious to finally be hunting rushed full speed ahead in barking glee and jumped right into the wrong pond. Fortunately, but the time he starting flushing coots, XB’s bird had already lost a duck in a half-assed attempt at being a falcon. Oh, and XB’s dog had run off.
After retreiving Minnie the falcon, waiting 15 minutes for Booth to flush every coot he could find on the pond, and tracking XB’s dog on the other side of field, then retreiving her as well, we gave it another shot.
Just as the sun was setting, our prospects looking minimal, if not impossible, Minnie took a hen mallard in spectacular flight that required all five of us, dogs, humans and falcon working in tandem. XB graciously let Booth carry the duck back to the truck and all of us ended the day in bliss. It was a lovely way to start the holiday weekend.
