My sponsor scheduled to go trapping with me Saturday mid-morning. We met up with no mishaps in time and got to it. We drove around for 1.5 hours and didn't get a chance to put the trap under anything. The birds just weren't to be found. We did see one or two but they took off and didn't look back. Typically they'll fly off and circle back to where they were perched when you drive by. These birds weren't typical I guess.
We both had errands and chores and such so we agreed to meet up in the early evening to try again.
My calls and messages to meet up were unanswered by the time we needed to get out and I finally decided to just go out by myself. I was quite nervous about that but my desire to get a bird and annoyance at another missed appointment got me out the door.
I drove to where I saw a male kestrel earlier that day and found him again. He was perched on a pole up on a hill which started right near the road. He was on the left and so I needed to drop the trap on the right side of the road in order for him to see it. Since I was by myself I had to drive past the bird a ways and turn around to be able to drop it out the left side. After the first drive by, the kestrel took off. I decided to drop the trap anyway. I drove past and turned around again to watch with my binoculars and see if he would come back to his perch. After 5 minutes or so he did. I waited for him to see the trap and while looking at it with my binoculars I realized that it was tilted at an angle such that the kestrel wouldn't really see much of it and surely not the mice inside. So I drove to the trap, repositioned it, and drove off again, scaring the kestrel in the process. I watched and waited and saw him show up again on the next pole down the line; one with no view of the trap. After a few minutes he was joined by a female and they sat there all fat and fluffy-like. Meanwhile, another bird did get interested in the trap. A magpie. I waited to see what it would do and if maybe this would get the kestrels interested. But after the magpie started poking at the mice, I had enough and went to rescue them. I didn't want to catch a magpie or have the mice damaged.
Next I drove to where we had gone the first night and saw the male flying around, calling out as he flew around the fields. He had no intention of landing so I drove on.
I found the spot my sponsor had taken me to earlier in the day. About this time I got a call from my sponsor that he had to go up to Salt Lake and got stuck in traffic on the way home. He was on his way out to find me now.
Meanwhile I saw a female on a wire nearby and thought I'd give it a try. I really want to start with a male but I thought that if the female hits the trap, I can at least have the experience of catching a bird and releasing it from the trap and handling it properly. Then I could let her go and keep trying for a male. Or I may just decide to keep a female. Who knew?
Well the setup couldn't have been more perfect. She didn't bump (fly off) as I slowed underneath her and dropped the trap about 20 feet past her. That was very surprising. I drove off 100 yards and watched and waited. After a few minutes she gathered herself to fly and I thought she was going for the trap. She ended up just flying down the wire to land directly over the trap. She spent a few more minutes inspecting it from above. After another 10 minutes of that a male joined her and she lost interest in the trap and they just hung out on the pole, not giving the trap another glance. My sponsor had arrived during all this and we decided that since the valley was in shadow at this point and it seemed all the birds were full and ready for bed, that we would make our way home and look along the way. We saw a few red-tailed hawks but no more kestrels.
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