Another wonderful story you never expect to experience while hawking with your bird and dog is to lose your bird. This happened to me one day when I was hunting in a valley with a large drainage gully in the bottom. Having hunted for a while with the birds and also while just hunting in general, you seek the high ground so you can look down on the most area with a great vantage point. In this instance, I had a Harris hawk which was a wonderful bird, however; a little braver than he should have been.
We were walking the foothill area looking down on the gully and bottom land when a cotton tail rabbit took off. The hawk (Quatro) immediately off the fist and giving chase. The rabbit had a pretty good head start but the bird was able to close the distance very quickly. The rabbit headed straight for the gully, the bird giving chase and me running as fast as I could. The rabbit and bird disappeared into the rather large drainage gully which was approximately 10 to 15 feet deep and about 30 feet wide with high banks on both sides. Now this is where you give thanks for purchasing high quality bells from Pakistan to assist in locating the birds when you can’t readily see them. The rabbit was gone, the bird with him and it was me and the dog left to find them both. I began to walk the bottom of the gully and at some point I was able to hear the bells ringing. I walked up and down that gully and no matter which way I went I could not locate the bird. Eventually after much searching, I heard a dim ringing of the bells. I began to look much closer as it seemed the sound was coming from the bank of the gully. As I continued to search, I confirmed my suspicion. I moved much closer to the wall, and I was near a rabbit hole in that wall when I heard the bell ringing from that hole. I looked into the hole and there was my bird, about 4 feet in. Now a little bird anatomy, feathers are layered on a bird so as to allow forward movement of the bird, they are not designed to function in reverse and as the bird attempted to back out of the hole, the feathers would flare, catching the sides of the hole and not allowing backward movement. Well, now it’s time to dig a bird out of the dirt. Fortunately, I was successful in recovering my hawk and everything turned out well. Once again very thankful for the finely crafted Pakistan bells.
