barbarie et rns outre atlantique

[nebli 0]

si souvent les barbaries ne remplissent pas toujours l'espoir mis en eux voici un vol exemplaire de ce que ces petits elfes ont dans le coeur et les ailes£.
Chris, I hope we're on the verge of hearing about some good duck hawking with your females - sounds like we are.
décor : un étang avec 5 sarcelles d'hiver( ssespèce américaine)
l'oiseau est monté à environ 700m(2000ft) légèrement sous le vent
chien et fauconnier se dirigent vers l'étang. au moment de lever les sarcelles 4 pluviers killdeer (sorte de grand gravelots) http://hu.wikipedia.org/wiki/F%C3%A1jl:Killdeer_%28Charadrius_vociferus%29.jpg
se lèvent , 3 se posent au bout de l'étang, un prend le large et monte quelques instantants après je vois et entant le tiercelet, 40m de moi sur ma gauche ressourçant vers le milieu de la riveremontant en décrivant un grand z, gauche droite et puis en plein sur le gravelot.à peut être 30m de haut, il l'exquiva on ne sait trop comment et accompli un looping sur 10m( le nombre de g a du être énorme) et repique vers le killdeer qui se réfugie dans l'étang, et profite pour renvoyer dans l'étang une des sarcelles qui essayait de se faire la belle.

il reprit un plafond immense et cette fois , timidement ,les sarcelles quittent l'étang grâce au chien . tout à coup le voilà passant à toute vitesse,buffetant les canards
la première fut buffetée durement et termina dans un buisson,la seconde très fortement , termine sa course contre la berme de l'étang, la troisième enfin est projetée dans un buisson et rejoint l'étang en rampant dans la végétation.
le tiercele repart une troisiième fois , cette fois hors de vue même aux jumelles. sur les 3 sarcelles une ,blessée se cache quelque part , la deuxième décolle, poussée par le chien et part à toute vitesse sans intention de revenir, vent de travers.
à quelque centaine de mètres je perçoit les 30 derniers m du piqué vertical à coté du canard je le vois disparaître sous l'horizon et remonter en chandelle sans toucher semble t'il la sarcelle si ce n'est que celle si tombe raide morte de 50m environ, crise cardiaque ou buffetée à la tête.


la version anglaise "in extenso "se trouve si dessous.
quelques photos?




,
I wanted to tell about todays flight which was one of the best I've seen with this bird. I flew a pond with 5 green wing teal on it and the tiercel was eager for pitch - he's been flying pretty spectacular lately. Anyway, he took his first pitch of maybe 1500 - 2000 ft slightly downwind and I flagged him over. It was a bright blue sky and I saw that he was climbing when he turned to come back over (he's been a real saint about that) and the dog and I headed for the pond. When we went in to flush four killdeer took off, three landing again at the edge of the pond and one flying clear and climbing. A few moments later I caught the sight and sound of the tiercel flying at mach 2 about 50 yards to my left, down the middle of the pond and watched him do a massive Zoro move where he juked left, swung hard out to the right and shot through the killdeer at maybe 100 ft up. It dodged him somehow and as soon as he passed it he shot up and did a loop-the-loop maybe 30 ft in diameter (g-forces must have been intense!!) and got back on the killdeer's butt and ran it to the pond. After it put in he zipped out a few hundred yards and corralled one of the teal that was trying to get away and put it back into the pond "We're going to need you for the second act!"

He took another huge pitch and this time no teal left initially, only the killdeer. I didn't see what happened with the killdeere but heard a stoop. The dog had gone into the water and the teal started leaving one at a time, very timidly. All of a sudden he was just zooming around all over the place hitting ducks, just flying at about merlin speed on the deck. He hit one pretty hard into the scrub, kept going and slammed a second very hard into the pond berm. He hit a third one into a bush and it made it's flapping escape through some thick growth into the pond. THe one that hit the berm was hurt pretty badly and was just floating with it's beak mostly underwater, not moving much. So we had one wounded teal, one that never left and a determined labrador.....

So the tiercel climbed for stoop number three - flying hard upwind and climbing, turned at about 1/3 mile away and kept climbing fast. I knew to get these ducks he'd need to be basically out of sight. I was losing him in binoculars in a few minutes and went in for the flush without waving him over. The dog just about had the teal in her mouth before it flushed and to my utter surprise, it left the pond completely, flying crosswind straight away with no intention of coming back (the wounded teal was hiding somewhere). At a few hundred yards out I saw the last 100 ft or so of the tiercel stooping vertically near the duck, then after a long few moments where he was below the horizon he shot up from way below and didn't appear to make any contact at all. For a moment I though that he missed only to notice the teal falling completely lifeless from about 150 ft - I guess he either head shot it or scared it to death but it didn't move as it fell.

A bit of a long winded summary, but the vision of him hitting that duck like that - the positions and relative motion of those two birds in those moments was absolutely astonishing to the point of seeming like the natural forces governing movement were temporarily suspended. Pete and I always talk about those flights that leave a permanent impression on one's memory and this was certainly one of those for me.]

[fricky 0]

Superbe récit et jolies photos!

[etienne01 0]

Superbe, merci Juanito.

[FL1 0]

Merci pour le partage.
Magnifique petit oiseau aussi.