R5 - Not a Bruiser

I once sent a picture of Cisco with two cat squirrels to my friend Gill, in Scotland. She replied, "Those squirrels look like real bruisers compared to ours." She fell for my placement-of-game trick. No need to Photoshop.  I once laid a half grown cotton rat in front of my Harris’s hawk and snapped a picture. I got this inquiry: "Do we have capybaras in South Texas?" OK, most of this BS is based on fact. 

This morning I took a hefty Cisco out west a little. 974 grams, the result of too much reward for his squirrel two days back. He followed me initially, then parked atop a pine. I  couldn't coax him to move. Many times he's goofing off when he does this, but today I trusted him and worked back to where he perched. I beat up the McCartney Rose bushes around him. He was intently watching two spots about 120° apart. Back and forth he looked at them. A classic 45° buteoine stoop from the tree and a rabbit screamed. This is the only way to catch things here because of the cover. Impossible to pursue. Cisco's first lagomorph, a small swamp rabbit. Even careful placement of the camera and rabbit won't make a bruiser.

11/9/2015  H27 -  Farrah chases some bunnies and snags a couple of cotton rats out west of Katy. 

Cisco today with little swamp rabbit