Ruger's hack time has ended. He has officially entered the "dispersal" phase.

He has gotten much better at landing and is starting to look like a goshawk now when he flies. He spent the night out on Thursday. I have been hacking him in an area that was pretty open underneath and didn't have a lot of game. He was staying within 200 yds of where I would release him. On Thursday I showed up to call him down and heard the distress call of a grey squirrel. It took me a little bit to locate it, but Ruger had it pinned below him in a tree. I flushed the squirrel and Ruger ignored it. After that, he didn't want to come down, he was more interested in finding other things. I left him out for a while longer and then o'gos 30 set in and he went crazy trying to find a place to roost. He flew all over the canopy looking for a roosting spot. I showed up the next morning and located him. He flew near me, but didn't want to come down. I finally called him in to a live lure. Once on the fist he had the look of "Who are you?". I fed him, but he refused to take tidbits from my hands like he normally does. I tried again later that day and same thing. This is fairly normal, I expect to have my sweet imprint back by the time cold weather gets here.

Until then, I'll be playing games with him and establishing parameters for our relationship. I had hoped to get him hooding prior to dispersal, but it didn't happen. I'll start hooding him once he starts accepting tidbits calmly from my hand again.