Split release

It was a bit hazy and the fog was clearing off. It made for a beautiful sunrise. The sun was HUGE and orange with horizontal stripes. I took a picture of it but it didn't even come close to capturing it. Also, for some reason, I saw dead fox everywhere on the drive down. Three! That's a lot of fox sitings (either dead or alive) for a month for me - and all within an hour!

Anyway, the birds were doing so well, I thought I'd try splitting them up - to make sure some weren't just goofing off and following the others. I have 2 injured and 3 late hatches so, with the loss of 382, I'm down to training only 16. Easy math: 8 per basket (I'll be down to one basket pretty soon at this rate). The first basket circled a bit more than last time but finally took off in the right direction. I waited 5 more minutes AFTER they were out of sight, then released the 2nd basket. They circled quite a bit, then meandered toward the right direction. Then, to my shock, the first batch emerged from the tree line and the two flocks merged. Grrr! They must've been waiting on them! Pretty tricky!