Where have all the rabbits gone??

I guess that it is that time of the year...the weather is getting hotter and the grass is getting browner. All of this leads to a shortage of rabbits as the hide in the deep cool of the soil during the hot muggy days.
I gave Katana Tuesday off and we resumed hunting on Wednesday. Michael Beran came into town so we hit some of our better fields. We still managed to kick up a few slips, but Katana was unsuccessful. The field that I flew her in has a lot of brush piles and the rabbits would just run between them yielding a lot of close misses.
Thursday was a lot of the same, some great flights but no connections.
Friday I took her to a field that I have not hunted in a while but was close to the house. She had some trouble deciding where to perch, and her selection was not great. Because of this, she had some nice long chases but the rabbits would get away. Working back towards her, though, we kicked up a rabbit that she stooped out of a tree to grab. A beautiful flight, straight down and another bunny in the bag.
Today we went to several fields that are usually great, but the rabbits were no when to be found. I flew Katana in 3 fields, the first one yielded no slips. The second only gave us two chases in heavy reeds. She was perched atop a building giving her a great advantage but just could not crash hard enough. At one point she had a rabbit deep in the reeds that got away and she obviously gave up a great fight as it was screaming and she was covered in mud. If I had to speculate, she was probably sitting precariously on top of the reeds and barely had the rabbit by the butt when it got away. We hit one more field, in desperate search of a few more flights. She was perched high in a tree when the first rabbit broke. She headed out for a nice long tail chase that ended in a crash and tumble. As we made in she had the rabbit completely under control and it was a nice clean head shot. Yea! I transferred her off as she had now flown almost 2 hours today and the heat was obviously making the rabbits scarce.
I am also trying to get her used to the mews. Last year she would bounce around like crazy, but she seems to be doing better this year. I hope that she will settle down so I can molt her there. When we got home, I hosed her off and into the mews she went. So far so good. I am only putting in there when I am home and can keep a good eye on her until she gets used to the mews.

23 rabbits, 3 snakes, 2 grasshoppers, 1 frog, 1 mouse, 2 rats