Colonel Cooper and the Kazakh Eaglers

Colonel Jeff Cooper was a crusty old marine, shooter, and writer, one of the most influential firearms thinkers of the twentieth century. He wrote an enormous series of entertaining and informative essays, observations and quips called his Commentaries, a sort of proto- gunblog.

But he could be a bit set in his ways, at least in his later years. When he called for suggestions for the greatest hunts in the world I proposed the Kazakh flight of eagle at wolf. After several notes back and forth I received the following postcard:

That this might be a case of more than usual stubbornness is suggested by the fact it was a reply to this photo:

As Jonathan Hanson said at the time, he was a splendid creature, but he should have perished at the K-T meteor impact.

"Pigeons" 2: New Gorbatov

At Al's Eagle Hunter site is among other delights the biggest gallery of Vadim Gorbatov prints available on line. He has just added two new ones: Kublai Khan's Hunting Trip and Frederic II's Hunting Trip:

I have a huge artist's proof of the Kublai, but you can get a smaller version for pretty cheap, and the two larger sizes have wonderful sketches on the back as well. I think I'll get one of those when I have a few bucks.

And last on the pigeon theme: a lot of people have Gorbatov raptors, but I have original Gorbatov pigeons. Will scan if I can ever figure out this scanner.

Pigeons Plus

Or, from pigeons to eagles to art.

The whole thread started when artist Graeme Boyd of my pigeon discussion group emailed us this video of Chinese pigeons being flown with whistles.

Everyone knows that this is an interest of mine. I even have a collection, sent to me by a German scholar who taught in Beijing and whom we showed around Ulan Bataar.


When I played the video, I discovered that the Englishman narrating was my friend Al Gates, legendary Berkutchi and the only person ever to hunt with one eagle and then breed her and hunt with her son.

Of course I immediately e- mailed to see if he had anything else new going on. He did, of course, and I'll post that above.

Meanwhile, as though in synchronicity, new pigeon and eagle material just kept coming in. There was this Life Magazine image from Chas:

I think I'll add this older one of a pigeon with a camera, from the Spy Museum via Annie H:

And this video-- actually narration over stills, but good stills and mostly accurate info (though eagles do NOT take months to train) here, sent by the tazi group. After about 2:50 our old friend Aralbai comes in. Cat rode with him and his son this past fall (see the various "Cat's Mongolia" posts) but here he and his son are in '98:

Perhaps this is the place to say that sad word from Mongolia has come in: Manai, who I hunted with in '98 and 2000, and who is on the cover of Eagle Dreams (you can see the book down in the sidebar) has just died. He was younger than me. I have no details yet, and will give him a proper remembrance when I know more.

Links to Friends' Work

A couple of new ones:

Sarah Madigan's sculpture. She often works with things like birds and bones (see post below) and will be working with my old frozen falcon. Can't wait to see.

And: Duke Kuonahani's The Dogs Bark, a series of sharp, succinct, knowledgeable, and funny movie reviews. As he might say, "An essential", especially with your Netflix.

Country Life

A long thoughtful post about the good and bad, but above all the different things about country as opposed to urban life. A snip:

"More often there is instead a deep reserve of caution. This wariness is a byproduct of living a connected life. The outsider does not know or feel the history of shared experience. To have an address is not to live in a small town. Living in a small town means being connected to the flow of its collective life. One does not jump into such a stream without a shocking jolt of cold water. It takes time to acclimate oneself to this river. One has to submerge oneself, drifting along for awhile before your system becomes adjusted. One adapts to the river’s temperature, not the other way around. The community molds the individual by including him in the story of the town."

And a fierce lament for country things lost by the English group Show of Hands. The details are different here but many of the stories are the same.

Quote of the Week

Nothing good ever transpires in an argument carried past 2AM.

(Gerard Vanderleun)

Philip Larkin...

... was a very serious poet, but he may be best known for his mordant "This be the verse", with its famous NSFW first line that was even the theme for an issue of Granta. I was surprised and tickled to see a YouTube of Larkin photos over a reading of that poem at Carl Zimmer's evo blog The Loom.

A commenter on that post said it was not Larkin reading, and I wondered who it might be. I followed my instincts to fellow curmudgeon John Derbyshire's site, where to my delight I found a thoughtful and funny page on the poem, and a reading by Derb.

But it was a different version! If anyone knows if the other is actually Larkin I'd appreciate knowing.

I had a funny collision with Larkin in the mid -seventies when I was an editor at English Literary Renaissance, a scholarly journal. I was ordered to commission (for free of course) an intro to our special Marvell edition from him, in his capacity as librarian at Hull. I was afraid of his legendary brusqueness, but he turned out to be as amiable could be, and immediately wrote the piece.

Dead Stuff

Says Darren, blogging about his mummified fox : "I think everyone seriously interested in animals collects dead animals, or bits of dead animals."

Certainly this is true of me, and of most other naturalists I know. The comments turned into reports on collections. Mine, responding to and quoting an earlier one, was:

" "Those of us just here in the US just twiddle our thumbs wishing we could, as it's illegal to own so much as a contour feather without a permit."

"What kind of naturalist would be stopped by that? (;-))

"Seriously, only non- game protected birds are illegal. Anyone can keep any part of game birds, any parts of mammals & reptiles (unless there are local ordinances against it or they are endangered) and insects. I have all of the above, bones, skins, skulls, feathers, skins... also, a licensed falconer (which I am) can have parts of the birds they keep (except eagles after death, which go to the Federal repository). I stop for roadkill.

"I have a wife who is as fascinated as I am by all this, tolerates my many dogs and my falcon in the alcove between kitchen and dining room, and creatures in the freezer.
(I just lent a ten- years frozen falcon to a sculptor friend for her to cast. I knew I kept it around for a reason!)

"What else? I have guns too. Just don't ask about the penguins..."

I added as a PS: "I used to keep a "dermie" colony that John McLoughlin and I stocked by beating dry cow and horse carcasses at the town dump with our walking sticks. Alas, I gave them up when I feared for my insects, and the dump no longer has a section labeled "Dead Animals". Change comes even to rural New Mexico."

There were at least two better, though:

"I regret pitching this really cool scat many years ago. It was a big furry black bear poop with part of the striped pelt of a chipmunk in it. I can't believe I threw away the pride of my scat collection."

And:

"What's really disturbing about the mummified fox is the way that Darren holds it in his lap and absentmindedly scratches its nape while sipping absinthe and chanting under his breath. Also, he insists that all visitors refer to the mummified fox as Colonel Humphrey, avoid eye-socket-contact, and "try not to piss him off.""

Thanksgiving Hunt

I'm back home from a week's hunt in Texas, my usual Thanksgiving trip augmented this year by the coincidence of the annual North American Falconers Association Field Meet, also in Amarillo this week.

These trips are the highlight of my season and uniformly fun and productive hawking adventures. I've posted about them here and elsewhere, but below are a few snapshots from this year's event.

Our base camp at the home of good friends, the Walkers: Here pictured are my partners Eric and Diana Edwards (left), Jimmy Walker (center) and Matt Reidy on right. Jimmy's goshawk Vinney got to spend a little quality time with the family.

I drove up with the Edwardses, who brought their pointing lab, a passage merlin and a red-naped shaheen.

Along with Matt Reidy's two falcons, Jimmy's gos and prairie tiercel, Brian Millsap had his peregrine tiercel and veteran Harris hawk. Here's Brian's tiercel on a teal taken Tuesday morning.

Eric's merlin on a House sparrow taken in a neat, snappy flight around the corner of a farm fence.

Here's one of me and Ernie on our first pheasant, ever. It was a big day for both of us.

A beautiful bird, both in feather and out of it.

Of rabbits, we had plenty. Here we are at the first spot we hunted on Monday morning. Some of these places are regular haunts, and my friends will note my wardrobe changes little from year to year. So these hero shots get a little repetitive, but I love them.

New on the menu this year was a gumbo of hawk-caught rabbit and duck with a generous portion of deer sausage. I skipped the Tuesday morning hunt to gather some ingredients and make up a batch for the crew.

The rest of the rabbits and sundry wildlife were floured and fried for a huge Thanksgiving family feast.

This was just a part of the first batch...

Finally, a portrait of Jimmy's European gos for Steve---Vinney is a fantastic hawk for quail, duck, pheasant and rabbits all.

Wintering goldens

Yesterday I drove through the sagebrush country of the Little Colorado Desert, which is always a pleasure as it serves as a winter home to migratory golden eagles. I’ve noticed our eagle population has substantially grown over the last few weeks – the birds arrive with winter temperatures. They come from the north, and most of our resident eagles head further south, although it appears there is some intermixing. A magnificent nearly black-colored golden arrived on our ranch a week ago. It is very shy, so I’ve been unable to get a photo yet.

But yesterday, there were three dark-colored goldens perched on fenceposts near a roadkill. Two were shy and immediately flew, but this youngster stayed around long enough for me to admire from afar. I stopped to watch these mainly because of where they were located – a small basin that gets a substantial wintering pronghorn antelope population. Over the last five years, Jim and I have watched goldens in this small basin as they actively hunt pronghorn in the wintertime – never at any other time of year (not hunting pronghorn fawns in spring). The eagles really get the herds running and spinning. We’ve never seen a kill occur though. So what’s the deal? Is this the same birds that keep coming back year after year to this certain spot? Is it learned behavior that we’ll be able to watch for years to come?

A few years ago, I was fortunate enough to witness a golden hunt and take down a pronghorn fawn, as the doe frantically struck the bird with her front hooves. This event happened a few miles from our house. What intrigues me about these other birds is that they are hunting relatively larger game. Any thoughts?

Frozen waterhose

Before I’m willing to turn on the big stockwater tank and its heater for the wintertime, for some reason I procrastinate until my little tank is empty and the waterhose that feeds it is completely frozen. That happened today. Usually the hose freezes overnight, but thaws during the day so I can refill the tank and not worry about it.

But while it was sunny today, it never got warm enough to thaw the hose. Technically, I have two more weeks before I move weaned lambs to the homestead and have to turn on the big tank and heater, so I’m trying to squeak by. After a long trip to town, I unloaded the groceries, let all the dogs out, and went to work coiling the hose, bringing it into the house to soak it in a hot tub to thaw, then taking it back out, reattaching, running it back to the tank, and filling the tank. I was in and out both the front and back door repeatedly during this process.

It was a simple enough task, but today, my livestock guardian pups decided to help. That meant chasing the horses away from the stock tank – even though the tank’s sole purpose is to water the horses, since the dogs have their own tank in the kennel. Today was one of the days it seems like I am living with a couple of terrible two-year olds who don’t speak the same language as I do.

After getting the hose all taken care of, I walked in the back door to find Helga – the 90-pound monster, on one of my two leather couches in the living room, her mouth bleeding. She acted shy, like she knew she had done something wrong, all the while dripping blood all over the couch and throw pillows. I grabbed a kitchen towel and hurried toward her, which then spooked her, so she leapt off the couch, flew across the room, and landed on the other couch, leaving a blood trail all the way.

Helga was embarrassed about the bleeding and didn’t want me to touch her, but I was trying to minimize the damage to the house, so we obviously weren’t on the same page. I chased, she ran, blood flew. Finally her sibling, Rant, came bolting through the front door to find out what the fuss was all about, which then set Helga into another flight response. I grabbed a package of pastries from the top of the bread box on the counter, flung open the back door and hurled the package out the door, with guard dogs quickly jumping out after them. I slammed the door after the hounds from hell were outside.

I then backtracked and found blood on the outside of the front door where Helga had hit it with her nose to get it open. The best I can figure, she harassed the horses enough at the stock tank that one of them kicked her in the mouth. There is no damage to her mouth or teeth, and I can see a nick out of the end of her tongue, so that’s where all the blood came from. She wanted comfort, so she came into the house, but then didn’t want anyone to touch her.

As an added bonus, while I ran around cleaning the house, I found large chunks of raw sweet potatoes scattered in the living room, on the couch, and in the hall. Since I had just filled the vegetable basket on the kitchen sideboard with sweet potatoes when I returned home, it seems that while I was outside, the monster pups decided to steal something – there were two potatoes gone from the basket. Guess they made good toys, but weren’t actually worthy of eating.

All this in a period of maybe 15 minutes. Life is never boring when you live it with animals.

Web Miscellany

The US faces an invasion from another alien species, the Madagascar hissing cockroach.

In Rome, the city government is attempting to deal with a starling investation with a team of starling stalkers. Apparently with mixed results. I believe I know some falconers who'd be willing to take on the job for the $187,000 the city spends on this annually.

After my post on the post-post ironic decor at an LA nightspot, you should probably read this NY Times piece, "Irony Is Dead. Again. Yeah, Right."

In this interview, Annie Proulx indicates she's looking to leave Wyoming. Her surprise opinion on her famous story, "Brokeback Mountain": "I wish I'd never written it."

I thought this recipe for pear-blackberry pie sounded wonderful. I'll give it a try later this week.

Cat's Yellowstone Wolves, and others

Our own Cat Urbigkit has just published a book on the Yellowstone wolves and their reintroduction (so to speak as you will see.)

She brings a unique perspective as she is both a sheepherder and a naturalist- observer, one who can appreciate big carnivores but doesn't want them killing her sheep or her livelihood.

Her history is also unique. Before she was a shepherd she and her husband joined an unlikely coalition of stockmen and environmentalists who sued to protest the introduction of the Canadian wolf subspecies, arguing that there was a small and harmless population of the nearly extinct native subspecies already existing in the Yellowstone ecosystem. I admit that this was the most difficult argument for me to accept going in, but her careful documentation has made me a believer. Probably they nearly disappeared when the horrific poison 1080 was in use, and were gradually building their numbers. These wolves were smaller and probably would have been more fearful of humans, which emeritus large- mammal biologist Valerius Geist argues is probably a good thing. Again, more below.

Cat next documents the long drawn out legal battles, culminating in the "re" introduction of the big Canadian subspecies, and going on to document how they finally arrived in her sagebrush plains, in one case approaching her 12 year old son as he herded sheep.

There is a LOT more here, documented without editorial comment-- of the wedge the issue has driven between the government and stockmen (even worse down here in NM due to a program where the wolves are constantly handled, moved around and habituated); on the environmentalist side, the decision to sacrifice a unique subspecies without studying it to see if it was recoverable without intervention; on the utter uselessness of the compensation program, which demands an impossible standard of proof; even dark humor. When a hunter shoots a pre- intro wolf (?) he thinks is a coyote, he is held in legal limbo for more than a month. As the Jackson Hole Guide editorialized. "How is it that the Fish and Wildlife service-- our federal wildlife experts--can expect Kysar to have known he had shot a wolf when they have already spent six weeks in their laboratories trying to figure it out, and still don't know what it is they're dealing with?"

There are other issues in play than endangered species or embattled ranchers. As Cat reports, elk were eating the park, and there was no politically acceptable way to reduce their numbers. As we are increasingly coming to know, big predators seem to control the whole ecosystem-- see William Stolzenburg's Where the Wild Things Were.

And there is one more issue, only hinted at in Cat's book: the increasing probability that wolves that become too habituated will also become dangerous. Dr. Valerius Geist, now retired, is the dean of North American big mammal studies, and author of too many books to cite, though I am particularly partial to the magisterial Deer of the World. He and I have been corresponding for years on this, the Pleistocene, and many other matters. He was one of the scientists called on to testify in the notorious Kenton Carnegie case in northern Ontario, where a young intern was killed and partially eaten by dump- habituated wolves (there was a ludicrous attempt to blame the killing on black bears, but anyone who has looked at the entire testimony of both on- the- spot observers and the scientists would be convinced, as was the jury, that wolves were responsible).

Val is both a serious biologist and a serious backwoodsman, a rare combination in his youth and one that is getting rarer today. He used to believe that wolves were as harmless as their modern image suggests, until some scary encounters with habituated wolves in his own Vancouver backwoods, papers on habituated California coyotes' behavior before attacking children, and the Carnegie case made him study the history and literature of other countries' experiences with wolves. What he found suggested our "harmless" wolves are a historical phenomenon based on a unique phenomenon: our common use of guns. Wolves killed people in the Soviet Union until after WW II, kill people today in India, and are considered dangerous by Canada's northern "First Nations". (Val has convinced uber- wolf maven David Mech of the truth of this as well!)

Wolves are magnificent, efficient, sometimes deadly predators, not "spiritual healers". To keep wolves near humans benign (to the humans at least), they should best be hunted. Would a similar phenomenon be behind the rise in cougar attacks in (over?) civilized places like Boulder and California?

In several papers and articles Val seeks to mediate between our desire for a robust, healthy wilderness, the reasonable expectation of our ranchers to make a living, and safety. He proposes large wilderness areas surrounded by mixed land where big predators are allowed but hunted, in turn ringed by farms and suburbs where they cannot be tolerated. It seems that we already are well on the way to this in the US (perhaps more than in his Canada) with parks surrounded by National forests. It will still need both some tweaking and a lot more efforts to understand, coming from predator advocates and stockmen alike. Let's try to get this one right and maybe we can start to talk about "re- wilding". Cat's book is an excellent place to start-- for both sides.

I should add one more opinion here to forestall otherwise inevitable arguments: I am for public land ranching in places like the National Forests not just because I respect ranchers (though I do-- as primate researcher Robert Sapolski grudgingly but good- humoredly admits, people who spend their whole life on the "range" are likely to know a lot more about local specifics than specialist biologists) but also because of a phenomenon that is screwing up biodiversity worse than any rancher ever did. Every time a "public land" ranch goes on the block down here the "deeded" sections-- the private anchoring portions that are the best and have all the water-- are cut up into subdivisions of from five to fifty acres, fenced and developed.

And the wildlife goes away. It DIES.

I have gone on long enough. Read Cat!

Oh and- I have many of Val's papers, and the (grisly) Carnegie report, as PDFs -- haven't figured how to link but I can send as email.

Poem

THE HEAVEN OF ANIMALS

Here they are. The soft eyes open.
If they have lived in a wood
It is a wood.
If they have lived on plains
It is grass rolling
Under their feet forever.

Having no souls, they have come,
Anyway, beyond their knowing.
Their instincts wholly bloom
And they rise.
The soft eyes open.

To match them, the landscape flowers,
outdoing, desperately
Outdoing what is required:
The richest wood,
The deepest field.

For some of these,
It could not be the place
It is, without blood.
These hunt, as they have done,
But with claws and teeth grown perfect,

More deadly than they can believe.
They stalk more silently,
And crouch on the limbs of trees,
And their descent
Upon the bright backs of their prey

May take years
In a a sovereign floating of joy.
And those that are hunted
Know this as their life,
Their reward: to walk

Under such trees in full knowledge
Of what is in glory above them,
And to feel no fear,
But acceptance, compliance.
Fulfilling themselves without pain

At the cycle's center,
They trembled, they walk
Under the tree,
They fall, they are torn,
They rise, they walk again.

- James Dickey

Altai Falcons

... are what the the old falconers called the Gyr- Saker crosses of the high deserts and lost mountains of Central Asia. Another common name, probably Turkic, is "Shunkar".

From her (enormous) size and color this female in the breeding center outside of Almaty has Gyr genes, but her head shape and long tail, like that of my bird, is still "Sakery".

This mixed pair probably shows Gyr at least in the black color of the one.

Young from pair above.



These two were taken by my friend, dog breeder and ornithologist Andrey Kovalenko, of a bird on fall migration near Almaty. Nether of us would assign it a definite species.

There are roadless areas the size of Minnesota in Asia, with mountains, and political barriers. No westerner and very few easterners has anything but a hazy idea what is out there.

New Bird

Another male Gyr X Saker, but this one rather than a stout Gyr resembles a long, lean, long- tailed Saker. He weighs virtually the same.

He is looking a bit nervous and indeed is wild for an imprint, but I suspect he'll come around shortly.



Update: Our friend Patrick "Terrierman" Burns asked some good questions about hybrids-- sometimes I take too much for granted. He asked among other things if the parental sex mattered, and if they made "natural" hybrids.

Generally it is thought that the parental sex matters, but both of mine had Gyr fathers and Saker mothers and favored different species.

The hybrid question is complex. "Real" hybrids of very different species-- the most popular are Gyr- Peregrines-- have reduced fertility (though not sterility) in the F1 generation.

Gyrs and Sakers, though, may be one species, imperfectly separated when the taiga forest came to split the Pleistocene "Mammoth Steppe". It is now known that there is a zone of natural hybridization in Asia in the Altai, the Tian Shan, and perhaps elsewhere. The evidence is there in the DNA, and some birds-- I should show one or two from Kazakhstan soon-- cannot reliably be assigned to either species.

Species recently separated from the Peregrine-- again, probably Pleistocene speciation-- like the Barbary falcon and even the African Taita, are similarly interfertile with the Peregrine.

Most other falcons are reduced in fertility when crossed with these groups, though I bet the Lanner, another "desert falcon, fits better with the Gyr types.

Birds of similar sizes will often mate if isolated, though of course stranger crosses like Gyr- Merlin (exciting but almost too- turbocharged birds) need AI.

Most hybrids are done with imprinted birds and AI because it is easier-- you might even fly the birds rather than confining them to breed.

Provocative Quote of the day

"The human race is the new Chicxulub meteor."

(Janeen of Smartdogs in comments at Atomic Nerds.)

Links

The mammoth genome has been sequenced from hair (I have some!) Real Pleistocene Park stuff. Actually you should scroll down Paleoblog for all manner of good things, from a Mongolian fiesta at Bozeman to new finds at the Deinocheirus site in Mongolia to the evolution--!-- of minerals.

At least some frogs are able to learn about predators when they are still in the egg. HT Annie D.

Also from Annie: Camel dressage. I have seen horses dancing (to rather inappropriate music) in Central Asia, but this is more than I... dreamed.

The Peculiars visit Taos and find crystals on the pillows and offers to trade massages for firewood. Mr P says that Taos is where bad New Mexicans and good Texans (sorry Henry!) go when they die.

Falconry's legendary innovator Frank Beebe has died at 96. He has a memorial website here. I have a lifelike crow lure he made for me, and a raft of correspondence I will have to read again.

The elegant anarchist Crispin Sartwell at Eye of the Storm is being driven mad the same damn earworm as I am. What he said.

Obama may READ Michael Pollan. But will he appoint a secretary of agriculture who is a creature of Big Corn?

Is Peter Matthiessen right to call Shadow Country, the revision of his "Watson" trilogy, a new book? Actually, I think yes-- it is a better book overall, and an author who is lucky enough to get to revise is lucky indeed.

Safe mini- nukes cheap enough to power, say, Socorro County. THe Guardian took a few corrections to get the story right-- innumeracy is apparently even commoner than illiteracy.

From little nukes to tiny strange guns; HT David Zincavage at Never Yet Melted. Make sure you follow the link on the first to "Curios & Antik", where you will see among other oddities a crucifix gun. And also see the "Apache gun" (Parisian version) at Diary of a Mad Natural Historian.

Finally, a melancholy and wonderful essay on bibliophilia by Ted Dalrymple. I too am fond of "association copies" and have quite a few-- must scan and run more through here.

News and...

Been busy but not blogging. Some good news: the eagle book that occupied me (and drove me crazy) last year looks to have a new publisher. And another publisher in the same state is interested in doing a new edition of rage for falcons. I'll keep you posted.

And I have a new Gyr- Saker from Bill in Texas-- pix soon.

Checking Out the Neighborhood

This fellow decided to amble through the neighborhood at about 9:30 this morning, taking his time and checking out the happenings.

He is the boss buck around here, and I've been trying to get a clear picture of him for some time. He has evidently already located the "invisible fence" line we have up for the dogs. This morning he sauntered along just outside of it looking disdainfully at Sadie and Maggie as they barked at him.

A Great Moment in Architecture

Smells Like Money

This is utterly trivial, but I saw this image and couldn't let it go. This is interior decor at Stinkers, a new nightspot in LA (Silver Lake, of course). The article says Stinkers truck stop theme is post-post ironic, which is too sophisticated for me. I think.

Click though to the pic of skunks drinking Schlitz from cans, which I liked too.

Web Miscellany

I've often said that making excellent gravy doesn't get the attention it deserves. Here are some recipes to get you going for next week.

"Indian Navy Says It Sank Pirate Ship" doesn't sound like a 21st century headline, does it?

A lawsuit attacking the city of Aurora, CO ban on pitbulls is going to US District Court here in Denver. This is viewed as an important attempt to overturn the "breed bans" that a number of jurisdictions have enacted in recent years.

The city of Denver has decided that it's cool to keep beehives in the city limits. Apiarists rejoice.

Here's an interesting piece on the devastation wrought here in the Mountain West by the pine bark beetle. I'd say that and tamarisk are our two biggest environmental vegetation issues in this region.

Construction for parking expansion at the Denver Botanic Gardens hit some human remains from a pioneer cemetary. I saw this on the TV news here, but the local papers didn't seem to pick it up.

It's National Ammo Day. Celebrate.

Bravo, Lino Dossi!

Anne found this UPI story about an Italian falconer refusing to surrender his Harris' hawks under a state law banning the keeping of non-native species. The man, Lino Dossie of Trento province, is quoted as saying: "I'm too attached to my falcons [sic] and I won't give them to anyone, no matter what they do to me. I'd rather set them free even if they arrest me for it."

Bravo Lino! Libertà o morte!

...Knowing something about falconers and something about wildlife bureaucracy, I suspect there might be more to this story than one man's heroic stand in defense of beloved birds. For example, the story suggests the man had previously surrendered an eagle to local authorities and that he had failed to file an available exemption for his current hawks. Maybe he's just another wingnut in our weird little flock of falconers. I sent a note to my pen pal in Italy to see if she knows the story.

But allow me for a while to imagine this man, a native son of mountainous, semi-autonomous Trento, having developed over eight years a complex relationship with his cast of Harris' hawks, hunting hares and maybe partridge along the steep slopes and small valleys of his home region, perhaps with a Visla of local breeding who was raised with these hawks and now nears her own retirement, reading the blandly-written order of cease-and-desist signed by a minor functionary in some florescent government hive in remotest Rome.

"You are non-compliant," the letter might claim, "with line 3750.13B of the Italian Code of Wildlife Regulation. You must surrender the 2 raptors of the HARRIS specie immediately to regional authorities at ___________________"

Did Lino, enraged, rip the letter to shreds in his living room? Did he call his brother-in-law, Antonio, the local news anchor to come at once and interview him as he flew his contraband hawks over the only country they have ever known? Did he yell indecipherable Trentin curses into the camera, sending a barrage of indignation south to the seat of the empire?

I hope so.

Blog stumbling

Here's an interesting bit our regular readers will enjoy.

Of course, you regular readers may have found this already.

I give you: Nemo Ramjet interviewing Darren Naish.




Tetrapod Zoology - The Movie - More amazing videos are a click away

First Snow

We got our first snow of the season last Friday morning - about an inch on here on the high prairie. According to the TV weather people, we were a day or so away from setting a record for the latest first snow. It was a good wet snow, but as is typical was mostly gone by the end of the day.

The snow came down hard in the morning though and drove some visitors up to the house for refuge.

And for food. How do you like that improvised umbrella?

The front seems to have dropped the temperature enough to start driving the Canada geese down to us. They have been late arriving this year and this is one of several waves that flew over the house, honking like mad (click photo to enlarge).

Girls Gone Wild

With my wife at work, the twins and I took the animals out for a spin down at the ranch. It was the first time they've been hawking with me this year but with luck not the last. They enjoyed themselves, by their own report, and were useful members of the team.

Here's the field, perfect short grass for short legs. That was my sales pitch, anyway.

Of course, there's nothing to hunt in the short grass, so I had to convince them to dive in. They did with gusto.



The girls took turns carrying Ernie, who franklly doesn't care who carries him so long as the pole stays steady and the holder keeps moving through good cover.

Rina makes like she smells something. We organize a coordinated flush.

A chase, a miss; we regroup and try again. Finally things come together.

Afterwards everyone gets a drink of water. Ernie drinks from the dog's bowl (the kids had their own drink bottles). Then it's back into the family mini-van and homeward bound.

Boom Times for Spam

Hormel has two shifts working seven days a week to keep up with demand. Though much maligned, it's much loved in some places. When Lauren was in school at Santa Barbara City College she had a number of Hawaiian friends who loved the stuff. Loco mocos made with Spam was their favorite dish. I never found it to be that awful when I ate it as a covenient camping food - but what do I know, I like grits.

So the question is are people buying Spam to economize on immediate consumption, or are they stockpiling this easily storable food in anticipation of hard times?

Money quote:

"Because it is vacuum-sealed in a can and does not require refrigeration, Spam can last for years. Hormel says 'it’s like meat with a pause button.'”

General News

The United States Army today promoted Ann Dunwoody to four star general, the first female in its history to reach that rank. As an item in the "ain't it a small world" department (got that MDMNM?) General Dunwoody's older sister Susie and I attended Transportation Officer Basic Course together at Ft. Eustis, VA as 2LT's a few years ago. IIRC Susie was also one of the first female helicopter pilots in the US Army.

Picnic

One evening a few days ago, some neigbors decided to have a picnic in our front yard. We weren't invited.

Fence posts

I love living in the country, but when we moved our new house into our ram pasture in the middle of the sagebrush without a yard and fence, the dang bulls kept trying to scratch their itchy spots on the side of the house, or on the truck mirrors, and the horses would do battle with the dogs over dog food bowls. So I had my son install grass and a wooden picket fence. I think they look strange and out of place out here in the sage. I actually prefer dirt (which of course is horned toad habitat).

Anyway, I've really spruced the place up now, making a donation to our local library foundation so I could bring home the prettiest fenceposts in the entire county.

Here's photos of my favorite two fenceposts. The one with the signs of the main streets in our town actually has a solar light on top, while the other had the most beautiful chickadees painted by a local artist.

These fenceposts were sold at a silent auction after being created by local artists and ranchers as part of the Smithsonian's national program "Between fences." The program promoted thoughtful discussion and reflection on the cultural history of fences and land use. It explored how we divide and protect, offend and defend through the boundaries we build, as individuals, neighbors and nations. Great program, and I think some of the best parts remain in my yard.

Finches

This goldfinch and house finch had breakfast together on Monday. Amazing how much color the male goldfinch loses out of breeding season

Couple of Food Items

The Denver Post has a short piece on one of my favorite dishes that never gets any respect - grits. Polenta always seems to feel the love, but grits never does. I don't get it.

In the course of one of its periodic anthropological expeditions, the NY Times discovers home canning and the root cellar. I'm sure an expose' on the mysteries of the deep freeze is sure to follow.

The Callings, a rambling review

In two weeks I'll be in Amarillo, Texas---about as different a place from Baton Rouge as can be reached in a day's drive. My destination is a log cabin on the north side of town. From the back porch you look out across the yucca dotted desert, rolling and smooth, toward the broken country of the Canadian River. The river transects vast ranch properties, two of which give us permission to hunt; in caravans of four-wheel-drive trucks we will spend most of a week chasing quail and ducks and rabbits there with our trained hawks.

When we are not on one ranch or the other, we'll be east of town in the cultivated plainlands. We'll hunt in tumbleweeds beside abandoned homesteads and beneath the great arms of wind turbines. We'll shuttle back and forth to small town diners for the bad coffee and good burgers. This is the Panhandle hawking experience as I've come to know it over the last dozen years. With the possible exception of new wind farms, the landscape never seems to change.

Of course, it has changed much nonetheless. Amarillo, the Panhandle capital, is a major interstate hub connecting eastern and western halves of the continent, a fact borne out by its hectic semi-trailer commerce and eclectic cultural mix. It has a fantastic blues station, among other surprises.

But in between the cracks in the asphalt and along the section roads north of town, that yucca dotted desert remains. Land there may not have changed at all in 100 years, or 500. Certain shrubs poking up from steep draws along the Canadian might have been seeded by the unshod hooves of Comanche ponies. That fact remains, too.

Our own Henry Chappell sent me a copy of his novel The Callings just in time for my annual pilgrimage to the high plateau. After reading it, my image of the country has gained an indelible bottom layer: Peel back a few feet of concrete slab and you'll find wagon tracks, bare native footprints and buffalo bones.

In The Callings, Chappell takes us to a strangely familiar place. It is the America of 1873, specifically the western frontier, which at that time split Texas in half, halted in its progress by great tribes of native American warriors, raiders and hunters. Collectively, the region was known as the Comancheria.

My knowledge of native tribes and 19th Century American expansionism ends right about there. But my faith in Chappell's research and local expertise is considerable and reinforced by his exceptional storytelling and moving prose. Chappell's story brings together a handful of memorable personalities---an aging Comanche warrior, a young pilgrim from Kentucky, a former slave and master plainsman, among others---and pits them in a conflict that would become one of the final chapters of an ancient regional history.

Along intersecting plot lines, the protagonists reveal themselves from every perspective: their own and that of each other. The differences are stark, and yet there is truth in all views. As widely acknowledged, the native warriors prove capable of extreme cruelty to their captives and enemies. In equal measure we see their merciful moments and displays of ingenuity, bravery, skill and endurance that are as much humanity's hallmarks as our capacity for evil. The white settlers, the US soldiers both black and white, the various mix of traders and immigrants all prove fully human in Chappell's engaging and fast-paced drama.

In a sketch of it, the young Kentucky pilgrim, Logan, picks up his father's calling as a faith healer and lay-preacher and, in search of new pastures, signs on with a small company of westward bound buffalo hunters. Leading the party is one Bob Durham, a former slave who took to life on the plains and made a name for himself as a scout and a fighter of Indians. In his 60s, Durham serves as mentor and protector to Logan, and as a fascinating counterpart to Cuts Something, the restless Comanche chief of similar age and with whom he has some history.

Over the course of several months on the southern plains, every one will be forced to take a side.

The Callings is a story of inevitable conflict and horrendous violence. It is a fiction that contains a great many terrible truths. But as it must do, it becomes also a story of faith and healing for a nation that has yet to see the last of its own making.