Big Sandy country

It's beautiful fall days like this one that showcase why I love Wyoming.

Fence collisions and sage grouse

Making headlines across the West of late is a two-page preliminary report issued by a Wyoming Game and Fish Department biologist noting that barbed wire fences pose a collision hazard to Greater Sage Grouse. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is expected to meet its court-ordered February deadline to determine if sage grouse should be granted Endangered Species Act protections, so the report will come into play there. Those who oppose livestock grazing on public lands are also latching onto the report as another reason to rid the western range of its agricultural industry, and its associated fences.

But everyone might be reading more into the report than it merits. WG&F biologist Tom Christiansen noted it all began when two separate falconers provided incidental reports that grouse had been injured or killed on the top wire of certain fences located near important grouse areas. The area is just to the southeast of where we ranch, in the border area of Sublette and Sweetwater counties. This area is believed to have one of the largest concentrations of sage grouse on the planet. It’s falconer Steve Chindgren’s stomping grounds (the falconer who is the subject of Rachel Dickinson’s Falconer on the Edge).

According to Christiansen’s report, “One of these falconers subsequently began marking such fences with aluminum beverage cans in a volunteer effort to reduce these mortalities.”

The WG&F study sought to quantify the level of sage-grouse fence strikes and mortalities and test whether marking devices could effectively reduce collisions in a cost effective manner that was not visually intrusive. There are two large grouse leks (traditional breeding grounds) in the area, located within just a few miles of a range fence, and the region also winters at least a few hundred grouse. The fenceline became the study area, with its three strands running nearly five miles.

Here’s the pretreatment scenario: In the two and a half years prior to treatment, observers documented evidence of wildlife fence strikes and mortality while driving immediately adjacent to the fence. They found evidence of 170 bird strikes/mortalities and two pronghorn mortalities. Confirmed greater sage- grouse accounted for 146 (86%) of the 170 strikes/mortalities documented. The other 22 observations included four waterfowl, five raptors, two passerines, one shorebird, and 12 unknown birds.

Researchers then marked ¼-mile sections of the top wire of the fence with FireFly bird diverters or homemade markers that are similar to those used in other areas to reduce lesser prairie-chicken fence mortality. In the next year and a half, collisions were once again observed, with seven grouse strikes in marked sections, and 47 strikes (36 sage grouse) in the unmarked sections. The research suggests the fence markers (all types combined) reduced bird collisions by 70 percent over unmarked sections, or reduced sage grouse collisions by 61 percent.

The study is ongoing, with the previously unmarked sections of the fence being marked, and vice versa. Markers are being changed as well, with highly reflective tape added to the white markers to increase visibility in winter months.
Although we’ll know more once the study is complete, what we know now is this: not every fence is a problem. Those that tend to cause problems include one or more of these characteristics:
1) are constructed with steel t-posts,
2) are constructed near leks,
3) bisect winter concentration areas, and/or
4) border riparian areas.
WG&F is developing guidelines for prioritizing what fences need to be marked to reduce grouse collisions, and is in the process of making markers available to ranchers at no cost.

Meanwhile, Jim and I took at drive out to the fenceline study area last week, and found one collision event – a sage grouse. There were a few grouse feathers on the top strand next to the marker, and grouse feathers in a heap on the road. But the grouse was gone – quick work for a predator.




What the research effort does not mention or address is that golden eagles and other birds of prey have been known to drive their prey into fences and other obstacles to injure or kill them – it’s a hunting tactic. I watched a grouse forced into a flying crash into a willow stand in August, but Rant the guard dog was watching the birds as they came over. He was quick and he ended up with the stunned grouse, which was sorry luck for the avian hunter that had orchestrated the successful maneuver.

Amarillo 2009

Happy Thanksgiving All. Just a few pictures from my last-week trip to the Texas Panhandle. Photographs by Eric Edwards and Brian Millsap.

Some scenes from hawking cottontails and jackrabbits with the Harris' hawks:

We caught quite a few cottontails and ate most of them. Here's one that got away:

And one that didn't:

Ernie's first jack, a nice catch in tall cover. He got to it first but needed "air support" from Brian's female hawk and another flown by Heather Gast. Together they had it dead to rights. Group hunting is common for trained Harris hawks as it is for the wild ones. In jack hawking, the first hawk to make contact and hold the rabbit gets the spoils:

Several in our party flew longwings, too. Here's Matt Reidy's peregrine, Playa, about to bind and barely miss:


And later, binding and holding on:

Our host Jimmy Walker flies a great tiercel prairie. Here's Harley on a pintail, his first of that species:

And here's Jimmy goshawk about to catch a scaled quail:

And finally a nice shot of Eric Edwards' new passage peregrine waiting on above a duck pond. You may recall that a limited number of wild, first-year peregrines have been made available to falconers this year after a 4-decade hiatus in their use in American falconry. Eric was instrumental in arranging for wild take in Florida, which will happen next year; and this year he received a permit from Maryland to harvest one of about 5 allotted to that state.

The bird is trained now and has been chasing ducks for about a week:

A Thanksgiving story

Petey was born late, the last of the lambs to be born this year. All the other lambs were older and bigger, and the small babe struggled to stay caught up with the herd – but she did. When she was about two months old, a bear entered the pasture where the herd was grazing and killed Petey’s mother. Petey became an orphan, but she still managed to stay caught up with the rest of the herd as it moved and grazed during the day. She was smart enough to try to be sure there were other sheep around her, so she would never be caught out alone. Since she wasn’t drinking her mother’s rich milk, Petey was skinny, but still, she was strong.

The sheep herd was moved out of the pasture that had the bear, so things were a little easier for the herd. The herd relaxed and spread out to graze along a meadow. Petey must not have been careful enough, because the small lamb was caught out alone. Petey was attacked by a fox. The fox bit her ear when it tried to grab her throat. Petey must have struggled, because she escaped with a mangled ear, and bites on her front and back legs. By the time we found her, she was getting weak. She couldn’t keep up with the herd anymore, but was still alive.

We brought Petey to the house on Thanksgiving morning, installing her in the front yard. She was weak and hungry, and seemed content to eat the weeds and grass in an unkept corner of our yard. We filled up a water bucket, and an oat bucket, and went back to the herd to get a companion lamb. Pea soon joined Petey in the yard, along with a bale of hay. Within a few hours, Petey had perked up. We think this girl has the will to live, and we’ll do what we can to make sure it’s a good life.

Petey and Pea will spend the next few days resting and being well fed before we introduce the livestock guardian dog pups to them. The bonding will begin and Petey, the tough little survivor, will have lifelong protection from danger.

Too big for the foxhole

Problem: Large dog, small culvert. I guess some times you just need a smaller dog. Who knew?

Found Object

From the PO floor. I'm not sure what is funnier or sadder-- a company that advertises usurious loans to people on welfare, or that it continues the process after it appears to know the subject is dead, even if it can't spell "deceased."

Larissa

Larissa came to visit last week with the Peculiars. We ate and drank and danced at the bar and had fun. We also went to the rifle range. Here is a photo by Mr P of me coaching her with the .45; Mr P rather unkindly called it "Boris and Natasha". She IS 6'2".


Here she is with the Best London Grant:

There are more and better photos, including one of her dancing with Lee Henderson (whose ranch we hunt on) at the bar, at her site here.

Animal update

Irbis is HUGE and still growing.

Last year's problem bird BB (Bad Bird, Bird Brain) is this year's delight (Big Bird). Now I need a pic of the Barb- Taita "Chicken" (nicknamed for her ferocious rushes at our feet-- her real name is Fidget , after Vadim Gorbatov's Peregrine protagonist).

Decline and Fall

Via Patrick; an English ex- soldier will be sentenced to five years in jail for finding a gun in a trash bin and returning it to the police:

"(His lawyer) also showed jurors a leaflet printed by Surrey Police explaining to citizens what they can do at a police station, which included "reporting found firearms".

"Quizzing officer Garnett, who arrested Mr Clarke, he asked: "Are you aware of any notice issued by Surrey Police, or any publicity given to, telling citizens that if they find a firearm the only thing they should do is not touch it, report it by telephone, and not take it into a police station?"

"To which, Mr Garnett replied: "No, I don't believe so."

"Prosecuting, Brian Stalk, explained to the jury that possession of a firearm was a "strict liability" charge – therefore Mr Clarke's allegedly honest intent was irrelevant.

"Just by having the gun in his possession he was guilty of the charge, and has no defence in law against it, he added."

No doubt about it-- England is Doomed!

Old Mines: Abbadon and Gehenna

Two posts from the excellent writer "Nagrom" at Rum and Donuts. The first is
an essay on an acquaintance of ours who died exploring one of the old mines in the Magdalena mountains (our mountain range probably has a hundred such-- someone with the knowledge could doubtless cross the range underground). The second is a poem about his attraction to such hidden places. Read, as they say, the whole thing.

For Central Asia fanatics only

From Sir Terence Clark: a photo of Chini Bagh, the old British consulate in Kashgar, home at one time to Eric and Diana Shipton (who both wrote excellent books set there) and George Macartney, way station to Paul Nazaroff as he fled the Bolsheviks, famed in story and still standing, a monument to climbers and diplomats, spies and fugitives...

Terence tells me it is a museum now. I am vaguely surprised that the Chinese are that kind to such an imperial remnant.

Raptors and Pigeons

Tim Gallagher points to this BBC video of Golden Eagles hunting reindeer, and reminds me that a link to my piece on Darwin's pigeons is up at Living Bird.

Meanwhile MaryBeth Rogers sends this link to paragliding with eagles (well, mostly vultures, but it still looks like fun!)


An unfortunate Golden eagle was taken from a falconer who had rescued it and given to the RSPCA, who managed to kill it.

"Mr Lupton sought permission from the Scottish Executive to remove the bird and nurse her at his specialist premises at Hollingsbourne. Without authority he would be liable to a £5,000 fine and up to six months in prison for removing a bird from the wild.

(snip)

Mr Lupton said that he told official from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) about his plans. In May 5 his home and aviaries were raided by three officers from Kent Police, a policeman on secondment to Defra’s animal heath section and a wildlife crimes investigator from the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds.

“I explained everything to them but they were adamant they were going to remove the wild golden eagle and accused me of the illegal theft of the bird and keeping an unregistered bird,” he said.

“But what really appalled me is that they had no understanding of how to deal with such a bird. They brought the wrong box to carry the bird, I had to lend them one of my own.”

"The bird was taken to the Mallydam wildlife centre in Sussex, run by the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. Mr Lupton was formally questioned by police, who passed the matter to the Crown Prosecution Service, but the case was dropped.

"He was concerned about the eagle’s fate and was allowed to visit the premises with his vet. “I was horrified by what I saw,” he said. “The RSPCA was keeping the bird on a concrete floor, which is bad for its talons, and there was leaf mould on the roof of the room, which can cause lung infections in golden eagles.”

A month later he was allowed to take the bird home. Her condition had badly deteriorated and his local vet took blood tests. The bird was found to be suffering lead poisoning and Mr Lupton learnt that it had been fed on rabbits which had been shot with lead pellet.

On June 17 he took the bird to a centre in Swindon run by Neil Forbes, an avian veterinary surgeon. The eagle died 12 hours late."

But at least he wasn't used for FALCONRY. HT Annie Hocker.

Also from Annie H : raptors are at serious risk from Avian flu.

On a cheerier note; pigeons are still being used to carry messages (in this case photos) in Colorado. I wonder if they still have to throw out decoy birds for the falcons first like the old Grand Canyon boatmen did?

BEE Inbreeding!

I know that there have been a lot of furious discussions over DOG inbreeding. But now it appears that the honeybee crisis may well be BEE inbreeding!

Science Links

A BBC news article seems to point to the "Overkill Hypothesis" as the major cause of the extinction of the American megafauna.

Studies of dung preserved in a Wisconsin lake suggest

"... a slow decline in megafauna that began about 15,000 years ago and appeared to last for about 1,000 years.

"This discovery rules out one idea that the extinction might have been caused by an extraterrestrial object striking Earth 13,000 years ago.

(Snip)

"This study is exciting because we're getting some solid data about the ecological consequences of the removal of these animals," said Ms Gill.

"After their decline we see an increase in the more warm-adapted deciduous trees, and an increase in charcoal [which means there was] an increase in the number of forest fires."

The last may have some bearing on my Passenger Pigeon project, A Feathered Tempest.

The Eleanora's falcon already leads a weird life, nesting on Mediterranean islands in the fall to intercept the songbird migration. Now it appears to also make one of the most amazing migrations.

"In total, the bird flies more than 9,500 kilometres across the African continent from the Balearic and Columbretes Islands before reaching the island of Madagascar. Some of the previously-obscure secrets now revealed by the scientists show that these falcons migrate by both day and night, and cross supposed ecological barriers such as the Sahara Desert." (HT Laura Niven).

A gallery of the wild apple forests of the Tian Shan. I have been there let's hope they don't all fall to villas for rich Kazakh businessmen. (HT David Williamson).

Back!

A couple of weeks ago my mouse and keyboard failed. When I replaced them I realized I needed to update the software. Our Mac guy in Socorro installed all that but then decided to clean its gritty interior.Bad idea-- when he put it back together it refused to start.

He sent it to a Mac place in Albuquerque where they informed him that our ten year old EMac was "obsolete" and that they wouldn't fix it. Two more said the same.

He persisted and found a fellow who worked on "legacy" Macs. Who found he couldn't fix it and recommended we get a used modern IMac, at which point he would transplant the data to it from the old hard drive.

Then he called and said it wasn't working. I went to the bar.

Next morning, fortunately, he had figured it out. So I am back in business, with an enormous backlog of both blog material and work. I will be catching up for days I expect, but I am back!

Ear notches

I am surprised at how many mule deer I see with notched ears, including this young buck Jim and I encountered today. Theories anyone?

I love seeing mule deer at this time of year. The does look so absolutely feminine, and the swollen-necked bucks so masculine.

They're back ...

The migrating goldens are starting to make their way back into western Wyoming for the winter. I'm very glad.

Five weeks

My warped husband has decided to name Vega's three livestock guardian dog pups after his siblings, Bill, Mikey and Laurie. This is Laurie visiting with Rena. Rena loves playing with the pups, now that Vega has decided Rena can be trusted with them.


Laurie's big feet and big muzzle are typical guardian dog charateristics.


Five weeks old, and Laurie acts like a big dog. She has no idea she is not.


Laurie and Mikey growl as they feast on a turkey wing held by Jim.


Laurie came in the house to help me with a piece of turkey. (We had our Thanksgiving feast today, since Cass was home from college. On Thanksgiving Day, he'll be rock climbing in Moab.)


Bill is a giant, and very serious.

Assorted nonsense

Bloomers blowing in the wind? Some people apparently don't like that. Read about those fighting the good fight - the "right to hang."

Two California cities have voted to ban the declawing of cats. They took this action ahead of start of the new year, when state law forbidding municipalities and counties from regulating veterinary medicine goes into effect.

A Kansas couple was arrested after reporting to the cops that someone had stolen their marijuana.

Take a lesson from the dog

Some things simply aren't worth getting excited about.

Good News

The Interior Department has announced that the brown pelican is coming off the endangered species list. Total population is up to 650,000 and this is a success of the DDT ban and the Endangered Species Act. One of my favorite sights on the beach is watching pelicans "fold up" and dive for fish.

Telegram from Steve

Imagine a dusty, one-post-office town on the high plains of central New Mexico, half a day's ride west of Socorro. A telegram arives...

Chicharrone

Saw this sign the other day up in west Denver, and it made me think of Steve.

Times are Tough

Here in Colorado, the state budget crisis has reached such proportions that the legislature is planning to revoke the tax exemption on sale of bull semen.

Happy Friday

These two look sweet, but when we try to pet the puppies, they growl and act grumpy. The three pups now have their eyes open, and spend a good portion of the day wrestling and knocking each other over. They definitely have livestock guardian dog personalities. The two dark pups are boys and the white one is a female.

Modern Man is a Wimp

Says an Australian anthropologist. And he's absolutely correct - our species has been getting decreasingly robust over the last 10,000 years or so with changes in adaptive pressures. What I found new and interesting in this article was the analysis of running speed from some 20,000 year-old fossil footprints. Very cool.

Ritual Deaths at Ur

One of the most famous archaeological finds of the 20th century, was the discovery of the royal cemetary at Ur. Leonard Woolley made the discovery of the 4,500 year-old tombs in the 1920s in southern Iraq. The burials showed fabulous sophistication in rich gold work and jewelry. One of the gold headdresses is shown in the picture. The buried kings and queens were accompanied by human sacrifices - handmaidens and warriors were put to death and buried in rows near the royal persons.

I remember reading about this in two of my early books on archaeology when I was eight or nine years old: The Wonderful World of Archaeology and All About Archaeology. They told the story of the sacrificed people drinking poison and lying down in neat rows to die and accompany their masters to the next world. Quite an image.

Well, as usual, a re-analysis of the remains shows that wasn't quite the case. They were really bashed in the head rather than poisoned. Some people insist on taking the romance out of everything.

Claude Levi-Strauss, RIP

Claude Levi-Strauss, a French cultural anthropologist, died earlier this week at the age of 100. He was a giant in cultural anthropology and was much in the mode of the stereotypical French intellectual. He was one of the founders of Structuralism, and did much to show that the sophistication and elaboration of the mythologies and religions of even the most "primitive" of societies, shows that all of us have similar intellectual abilities.

I remember reading his Tristes Tropiques my freshman year for the introduction to cultural anthropology class. I must admit it was a bit too subtle and theoretical for my 18 year-old brain to really grasp. My main take-away was his assertion that myths use human beings to reproduce themselves.

His work was so long ago and he lived so long, he really seems to belong to another age. Seeing his obituary was like picking up the paper and reading of the recent death of Franz Boas or Alfred Kroeber.

Dinner Guests

Late Sunday afternoon this fellow dropped by the house for a visit. I was on the deck and had to shoot through the trees, so you can see some of the limbs in the picture.

He brought his lady friends with him. We got 22 inches of snow earlier in the week, and I'm sure the remaining green grass in our patch of lawn must have looked pretty appetizing.

The kids got to tag along, too. These two fawns spent about 10 minutes staring at us while we were up on the deck. We must have looked so strange to them.

Lift: A Memoir

The respect of your peers is great. Writers crave that. Praise from a mentor is even better. But nothing beats a star in a national review.

Congratulations to our friend Rebecca O'Connor for the following starred review in Publisher's Weekly---and of course for penning the memoir that earned it.

From PW:

Lift: A Memoir Rebecca K. O’Connor. Red Hen, $18.95 (208p) ISBN 1597094603

Novelist and nature reference author O’Connor (Falcon’s Return) crafts a lyrical tribute to the spiritual connection between humans and birds in this memoir of the excruciating, transformative process of training a peregrine falcon: “Falconry is a religion, a way of thinking, a means of experiencing life.” Indeed, readers will find almost as much spiritual content as natural. Despite O’Connor’s icy-clear voice, her descriptions of training a young male falcon are fascinating for bird lovers and civilians alike: “when the falcon connects a high-speed dive… the duck remains a piece of the sky and only its body careens to earth.” Surprisingly, periodic flashbacks to a troubled childhood—an abusive stepfather, an absentee mother—bolster her story rather than distract, turning a falcon’s “serious and unmerciful” eye back on her own life, and discovering inexplicable wells of generosity and forgiveness for the family who wronged her. O’Connor packs a lot of intelligence, poise and feeling into a few pages, making this a consistently rewarding read. (Nov.)

Find out for yourself and buy Rebecca's book here!