Red Kite?

I can't prove the bird morphed into an "eagle" in the hoax video below was a red kite (Milvus milvus) but I have seen a few in the wild and I think it was. A beautiful bird with remarkable buoyancy and power of flight, a common medieval street scavenger, a most challenging quarry hunted through the high clouds by Gyrs and Sakers (the Craigheads did some of the last of this in pre- Partition India in 1940 and documented it in film and writing), the bird became rare with modern sanitation and persecution, was reintroduced, and is now common again. I saw my first one from a train just north of Marseilles but they are everywhere now.

The other reason confirming my uneasiness with eagle ID (other than long the long narrow crooked wings with light patches and its quite forked but nevertheless kitelike tail (young are not forked)- is that the Francophone hoaxers said it was a "Royal Eagle". Ain't no such bird, but the filmmakers might have known that the kite in the film is known as the "Milan Royal".
Film:

Kite images from the Net:

And Now for Something Completely Different...

Steampunk Bugatti? Blastolene:

Great Granddoggery

Shiri's photos of ornithologist and falconer Octavio Cruz, artist Melanie Keithley, a friend, and at least two (or one two- headed?) great granddogs. I will let the younger folks sort out who is who other than Tavo & Melanie, but these dogs are WINNERS. On a sad note, I hear Dutch Salmon just lost a fine dog in a freak accident- she broke her neck in a tumble while running. Our condolences...

Belated Xmas Pix

Chez Peculiar (Christmas eve) and as always chez Lassez at Muleshoe Ranch, where Jean- Louis showed us his numbered Mondrian (don't ask!)

Yeah, inside stuff, but you would love the conversation at either house-- adventurers, photographers, naturalists and nurses and small town councilpersons, Buddhists and Orthodox and skeptics and a Mormon, a retired medical guy who "went to school in New Haven" and Magdalena (and Santa Fe) natives and newcomers, French semi- ranchers and New England rednecks... my family & friends.

Catherine Lassez and Libby, whom I might happily call the best cooks in Socorro county...

Though after eating her desserts-- and I have NO sweet tooth-- I think relative newcomer Carolyn Wilson may just be a contender (with John, retired from running an Audubon refuge in Ohio and the new botany and butterfly guy, and Sarah Lassez, home from LA for the holidays)

John finds some common ground politically (?-- surprising both?) with Vincent DiMarco

Dolly Dawson, town councilwoman, Mag native, & former Old- Timer's Queen, cheeriest person I know:

Jean- Louis showing us a numbered "Mondrian" which he will now combine with fractals- I STILL don't quite get it (the apocalyptic Hokusai pastiche behind the dinner table above is more my speed):

And Mr Eli and his new moose in Santa Fe. To all a good night!

Update (& Some Cards)

Still awaiting the return of my "real" computer and all my files but meanwhile two whimsical seasonal cards from two of my favorite talented friends: science blogger and more Darren Naish and dog in law, artist , architect, and teacher Daniela Imre (hairier pup our Shunkar):

Christmas with Dogs Plus: Daniel

D and his team are returned from the High Plains to the wine country. My big computer is down for repair; our own Christmas stuff plus a whole lot of book reviews will return through the weekend...

Granddogs: The Kids are Alright

Photos from Terence Wright prove that the descendants of the late Plummer, the creaky Lashyn, and the still healthy Taik and Kyran are doing well at that rarest and oldest form of team pursuit hunting here in New Mexico:

Fubar is a perfect example of how falconry can rehabilitate a seemingly hopeless bird. Terence wrote: "The Prairie falcon is a 2010 bird that had severe bumble foot and trashed feathers when I got her [from a rescue outfit SB] in 2011... Here's a couple of pics of how the prairie looked when I got her, she was released in this state and found starving a week later. She has proved to be the sweetest nicest prairie falcon you could wish for despite all she has been through. The plan is to hunt her all winter and release her at the end of March."

I would have thought she might never fly again with wings like this-- and her feet were worse. Congratulations to Terence, and to all my granddogs again.

Ranch Life

Jim and I had a little time to kill on our friend Pete's ranch today when we went to pick up our rams. I thought Q readers might enjoy a quick tour. The photo above provides the setting - a western Wyoming ranch, at the foothills of the Wind River Mountains.

Livestock guardian puppies awaken from their nap, while a one-day old kid goat naps nearby.

Guardian dog body language and attitude is demonstrated at an early age. This little goat was very well guarded.

This is the bonding pen. A group of rams inhabits the pen with the adolescent guardians and teaches the young dogs to always be good to sheep.

These are six-month old Central Asian Ovcharka/Akbash pups.

The ranch uses plenty of horse power, and almost exclusively draft horse - not saddle stock. Besides being the mode of transport for the herders, these horses pull wagons and feed the cattle.

A good-looking group of gentle giants.

UPDATE: Cooper's release

 

 

Steve and Libby releasing the haggard Cooper's hawk that visited their pigeon loft recently.

 

 

 

Quote

Si jeunesse savait, si vieillesse pouvait. ("If youth only knew, if age only could.")

Suggested by Gerry & Derb almost simultaneously.

Three Thousand Posts!

Scribble, Scribble...

Sometimes I feel like it too. Ages of a writer... (recent suggestions added since yesterday)

Pre- Malaria: fat in Zim

Writers with first books MANY years later

Haggard

I want a Cooper's hawk but this one is a breeding adult, too old and too valuable to the population to keep, not to mention illegal. She trapped into my flight loft today and I will release her to make more tomorrow. She weighs nearly a pound, huge for a western Coop, and is a pure Velociraptor. Wonderful word, "haggard"...

She was not pleased

Eagle & Child

My reaction in email was:

Consensus is that it is fake-- have been dealing with tons of mail on it. I heard of one eagle in Mongolia 20 years ago that attacked a kid but it is rare if it happens.

Africa's Crowned eagle is another story. A primate and antelope predator of the forest, it has been implicated in several attacks on kids and in the fifties (I think without checking date) a baby's skull was found in a nest in Zambia. It was also what probably killed the Australopithcine fossil called "the Taung Baby". A friend who knew one flown in Zimbabwe for baboon control said she made him very nervous before she had killed. I also know of one that killed a German shepherd in London. Here is Alberto Palleroni flying the much smaller male, and a photo of the Zimbabwe bird by Craig Golden, who told me the tale.

I might add that the only ones I ever saw at any length, a pair owned by Mima Parry- Jones in England, were unnerving in their catlike Gos agility-- the male could fly straight up ten feet-- and their yellow- eyed appraising stare...

UPDATE: After examining I don't even think the bird who comes close is an eagle-- if it is "real" at all, I think it is a blown up image of a red kite! See the shape of the wings, and of the tail as she passes... at first it looks convex, but as she gets beyond it looks concave and the wing shape is right. Color looks like the less forked immature. I have seen a few real ones, and Tom Russell's father- in- law sent me some thing from Switzerland last year of a guy that feeds hundreds in the winter. Lots of images to choose from there!