Image

Leon Gaspard was a Taos painter of the early 20th  century, with an eccentric style that makes him marginally less popular than some of his straightforwardly impressionist colleagues.

He was a Russian who traveled in the the Soviet Union in the 20's. Like his predecessor , the poet and novelist Lermontov (grandfather Scot "Learmont"), his was a transformed western name-- his grandfather was a Huguenot refugee fleeing persecution in France.*

For now, a simple image, very real despite romanticism... photo'd from Frank Water's book. I would be interested in seeing any better version, or any of the other falconry images that exist...

* Or the great 20th century ornithologist Vladimir Flint, whose "Flint's Rules" for toasting with Vodka have brought  many to their knees...

It is official

You might have figured it out in comments below but it is official: because the Feds are allowing a three- decade exemption for wind farms to kill as many eagles as they "need" to, and because they exert no pressure on tribal use (right and understandable for religious practice, but ignoring the profitable if clandestine traffic in feathers for dance costumes), falconers will no longer be allowed to catch "up to six" eagles for falconry in areas of proven depredation, exactly reversing the win- win scenario Cat details below.

Nobody ever took six a year, an infinitesimal part of the breeding surplus; ranchers had proven predators removed; falconers got the companionship of one of the world's formidable predators, often for decades, and the chance to participate in one of if not THE oldest falconry tradition on earth, at least six thousand years old.

Presumably if we do not fight this it means "for three decades?" Or forever?

And why in hell not allow trapping in wind farms?

No more of this!

Hares (and coyotes) beware

Lauren is coming...