Rock and Hawk

"This gray rock, standing tall
On the headland, where the seawind
Lets no tree grow,

Earthquake-proved, and signatured
By ages of storms: on its peak
A falcon has perched.

I think, here is your emblem
To hang in the future sky;
Not the cross, not the hive,

But this; bright power, dark peace;
Fierce consciousness joined with final
Disinterestedness;

Life with calm death; the faqlcon's
Realist eyes and act
Married to the massive

Mysticism of stone,
Which failure cannot cast down
Nor success make proud."

Robinson Jeffers, Rock and Hawk

Black Gyr on basalt in Iceland, taken by Kirk Hogan theee days ago

Charles Schwartz RIP

Bruce Haak emailed me last night that my old friend Charles Schwartz had died, from a fast-acting brain tumor. I hadn't even known he was sick.

Charlie was a great falconer, and a perfectionist. He ended up flying passage Gyrfalcons and Sage grouse, in the high deserts of Idaho; this high-end grouse hawking is still one of the most amazing and demanding forms of falconry.

I first met Charlie with Betsy, on our long tour of the West that ended up with our moving to Magdalena; but not before we had swung up through Idaho and Nevada. Later, he worked for the Gulf Sheiks breeding falcons for seven years. They paid very well, and they gave him a grubstake for life, but he came back screaming "No more Insh'Allah!!" *

He visited Magdalena soon after his return and brought the first two Barbary falcons I had ever seen with him, tiny compared to their Peregrine near- relatives but elegant and wedge- shaped, almost triangular,  with the colors of iron and rust (I believe they were haggards trapped on migration). We took one out in the grassy valley between the San Mateos and the Magdalenas where she mounted up to an astonishing height.

Later we visited Floyd Mansell, my natural history and hunting mentor in Magdalena. Charlie vehemently denounced Floyd's cockfighting. Finally, Floyd took us out to his backyard, and armed two roosters with "sparring muffs"; basically, little boxing gloves that fit over their spurs. We put the roosters down as if for a fight, drawing a line in the dirt with our bootheels, and let the cocks see each other over our arms. Finally we put them on the ground, and they began to display at each other standing broadside to make themselves look bigger and fluffing up their necks. When they started to grapple, we picked them up. Charlie was apparently astonished because the behavior was so obviously hard-wired. "That's ANIMAL BEHAVIOR!"

Charlie attended the first Wildbranch Writing Workshop, when Annie Proulx, the founder, was still there. We "old folks" (two of us in our 40s and two in our 50s)  retreated into our own little group in the summer evenings -- Annie, Charlie, me and the late J. B. Stearns (a Vermont writer who resembled a huge Santa Claus and was directly descended from one of the Green Mountain Boys, who never achieved the status he deserved), would ride around in JB's '62 Cadillac convertible, drinking beer and singing doo-wop songs. We had a lot of fun, but in the workshop Charlie brought his obsessive perfectionism toward everything to the fore. He wrote for a week on a story about a falconer trying to train Merlins who was so obsessive in his pursuit of perfection that he would barely let his bird fly. An advisor in the story tried to get the guy to lighten up, and eventually succeeded. Charlie seemed blind to the fact that the metaphor in the story extended into his life. He polished the story all week long and absolutely refused to send it out for appraisal, ever, saying it was crap compared the work of other writers he admired.

I think the last time I actually saw Charlie was at the Sun Valley Library writer's event, which Libby catered for. We never did see each other that often but we  kept in touch, and we were always happy to share strong opinions. He will be missed by all of us, and especially by his long-time wife, Marty Brown.

If I hear any more anecdotes of Charlie, I'll put them in here.

* For a glimpse of the cultural baggage that drove Charlie crazy, see veterinarian  David Remple's Footprints on the Toilet Seat. Been there...

Image, sent

The late Rio chases a pigeon... (click to enlarge)

"A Hundred Sorrows"

Old Year news, which I didn't want to make anyone sad about during the Holidays. In the kind of  coincidence weirdly common in falconry-- see the quote referenced above and quoted in full below-- good friends (and good falconers) lost both my birds in one December week. Rio/ Guero had been brought to the point of taking quarry by Tavo Cruz when he went into one of those sudden twelve - hour downward  spirals that used to make an old eagler I know mutter that "Gyrs have AIDS". It IS better these days, but Gyrs, in addition to being almost impossible for me to follow these days except under the best conditions, are still more delicate and "immunologically innocent" than many slighter species.

Meanwhile, Bodie had lost his good Saker in as strange a set of circumstances as I have ever known; to a coyote in his library at night, with a locked door between it and the young deerhounds, who would have settled its hash. The coyote locked itself in, and Bodie shot it with his 1911; his suburban neighbors in Corrales tried to get him in trouble for shooting it (in his house, mind you), because they feed coyotes. That this may well end up with the coyotes eating their toddlers apparently hasn't occurred to these idiots. Read Valerius Geist.

Anyway, I lent him Chicken and she had a good season, flying and killing even large ducks on a nearby golf course pond, until one day she missed one, and not being the most lofty of falcons (that heavy Shahin wingloading that gives speed but not lift) landed on an electric transformer and fell to the ground, instantly burnt to death. This was a week after losing Rio. Sadly, not a rare fate for a bird; there is one in my alley that takes a regular toll of feral pigeons.

Both birds were given good lives, good flying and kills, and I thank my friends. But now I must devise a way of falconry that works for me with my present level of physical competence (and that uses ones I can fly off or out of vehicles if necessary). I think it will be small Accips and male Harrises, though some micro- falcons may work too.

The only falconry that is unacceptable is NO falconry. But Gace de la Vigne knew:

"De chiens, d'oyseaux, d'armes, d'amours,

Pour une joye, cent doulours."

Progress

Rio, or "Guero" (Whitey or Blondie as opposed to Tavo's little black Gyr MERLIN Negrito) is making progress. Photos by Shiri Hoshen, training by Octavio Cruz...

UPDATE: The little guy has brains too! Tavo writes: "Last night Güero flew off after chasing two rabbits. I got him back right after dark.

"He flew back to my car in the dark. I saw him with my head lights.

"I was closing in w the telemetry and when he saw the car 1/4 mile away he flew to it.

"Good bird!!!"

Birdage

Rio with his ball. He still has down. I am not used to hulking 38 ounce tiercels and their prolonged infancy- biggest male falcon I have ever flown, and slowest to mature. Though it may take him into the rains... cool, in several senses...

The Bird Today

With Taik. Think these two will work together?

Pre- flight

Pre- flight training at Lee Henderson's La Jencia Ranch. In the last three I am alternating an oversized Kazakh hood he has been training with and a proper Gyr hood-- the rest are self explanatory. Double or right click for BIG images.

Lib reminds me to say that the ranch has good grass over most of it, not trampled sand and cow poop- we are starting his training right in by the inner corrals around the house,  because we want him to home in there if he wanders. Last photo, added later, would be on high ground just to the right of the first photo with the sign, at the edge of the rising ground, looking from that high ground back over the whole ranch, virtually through the headquarters where these were taken.

Update on the new kid

He is just at the age that he can trash the house, and soon we must take him up, but he is a lot of fun. What in the world do people talk about who don't have animals?

And what are these THINGS on my legs? Oversized Kazakh jesses designed for a Siberian Gos, too big but easier to get on for a single person-- Libby does not like "casting"birds-- and useful if only to get him used to the idea.

A Baby arrives

From Dan Konkel in Sheridan-- a male, 3/4 Gyr, 1/4 Saker. At this age his schedule is pretty simple...

Why Anne likes Gyrs

I still plan to get a Gos, first anyway, but Anne Price makes a case. She says:

"...  you need a gyr/saker complex critter, a gyrbrid, as you say:

1.)    An imprint tiercel will be nearly impossible to lose. Feed it on the car, the ATV, and it will just learn to come back there if the long slip doesn’t work out.
2.)    As you point out, they are practically tiny dogs with talons and feathers….a gos will never be that sweet. Or, correction, it will for a couple of weeks, then magically turn and want to eat your eyeballs!
3.)    The long hare slips and flights with a dog, ala Zhel, will be more fun.
4.)    Hybrid anything should be more disease resistant. Goses can get asper just from stress!
5.)    Do you REALLY want to mess with a tail sheath?
6.)    You need something that is Mongolian/Altai/Magdalena arid steppe….he’ll be right at home. None of this stupid tree stuff![Don't ask me why, this appeals! SB]

"Besides, gyrs are more cultured birds and you can do things like this when you’re raising them…"

RIP: Frank Bond, 1943- 2013

Frank Bond, of Santa Fe New Mexico, one of the four founders of the Peregrine Fund; lawyer, rancher, principled politician, father, old- fashioned but innovative conservationist; old friend; perhaps first, in his own mind,  falconer, died of a swift- moving cancer last week.

The scion of a wealthy sheep -ranching family in northern New Mexico, one that once held the grazing leases in Valles Caldera, he grew up in Espanola, and spoke Spanish as well as he spoke English. He attended school at Governor Dummer Academy in Massachusetts and Colorado College before getting a Master's in Spanish at the University of Arizona and a law degree at UNM. With Jim Weaver, who later came to live, ranch,  and fly falcons in eastern New Mexico, Dr Tom Cade of Cornell, who was born here down near the Bootheel, and Bob Berry, then of Philadelphia but now in Wyoming, he founded the Peregrine Fund, which then built the breeding barns at Cornell. Those became the first mass breeding facilities in the world, run by Jim. The Cornell quonset huts were the "factory" that fueled the restoration of the species in the lower 48, an effort manned for years entirely by falconers, who gave up their summer time and amenities to babysit birds in places ranging from urban to remote. (They did not "bring it back from extinction", as the ignorant often say, though they did just that with the Mauritius kestrel). Those that scorn the Fund's deliberately mixed- gene hack birds as Cornell chickens are probably jaded by seeing the now- common birds in eastern cities; without Cornell and the P- Fund  barns we might still have only the Colorado plateau birds and a few southern "Peale's" birds on the coast of Washington breeding in our entire country south of Alaska.

I honestly thought Frank might be the one to provide the bridge between nuevo "Green" enviros and old school ranchers, hunters, and game biologist types, and when he ran for governor on the Republican ticket in 1990, I not only supported him but worked for and with him in Socorro and Catron counties (later I will post about one hilarious incident on the campaign trail). He was a rancher, a founder of the P- Fund, and a long- time trustee of Alan Savory's Holistic Range Management group, whose intense short- term grazing and constant movement can revive desperately overgrazed, "ruined" land. He was both an early supporter of project Lighthawk and a connoisseur of fine guns who hunted big game in Africa. He loved his Gyrfalcons more than any other birds, but was also a serious pigeon racer; his loft was designed by an architect after some adobe structures he had seen in Spain. He offered me the plans once, but I had a feeling they would cost me as much as my (granted tiny, 4 room), house to build, so I thanked him and regretfully declined. He attended race meetings  where there were few Anglos and probably no other rich men.

When he lost by not too much to his friend (and ranch lessee!) Bruce King, a genial old - fashioned hand- shaking pol who never forgot a face but was alleged to have referred to a roadrunner on his desk as "that ol woodpecker",  I realized that today's divisions had begun. When the Sierra Club deserted an eminent conservationist for a Democrat who never saw a cow he didn't like or a bird he could identify, my in- laws quit an organization they had belonged to for over fifty years. Frank devoted the rest of his life to law and conservation, especially to international bird of prey issues. He himself never paid undue attention to partisanship; my lawyer friend Jessica Abberly, a lifelong Democrat, emailed me that he was "...one of the last true gentleman attorneys out there, by the way."

I used to spend a lot of time with him and his then wife in Santa Fe, a time that included my early days with Libby, but time and space and the human realities of loss, breakup, rearing kids, kids leaving, travel and distance all contributed to our not having spent much time together in the last few years, and I realized when I heard that he was ill that I had not seen him but once in the last two years, and that for only a hurried handshake . I wrote to him of the campaign incident, hoping to raise a smile, and then he was gone.

He will be missed. The Peregrine Fund  continues to work with rare species like the Phillipine eagle and the orange- breasted falcon, and is playing a big part in trying to reverse the dire population crashes of Old World vultures, first in India and coming in Africa. Frank himself had moved on to working for the International Association for Falconry and Birds of Prey, where he served as president; when you see films of their meetings in the Czech Republic or the Emirates, you often see his silver belly Stetson hat, the only one present. His importance as a conservationist and a diplomat serving both nature and our sport can hardly be exaggerated.

But he was a private man for all that, and my best memories of him are of sitting around a large living room with the Havell Audubon print of life- sized black Gyrs and the original Reid- Henry painting of white Gyr head studies, telling stories. Some of us will always miss that unassuming, hospitable, soft- spoken friend, a fortunate  man who always gave more than he got,  and one who spoke as easily and with as much interest to his homeboys in Espanola as he did to international figures.

Of Colonel Thornton and inedible quarry

My circle of friends has been talking about hunting predators, something I was for a long time reluctant to do for reasons (it now seems) I had not thought out. While I think all quarry should be treated with respect, a coyote skin or a big carnivore skull can be a magical object-- as can a plume from a catch and release heron caught by a falcon in the last days of the old- fashioned air battles described below. We are not  going to talk here about why some predators MUST be killed in bad situations, as Cat has covered that subject better than I could hope to. Also, I think that predators capable of killing humans should be kept polite, and hunting enforces manners on everyone. The predators become wary of humans, and those who follow them must respect their quarry, and  learn more than any mere observer, to be successful.

Much as I love and enjoy food, I wonder if, especially for nuevo hunters, the prejudice against hunting predators has both class and utilitarian connotations. In America, such things as predator calling are considered blue- collar and "redneck". Meanwhile, our educated ruling class culture is still touched with Puritanism: if you can't EAT it, it is of no use. I could veer off now into tales of stir fried chile ginger mountain lion and such, but thought instead I will come at it from another angle, maybe more amusing.

The zenith of falconry is probably the aerial battle, extending over miles, with large, high- flying , often dangerous- to- the- hawks quarry: the largest herons, cranes, and (most difficult if not most dangerous) at one of two species of high- flying, agile scavenging raptors, the red and black kites (Milvus). Emperor Frederic II hunted all three in the south of Italy in the early 1200's, and the Craighead brothers may have seen the last of it in India just before WW II; they were both the first, and so far the last and only, to film the kite flight. Despite the dubious utility of the quarry (most contemporary sources advise substituting pigeon meat for the bird's reward before the falcon tastes it!), the flight was  dramatic and protracted; the seemingly endless series of stoops and evasions could go on for six miles. It was probably loss of land that did it in in Europe, even for emperors.

Colonel Thomas Thornton of Thornville royal (1757- 1823) was one of those larger than life humans that drive some people to madness while delighting others. The short version: Colonel Thornton was the last modern WESTERN master of the gyr until Ronald Stevens in Ireland and the westerners of my generation who hunt the Big Sage. Rich, profligate, arrogant and funny, he squandered a fortune, lived long, drank "like a hero", dressed his mistress as a jockey, put her on his horses and bet on her in the races, then horsewhipped a cur who insulted her in the stands. He loved gyrs and greyhounds, and died old and content in Paris, having spent all his money.

He wrote two good books, his Northern Tour, which I have, and one with at least as good a reputation about a French "expedition", which I have never seen. (Expedition? He traveled with nearly the baggage of Emperor Frederic; a contemporary journalist described his caravan: "Fourteen servants with hawks on their wrists, ten hunters, a pack of stag hounds and lap- dog beagles, and a brace of wolves formed the advance guard. Two brace of pointers, and thrice as many greyhounds in rich buff and blue sheets, with armorial bearings, followed in their train.")

But the point of all this was that he was among the last westerners to pursue the kite, with a cast of gyrs at that. His amusement with the middle- class practicality of a guest who could not appreciate the high art of the flight at the kite comes across the centuries.

"The southern [meaning south of the borders between England and Scotland] gentlemen, particularly those in the vicinity of the metropolis, never see game of any kind without expressing, instantaneously, their inclinations for a roast... every alderman expresses, on occasion, the same emotions... A Mr. A A, attended by a little humpback servant with a large portmanteau, joined our party, ranging for kite near Eden Gap. At length one was seen in the air, and I ordered the owl flown.[ Eagle owls are hated and 'mobbed' by other birds, and one abroad by day will lure an angry kite-- SB] He came, as we wished, at a proper distance. The day was fine, and the hawks, especially Javelin and Icelanderkin, in the highest order, and with them Crocus, a favorite slight falcon. [ Peregrine--SB] Never was there a finer day, keener company, or, for six miles or more, a finer flight. When he was taken, in an extacy [sic] I asked Mr A how he liked kite hawking. He replied, with a sort of hesitation that implied but small pleasure, 'Why, pretty well.' We then tried for hare, with a famous hawk called Sans Quartier. After ranging a little, we found one, and in about two miles, killed it. Mr A coming up again slowly, unwilling or unable to leave his portmanteau, I repeated my former question; and though the flight of a hare is fine, yet, being in no way equal to that of a kite, was surprised to see his countenance brighten up, and to hear him express himself with uncommon pleasure. 'Ay,  that '  he said 'was a nobler kind of hawking; the hare would be of use--a good roast-- the kite of none."

He hardly needed to add: "I leave every sportsman to guess the observations that were made by a set of lively young men on the occasion."

Thornton with Gyr and greyhound; and his 16- bore double muzzle- loading gun, which resides on extended loan in the Archives of Falconry in Boise Idaho. Its owner, in England, has tempted me by offering to let me shoot it if I get up there, but though I have written about it, I doubt it will be easy to convince its guardians. Probably made in the late 1700's and converted to percussion, it last killed partridge in the 1980's... that is nine teen!

Finally, what may be the best painting Joseph Wolf ever did- and puzzling because he lived a bit late for seeing the almost medieval flight outside of Asia: a red kite brought down by a cast of gyrs:

Best Coursing Photos of the Year!

Terence Wright sent these pics from the Albuquerque gang last night. His, Greg's, and Warren's dogs at least are represented, and Greg's gyr cross Spook.

 I am envious-- come on down! Meanwhile, right click to enlarge as always.

I believe these last two are double grandchildren of Ataika and Lashyn.

UPDATE: the black dog is the Kaeppler's, of Persian and English stock- thanks, Paul D.
Our local rare blacks , from Kazakh stock, tend to have white and tan marks on the front of their breasts; not like an Arabian "tanpoint", less anyway... a bit of  inheritance from the taigan, their mountain cousin? Shakula says of such dogs that they "have the blood of the ancient dragon,"

I want these

Plates by Vadim Gorbatov