Tom McGuane on Raptors

Novelist Tom McGuane, while noted for his horses and pointing dogs, has always had a feel for birds of prey,  notices them, and on occasion writes lyrically about them. There is a vivid set piece in the novel Something to Be Desired, in which which the protagonist, LucienTaylor,  takes his young son, who does not live with him, to lure a Prairie falcon in to trap on a pigeon, using a falconry practice to band the bird to study. The child is frightened, startled  by the bird's falling from the sky like a hammer onto the  luckless bait bird, but Lucien is ecstatic, with the emotions of a true hawk trapper.
"There were feathers everywhere, and the hawk beat in a blur of cold fury, striking at Lucien with his downcurving knife of a beak and superimposing his own screech over the noise of James. "We've got him, James!" James, quiet now, looked ready to run. The hawk had stopped all motion but kept his beak marginally parted so that the small, hard black tongue could be seen advancing and retreating slightly within his mouth. 'It's a prairie falcon. It's the most beautiful bird in the world. I want to come back as a prairie falcon.' "

This is a man who has been there. Here is another lyrical piece, from the more recent Driving  On the Rim:

"With my new leisure following upon my indictment and my failure as a house painter, I had time to walk the woody creek bottoms where I observed the short-winged woodland hawks, Cooper’s and sharp-shinned, speeding through the trees with uncanny nimbleness. I had several times watched prairie falcons diving into blackbirds when I walked around the uplands, and the chaos they made seemed to briefly fill the sky. These jaunts were hardly adventurous, as I never went more than a few minutes from town, but it was greatly reassuring to find wildlife so close to humanity. In fact, I could still make out the old water tower through the trees where I first came upon the goshawk, a northern goshawk, to be precise. Since I came upon her unawares and she was going about her goshawk business under my eye, it made a tremendous impression on me: almost blue-black on her back with a creamy and precisely barred breast. She was swiveling her head from side to side, broadcasting her oddly relentless screams. Over time, I would see her often, hunting, soaring, sleeping. And she saw me often enough that she no longer fled at my sight, moving me by her acceptance."
Tom once wrote to me "Cutting horses are my falcons". True enough, but he also has an eye for the real thing. Sometimes I'm almost jealous of his ability to paint a picture, even in this throwaway line in a handwritten 1992 letter: "There is a Peregrine living around my place this summer. Saw him come down the face of black thunderhead seamed with lightning and kill a pigeon on the County road.."

Two Videos for your weekend pleasure

And to end the week with something more than the exploits of idiots. Both from the same shop at the Beeb, the one that gave you Goshawks flying in slow motion through holes in a wall; the first via Lucas Machias.


I have seen the second and it goes well here.

Scene of the Crime

Is that feathers I see?

 Maybe this guy?

Ornithology

Bear with me for a little more photoblogging, as I am getting some work done. Here are two NM nests that fledged young this year, a Goshawk and a Peregrine, courtesy of Paul Domski.

Hybrid Update

Terence Wright just last night sent this photo of the hybrid Black X Red Shouldered Hawk in CA, with this short  note: "Here is a pic of the hybrid chick during  banding." We will continue to add any updates. I want to see what it looks like after it fledges--  those are two such different Buteonines. The long yellow legs suggest Black Hawk...

Curious?

Another species of raptor that seems to be joining the Peregrine, the Kestrel, and (at least in the Southwest) the Cooper's as a city dweller is the redtail. This amazingly bold first year bird is apparently observing the habits of my sister Anita St John in her office on Beacon Hill in Boston  (Mass General Hospital, Autoimmune Diseases; 5th floor, which doubtless helps the bird's confidence).

Argentavis magnificens

The BIG bird. Moro correctly guessed -- no, knew- what the huge black cutout a few posts ago represented: the the biggest bird that ever flew, and one of the biggest flying creatures-- only Azdarchid pterosaurs were larger.

As far as I know (Therese? Darren?), its taxonomy seems a bit vague, and its habits disputed. The facts are that it lived in a hotter, dryer plains habitat in the late Miocene of southern South America, (6 million YA); that it had a hooked beak rather longer in proportion to its head than other raptors (as Darren said, a perfectly good word referring to a particular group BEFORE the unnaturally naked predators of Jurassic Park); and that it was HUGE. Its wingspread was more like a small plane's than a bird's: 23- 25 feet. It may have weighed only a little less than an ostrich, or even as much. It was too heavy for sustained flapping, but was built to soar in the perpetual winds blowing off the Andes. Its primary flight feathers were over a yard and a half long! (The points of attachment were preserved and indicated a shaft about an inch thick).

Many reconstructions show the bird as a giant vulture but that is dubious; it was as likely a predator as a scavenger, and there was plenty of food around. The logic for a vulturine appearance is something like "New World vultures include condors. Condors are rather like Teratorns. Argentavis may be related to Teratorns..."

I don't buy it. The bird has some stork affinities as do New  World vultures (unrelated to Old World ones or other birds of prey). But it is different, with its huge beak and strong legs and ridiculous size. I like more ambiguous ones, like this wonderful portrait by Wandering Albatross at Deviant Art... it looks like something unique that might have vultures as relatives.

There is a good informal account by paleontologist Bjorn Kurten in his 1991 Innocent Assassins.  Not Exactly Rocket Science discusses how it flew. I would love to hear more from anyone who is more up- to- date...

"The crows were very large near the old nuclear test sites in eastern Kazakhstan"

What is this?

More images when I return.

Osprey

John Wilson photographed this osprey near Magdalena. It is not the first I know of-- I think I have seen three over 30 years-- but it is the first photographed.

But what is this semi- obligate piscivore doing 30 miles from any fish that is not in a freezer? "Lake Magdalena" (the sewage pond) has no fish, and it is a long way to any other body of water until you get down to the Rio.

Cat up in the Wyoming sage also has desert ospreys, but hers are all near rivers that run down in slots below the surface of the desert, rich ones, full of trout and other species. Nothing like that down here.

Predator

Our last winter predator is an adult male Coopers hawk in beautiful plumage, and despite my admiration for his kind I hope he moves on to nest-- I don't relish keeping my pigeons in for very long. He allowed me to get even closer, but this was the best I could do; the photo is not good, because I was standing in bright sunlight that turned the viewfinder into a mirror. Still, he is plainly visible atop the dog house, eating a blue bar homer cross as big as he is. I think it will enlarge.

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

Links: Good and Bad News for Falcons

The tundra subspecies and other high- latitude migrating Peregrines are in very good shape.

Peregrines are one of those capital- C "Charismatic" species who always get press (whether the label "endangered", once attached in the popular collective mind, will ever be removed is matter for a long essay). Meanwhile, the obscure and beautiful little Amur falcon, like its sister species the Sooty, may be genuinely endangered because (A) it has a very long strange migration route, and B) therefore, one of the migration's concentration points supports an unsustainable and grotesque slaughter for no real reason at all (I am a supporter of sustainable traditional use, but this massacre sounds more like the unconscionable "tradition" of shooting everything that moves in Malta than any kind of aboriginal custom). The video is not for the faint of heart...

Scupture- in- progress

What my friend, Albuquerque sculptor and naturalist Sarah Madigan Keenan is making of a Barbary falcon killed many years ago...

And another example:

Mabel

Helen's Gos.

Apologies and some light blogging: Prairie Gos

Have been ruining my health and especially my right, mouse- running hand (Parkinson's overlaid with arthritis exacerbated by gout and maybe carpal tunnel syndrome- AAARGH!) working overtime on the last details for the eagle book- I promise a real cover soon. I need a few days away from this keyboard, working at the town library.To tide anyone who misses me over I'll put in a few photo posts, links, and quotes today-- SLOWLY.

Here is a wonderful shot of a Goshawk on the prairie by Tom Donald of Saskatchewan, falconer, pigeon man, pouter breeder, and pioneer (70's!) in the falcon- saluki chase on hares.

This a wild bird-- Gosses seem far less tree- bound than other Accipiters. I have had them shadow me while hunting birds in the prairies near Lewistown Montana, and they nest way out into the tundra in Siberia, in the low willows along streams. Migrants sometimes cross the Bering Straits and end up in such places as Wyoming; I always wonder about Siberian genes when I see one with color this light.

Strange Tri- Hybrids

From reader Roberto Buonfante comes this "natural" domestic pair and their young, in Italy: a Buteo X Buteo (Redtail jamaicensis x Ferruginous regalis) mated to a Harris (Parabuteo--!-- unicinctus) and their first of several successful clutches.

Seems they might make great hare hawks! Roberto writes:

"... the Harris [and] the red/ ferr. were placed in the same aviary to moult because they were tolerant of each other. When the female started to carry material he obviously understood and gave them the chance. The day he candled the eggs he was in shock. We are talking about natural captive breeding of Buteo mix crossed with Parabuteo. I know the breeding was repeated 2 times in the same season, another oddity considering they were raising their young.

"He had a hard time to sell them and like always once gone everybody wanted them.
.. Do not remember if he had both sexes, I would assume yes considering there were several chicks.

"It seems that this specimens have taken all the best features from their relatives, tame as harris, aggressive and big footed like red tail, large size from ferruginous."

Avian Drama, Home Version

In remote, dirt- road Magdalena, wildlife comes into town. Deer track through the central arroyo, followed by mountain lions. An adolescent lion got himself cornered and darted in the High school yard a couple of years ago; a bear went up an electric pole and was electrocuted the same year. Coyotes challenge the hounds from inside town limits before dawn and reduce them to a fury of howling.

But birds, even ones you don't think of as human commensals, can be even bolder, going about their lives in the artificial canyons and woodlands with little attention to humans. The following sequence yesterday begins with my shooting from my own front porch facing south and pointing just slightly west and to the right. Apologies for quality-- I was using a point- and- shoot that lags when you push the button, while trying to time myself to catch the falcon's rushes. All but the last will enlarge twice if clicked on-- it will go only once.

I was dozing over my book about 4 PM when I was roused by a mad chorus of raven croaks and kestrel "kleekleeklee!" alarm notes. I went out to see a raven standing in the street 100 feet away. Ravens don't do that.


He had evidently been poking his sinister beak into that little hole in the upper right corner of the storage shed across the street, where the falcon's eggs had hatched, and the female had caught him. She stooped at him again and again until she drove him to the ground, though he must easily have weighed three times as much, until he was squawking and ducking and trying to get under the hedge.


She hit him again and again, turning over at the end of each swing or hanging in the wind between strikes (click to enlarge-- she is at upper right).



Only my coming forward to try to take a closer photo finally gave the raven an opportunity to break away, while mother kestrel cursed impartially at me. The raven was not visiting today...

Baby

If all works out, my next hawk and first Harris at Matt Mitchell's last week...

Three Small Falcons, and Thoughts on Speciation...

Anne Price of the Raptor Education Foundation flies the excellent taiga merlin Tish, who has been drawn by Vadim Gorbatov "bulldogging" a starling (Cowgirl Tish).

We were discussing Cheetah who is half taita (or teita) falcon. The species lives in the river gorges of eastern and southern Africa-- I have seen nests near Victoria Falls. Though small it is very stout, broad- shouldered, short- tailed, large- beaked, long- toed, and heavily wing- loaded. It has rusty marks on its head. In fact but for that it is somewhat isolated, and lives near dry forest rather than desert, it could be considered the smallest member of the Barbary falcon (Falco babylonicus) group, the desert "peregrine"-- the two subspecies, eastern and western, were once considered races of the peregrine until they were found breeding sympatricly with other races. This species is found from Morocco to western Mongolia, where I have seen THEIR nest sites, the western birds known as Barbary falcons and the eastern as red- naped shahins. The Barbs are little; some rn's are bigger than peregrines.

Look at the directions evolution has taken small falcons. The teita (a male, very small, about which more in a minute) is a tiny peregrine but stouter; the American aplomado has gone in a direction resembling an Accipiter with a falcon head, long, lanky, long tailed; the merlin is a mini- desert falcon built for swift pursuit.

Second pic: teita, unhappy Tish. Both weigh plus or minus 180 g; "little" Cheetah over 500.

Third: Anne with same. LOOK at proportions!

Fourth, fifth: Red Nape in Almaty Kz breeding project where she dwarfs a male Siberian peregrine-- yes, females are bigger but she was huge, though still with those broad shahin shoulders like a teita or Barb. Incidentally they are called Lashyn-- my dog's name-- there.


Last, male (I think) rn in Kyrgizstan.

Are the peregrine relatives, probably separated only 12,000 years or so, species or not? Check this scholarly pdf and get back to me...

ID Query

Tom McIntyre sent this photo his friend Keith Benoist snapped in Mississippi last weekend. Suggestions include Swainson's and broadwing which I doubt-- slighter and migratory-- and Harlan's which is possible though ours tend to be more "speckly". I call darkish (for the east) redtail. What say you?