I have seen one nestling in there so far in a view through the scope in the living room. Remains to be seen how many total, and they have had three chicks for five years since the nest was built in 2011. When I see an eagle laying down in the nest I add 35 days for incubation and viola! Hatching on April 12th or 13th this season, what a treat. A No-Canada Goose-Year.
Thank-you from a school, when we still did assemblies a couple days a week: Max the Golden Eagle
We started doing programs for the IWFF in 1989, then at Holiday Inn, and programs in Kiwanis Park the first of which had no attendees. Mike Maples assembled some people sleeping under the Higgins Street bridge to attend, then a big crew. The first WildWalk Parade, programs on the stage at Caras Park for 12 years. So always fun to have filmmakers assemble at the Raptor Ranch for a visit, and one gal told me "It's the most fun I have ever had!" Love you, miss you, Chuck Jonkel and Barry Gordon, pals forever.
Our buddy Jack Kirkley of Dillon, recently retired professor at University of Montana Western just found these photos in his archives! Keith Fialcowitz and myself photographing a Great Gray Owl nest in the Big Hole Valley, June 2011. Maybe the next etching will be one from that day...just wait. (Not this one...HA!)
The "Art Inertia" has been on pause for 2025 until this week and just finished a drypoint etching of a Snowy Owl on the Washington Coast. Major turmoil over here the last few months, and needed some cheering up. Printmaking does that! So the photos here are printing, painting, and final product- 9 x 12" printing inks plus a little of each: gouache, pencils, pastels.
Two House Wren nests, cleaning boxes today and hopeful that they return soon. Five pairs nesting here in the yard a few years ago, fewer every year since. Perhaps tough times for these, favorites of our resident songbirds. One with sticks packed in a box, the other on a Aspen tree cavity (my etching...)
The nest right by the visitor's center and seems like it failed last year after a huge wind storm.
An evening view from the yard and he finally showed up! Hopefully back to normal and fledging on the 4th of July!
I watched an eagle through the scope, hunkered down in the nest and looking all around until dark. Now what's up? It was as if she was waiting for a food delivery that did not occur. Then this morning an eagle perched briefly in the limb just over the nest....Okay, now I am wondering, and stay tuned (and an old photo for you.)
"Our" eagle nest that we watch through a scope in the living room, and destination for my daily afternoon walk appears empty. I noticed a hunkered down eagle on the morning of March 9th, about the right time for eggs and incubation, so figured they would be hatching this weekend. Promising picture here from a week ago but haven't seen anyone home since, not even perched in the tree above. That nest built in 2011 has ben vacant before, three years in a row starting in 2018, and now is huge and hard to watch when the cottonwoods leaf out. I've been wrong before, so we shall see.
Here is our teacher showing the students my etching "GHOwl," next to our model for the day Simon. What a ham (the bird I mean.)
That makes 142 schools (so far) and yesterday over at the old Jefferson School, 67 students aged 5-10 enrolled in TEACH. And a unique audience as half of them are refugees from all over and I referred to my handy globe in the office: Syria, Lebanon, Yemen, Jordan, Afghanistan, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Uganda, Tanzania, and Myanmar. WOW! First was a program with Sib, Simon, Billie and Taiga the Rough-leg, then a sketching session for the older kids. I told them I used to live in Cameroon, West Africa and one little clap for that...what a day!
Here is a panorama shot by my favorite teacher, Kevin Cashman and our umpteenth program for Chief Charlo 4th grade. Then they come visit the Raptor Ranch, big day here and sometimes a quick walk to the river to spy on the eagle nest, then Metcalf Wildlife Refuge. Now that's a field trip.
My first Peregrine outing of the season with Jay Sumner and first heard, then spotted the two falcons at Chamberlain Creek up the Blackfoot, distant photos. Always a treat! Then another at Bonner, two cliffs in between empty, just for now (we hope)
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