Six Months Apart

Top is August, Mookie and the puppy. Then yesterday, growing Nico on the right.  Thanks Mike DeNeve for the plowing jobs, quite a few this year!

Meadows at Snowbowl

Yesterday looking south from the middle of the Meadows.

And Simon inside (yes, a newspaper below the perch, always, for those of you that asked.)

This Morning

Our dogs, hawk sculpture, yard and SNOW.
And the snow report from Snowbowl Ski Area, heading up right now.

Look! 5 1/2 feet of freshies on Tuesday!

Simon Watching the Blizzard Tonight

Goodbye Evita

Our dark morph Swainson's Hawk had to be euthanized, a very difficult task but had to be done. She had lingering beak problems and somehow broke her lower mandible over the weekend. At 15 years of age, she was a wonderful educator here at the Raptor Ranch. Evita decided "no travel crates for me" a long time ago, and at least skipped that migrating-to-Argentina-and-back thing. That's how she got her name, "Don't cry for me Argentina." She is missed, and a cry for her.

Nico

It quit snowing, and my metal bird sculptures in the yard with Nico the Dog, who would never chew up anything in the house...

Peregrine Falcon

Peregrines were placed on the U.S. Endangered Species List in 1970,  absent east of the Mississippi and practically gone in the west, a fraction of former numbers. After the banning of DDT in the U.S. in 1972 and reintroduction of 7000 captive-bred birds in North America, they are back.  The continental subspecies was delisted in 1999 at a gala ceremony at The Peregrine Fund's World Center for Birds of Prey in Boise. Many believe that Peregrine numbers are higher now that pre-DDT, a conservation sensation in just thirty years, and we can largely thank Tom Cade.

Farewell To Tom Cade

What a loss, and at the same time the greatest triumph a person could have in a lifetime, Tom Cade’s heart and soul. He is my All-time Greatest Hero and I told him that every time I’d see him. He’d blush, I swear. He is the founder of The Peregrine Fund and crucial in the de-listing of Peregrines as an endangered species. Tom wrote in my copy of his 2018 memoir, "With my everlasting thanks for your generous permission to decorate the front cover of this book with my favorite photo of my deceased gyr,  Kumpan and me," taken when we met in 2008. He invited me to The Peregrine Fund after receiving a copy of our Falcons of North America book, and I jumped in the Subaru and off to Boise! Tom just passed peacefully at the age of 91, missed by all in the conservation and raptor world.

Retriever

Ever lose one of your most helpful devices for the ice, a Snow Trax, right off the sole of your boot out there somewhere? Labrador Retriever today, thanks Nico, and thought I had to wait until the big thaw. And a kestrel today.

Auction Night

What a gala event, the 47th Annual Missoula Art Museum Auction and what a ball. Pal Bev Beck Glueckert is standing in front of our two pieces, as if the Osprey could perch on her index finger, hers the Turkey Vulture print. Then a group shot with me, Bart, my sister Betsy, with Bev and the finest dressed gal in the room, Jenny O! We'll have to see the final bids in that Silent Auction, and hope they broke all records, MAM - Free Expression and Admission.

Tuesday

Incoming

Lucked out and in falconry, the main reason they come back when we exercise these birds is that they are hungry and will be fed, and in the case of Sibley, she knows the routine and is an imprint/loves me. I have never done this in my lifetime of falconry but simply forgot the food. Around and around she went, and happily I had a dried up pheasant wing in my vest, tucked in a pocket. So back she came when I tricked her- "Look Sib, feathers," wiggling a wingtip behind the glove. On the car and in the back of the Subaru she went, to be handsomely rewarded with a nice quail at home, whew.

Missoula Harley Davidson Club

What fun today!

Back Slough

Always an eagle somewhere, and last night right in the back yard.