Back From Texas!

An amazing week in Corpus Christi and Kingsville, and time to precess all the new knowledge, sights, and friendships from the Raptor Research Foundation Conference. Host Tom Lanschied made sure I got to see some Crested Caracaras and sure a striking bird. More news on the way.

Off to the Lone Star State!

Two years of planning and the conference is (suddenly) here.
Or in Texas I should say. We hosted the gathering in 2008, and I guess did such a good job, I was awarded the post of Conference Chair for the Raptor Research Foundation. A little gap in blogs this week, then photos of ten of thousands of Broad-winged Hawks migrating over Hazel Bazemore Park in Corpus Christi!

Last Night and One Before

New School

School number 126 since we started in 1988- Mountain View, right next to the Corn Maze in Missoula and a great group. Teacher Shannon Gross told me that her husband saw a Raptors program when he was a little kid and they needed to have a visit to her school. We even had lots of parents and siblings as guests. The kids had photos of themselves in the entry way, holding signs of what they wanted to be when they grew up. There were a few policemen, a zookeeper, toy designer, a girl that wanted to be either a diver or an astronaut, and one humanitarian, no kidding.

Tuesday Night

No more Lewis's Woodpeckers and not an Osprey around. Fall might just be here. That background is the stone cutbank on the Bitterroot behind the house. Another lucky shot, trying to follow the adult eagle with the panning Manfrotto tripod head and not even looking through the viewfinder, just snapping away. Still counts!

Saturday

Nothing for an hour then the fledgling flew in, then adult snatched something from the water (fish entrails!) and then the big chase. The youngster was standing on our eagle building begging for some rabbit the hour before. 

TGIF

Yesterday I dropped off the RRF Conference Book to be printed here at Pyramid Printing, Missoula -we saved a bundle and excellent quality plus courteous service (YEA!)  Then I picked up ten copies of the new book America Kestrel : Pint-sized Predator at Mountain Press Publishing (Hurray!) It looks fantastic and the big order on the way.  Then I checked the mail and a nice sponsorship by Rocky Mountain Orthopaedics pushed us over the top for a matching grant from the Cinnabar Foundation (Three Cheers!) And finally arrived home to find about 40 Turkey Vultures over the river heading south, several in the eagle snag (Awesome!)

Sib Today:

Raptor Research Foundation Conference, conference, conference for days and looking great. Corpus Christi, Texas is less than two weeks and Your Humble Narrator as the Conference Chair. We had a little break in the action this morning to fly Sibley, and a few photos from MPG Ranch, dogs were hunting 'em up! More news on the way about Texas, what a meeting it will be. Promise.

Kingfisher Highway

Tom bought a raft and yesterday we floated from Stevensville to the house. We were accompanied by several kingfishers, and notice the spider web below and to the left of the bird. I think the background looks different than I'm used to because we were cooking along at 1/2 mile per hour! Then a different kingfisher in a productive dive. Or stoop. Fun way to photograph. It's just like standing on the beach every evening, only there is no tripod, I am sitting down, and we are moving.

Amazing!

The most incredible behavior last night at the river! I took a couple photos of the male doing nothing remarkable and right after he flew I noticed the moon through the trees. The young eagle was loudly begging when an Osprey flew by, caught a big squirming fish, and out of nowhere, both adults chased him upstream. He dropped the fish next to me, adult eagle tried to retrieve it but is escaped, then all three eagles chased the Osprey for a short distance then came back and perched. The Osprey flew back in and took some pot shots at the adults perched in the foliage. Of course all this happened after the sun went behind the Bitterroots, but I would have missed it anyway - it was too close to photograph with a 500 mm! Plus I was shaking too hard...

Another

Sibley Landing:

Falconry Season Begins

Sibley the Peregrine begins her 12th year of our favorite life style, flying nearly every day for the next 7 months!

Caught a BIG Whitefish!

Memory Lane

I was going through some ancient boxes of clothes at my mom's today and came across this t-shirt I designed the first summer I went to school on the shores of Flathead Lake. It was blue at one point, I seem to remember. I also found one I made in 1977 for my dad and brother's Boy Scout High Adventure trip to the White Mountains, and one I did while in the Peace Corps in Cameroon in '83. Another without a date, a collectors item no doubt, Save the Axolotl with a drawing of a tiger salamander. But the real prize was one from 1978, Earl's Girls BLITZ, a little club we had in high school...Memory Lane and not one shirt was tossed. Nor is one fit to wear, threadbare.