My Birthday Fly Today

 

Full Moon In the Cottonwoods

 

One Horse Creek

Twenty years flying birds at this sanctuary across the road, today with Sib.

 

Higgins Avenue

 Our main drag in Missoula, Higgins Ave. yesterday at 2 pm. No one to be seen.

Christmas Eve Sibley

 

Sib Flight Sunday

 

Geese Galore

 And one swan. Lee Metcalf Nat'l Wildlife Refuge yesterday.

BAEA

Bald Eagles guard their nests, even in the winter months. Just kidding.

Yodel Doggie

 

Sib Yesterday

Peregrines guard their nests, even in the winter months.
Just kidding. Sibley perched by a Pileated Woodpecker nest in a little break from her flight at One Horse Creek.

Sunrise

 The eagle standing over her nest. We'll see if they use it this year, instead of those darned Canada geese. 

Sonora is Helping

 

Happy Ending, We Hope

 This young Red-tailed Hawk was struck by a car in September, and was reported, "Still alive, and looking right at me." Miraculous, her head poking out of the grill of a Subaru. I delivered her to our pal Becky Kean from the Raptor Conservation Center in Bozeman, and with a pinned broken wing, great health to begin with and excellent rehab, released today to fly away, hopefully to live a long life.

Front Yard, 8:05 am

 

8 am.

 

You Know Who...

 

Sunday Safety

A couple duck chases yesterday, half-hearted and one drake that was smacked barely missed a wing beat flying up the slough. What fun and Sib had a lot of high soars in the sunshine, I imagine just because she could. That's what I would do.

Go Nico!

Hunting 'em up on Sunday with the Peregrine. A practice run for ducks today by the house.

Sib Versus Merlin

A not-too-good photo but a Merlin came in for a little scuffle with the Peregrine, oh well.

 

Raptor Round-Up #59 is UP!

 Here it is, Number 59 all 8 pages and thanks so much to our Webmaster-Pal Steve Palmer as this was a trick to post after we were hacked in September by Cialis of China! No kidding. 220 in the mail (well, will be by tomorrow...) Merci Steve and thanks Raptor Backers:

"You Talkin' To Me?"

 

Heading Out

 Nico is rarin' to go, falcon fly at One Horse Creek across the road. We have one step or stair in our house so this is the "upstair." Love this place, 20 years now (almost.)

Bird Feeder

Why we feed/put up with the non-native Eurasian Collared Doves that have practically taken over this place - to feed the raptors! A terrible photo from this morning, adult male Northern Goshawk and guarantee, he'll be back. Incidentally, the pigeons did not want to leave their loft when I tried to let them out, smarties (and we love our pigeons.)

Gobble Gobble

Mom's Peek

 Mom is viewing our new book on my laptop, and I kept telling her to wait until it's in print to actually read the text. She is still just on page 90, and this is going to take a while. But thumb's up so far!

Today With Jay

Jay Sumner's new Gyrfalcon Eden today. We flew Sib and the Gyr and 
 ducks were safe...for now!

My Helpers

Sibley, Sonora and Nico the Lab (not shown) helping me today in the office/living room. 

 

Falcons Book

 Our book is 99% done, and here is one of the last additions, in the Peregrine Species Account:

A Peregrine survey with Mac Donofrio, the nesting cliffs up a steep drainage. The young are curious about the novelty of humans and are always quickly ushered away to safety by the parents. —KATE DAVIS

Sib and Red-tail

 I was just looking for some weird photo from a million years ago and found this one of Sibley and a Red-tail grappling over the valley. She (Sib) was winning.

Safest Coots in the World

 This raft of American Coots swam over to the goose platform to say hi to Sibley the Peregrine, right when she landed after chasing some ducks. Thumbing their noses!

Just Now

 Turkey In the Straw. Hay, actually.

Cool Cranes on the Beach

 

Sunday Hunt

Our Black and Blue car in the driveway, after a duck hunt with Sibley and Nico. The ducks were safe, and coots, too.

Today

 

Bitterroot Bald Eagle

 

I Wonder What Kind of Bird THIS Is?

 Yellowlegs! But wonder if it's a Greater or Lesser?

Spooky!

Jillian's first program, back in 2003 at an elementary school in Hamilton, MT. After the assembly, she was a model in a drawing class for 3rd graders. A natural, and joining me for a TEDx Talk in 2015, on YouTube.

 

Jake the Peregrine Update

 Kit Lacy, Bird Curator at Cascades Raptor Center in Eugene, Oregon just gave us a Little Jake update and included a few photos. If you remember, Jake was given to our friends at Cascades when we found he had some health issues and wouldn't be trained for falconry. They tended to a sore foot for months and now he has completely healed, and check out his new digs, 12' x 12', the center of attention. Kit wrote, "As would be expected people are just loving being able to get up close to him and watch him. He plays all day long. He has fallen in love with these canvas fish toys that he carries around his space all day long. Yesterday, I heard two different sets of guests say as they were leaving, “let’s go and say goodbye to Jake before we leave.” What a fan favorite." 

Irony

 This latest story has been ironic in a couple of ways. I had installed a photo in the new book Falcons of North America 2nd Edition of a wild Peregrine up the Blackfoot carrying this quarry with the caption:

A Peregrine carries a partially eaten American Coot, a wonder how they catch 

these aquatic birds that rarely fly and seem to completely disappear underwater to escape.

Then Sib caught one that was flying! Going to change the caption...

 

Sunday Hunt

Yesterday we were duck hunting watching a big raft of American Coots cruising back and forth when one actually flew. Members of the rail family, they are awkward fliers and prefer to run across and disappear underwater. I said out loud, "Wow, that's something you never see." Right then another one flew the other direction and Sibley took off in hunting mode. I wasn't sure what happened but she disappeared for 15 minutes, and Nico (and the telemetry receiver) located her way under the snow at the base of a big willow bush. A coot! And I had to break several limbs off to extract her, buried and plucking away and I would never have found her without help. Nope, never caught a coot before, and she got to eat most of it as a treat. Not for human consumption, apparently, with a hunting daily bag limit of 25! 

Aspens in the Snow Today

 

Saturday and More Snow on the Way

 

Autumn, Then Winter, in One Day!