Jillian the Great Horned Owl is serenading me with hoots all night. I am wide awake for hours with knee pain, don't get me started. These birds breed in the winter, often taking over the stick nests of Red-tailed Hawks, "Dibs." The owl family is long gone by the time hawks breed, so often just some maintenance and used again. Look for those ear tufts poking above and this is an old photo, evidenced by the snow that is lacking this year. ..and last year as well. Weird winters.
The paint is still wet. It's a melange of portraits of Jillian our old Great Horned Owl, giving me that "I could kill you" look. Drypoint etching, gouache and brush pens, 7" x 10 1/2" and a companion piece to Pygmy-Owl from November 15th! Man, that took a whole month?
Some more "snaps" from Radius Gallery hero/owner/director Lisa Simon, our appearance on Saturday. Birds Galore Galley and fine art for everyone. Check out the Holiday wonders.
We packed 'em in Saturday despite the simultaneous Grizzly and Bobcat football playoff games! Thanks Lisa, that was fun! Check out the Holiday Art Show downtown, Missoula right on Higgins. Awesome!
Ryan Hollingsworth (sawyer), Pat Johnson (splitter), John Wiltzen (stacker) and wood for the season, Thanks pals! And stacking with Tom (burner.)
The "Barred Portrait" etching is at Radius Gallery, the "GBHeron" is at 709. And Sharp-shin" in the Missoula Art Museum Auction. Whew.
Join us on Saturday at Radius Gallery in Missoula, 124 N. Higgins Ave from 1 till 3 pm and meet some Raptors of the Rockies Stars, see majorly awesome artwork and have a wonderful holiday visit!
Here is one for yesterday, and my favorite, the eagles. How Missoula....HA!
From my book Birds Are People, Too and "It's a riot!" says musician/entertainer/star Bill Harley.
These friends sure are hanging at the nest tree a lot lately, even bringing in sticks. This year was the earliest she began incubation - March 4th. Previous record was 2017 won March 5th!
Friends, just got these guys down at the river and hoped for some help. We could use two things: Newspapers to place under the bird perches when they are inside in the cold weather AND perhaps some oldish game meat -elk, deer, bear anything to feed the eagles and hawk. Please let me know at raptors@montana.com. Can pick up or you come over and meet our Teaching Team Birds! THANKS!
Painting the Pygmy-Owl etchings, edition of 5. It always takes me a day to figure out the painting and drawing on the print, then try to remember how I did that for the other four.
Our beloved Barred Owl, and what a name - Bard of Avon is William Shakespeare, perhaps best play "Merchant of Venice," and the wonderful female heroine Portia. I know...kind of a stretch, and bard means poet.
Bald Eagle stretching at the river and feathers on his foot so maybe just ate a duck? At that nest by Bonner that was the topic for my 2013 book, I even saw them bringing in starlings and pigeons!
ps: Just now, Sunday morning, she has been in the nest and he just brought in a big stick. Housekeeping. It is photoperiod that mimics spring that causes birds to briefly revisit nesting behavior.
Always a trick telling them apart, so what are these, Tundra or Trumpeter Swans, at Metcalf Refuge? By the Coot.
This from last February, sent to my pal Steve Watson in the UK. I am so chuffed! Apparently this is the hip word, chuff. Steve informed me: 'Chuffed' is a word that's old but is in new vogue of late. It used to be a word synonymous with 'rather pleased' but it's now morphed into a cooler word meaning 'thrilled to bits.' That's us, thanks Steve and see an eagle in this photo on the left in the cottonwood?
Our wood splitter Black Diamond from Murdoch's a few years ago, and have a log pile to saw and split. That pile behind Tom has been filled up to the roof, 4 deep in split wood every fall. Some of these chunks today were from 2003, gotta love the larch and Douglas fir!
Our new hawk, Taiga was a youngster and a car collision victim in the spring near Great Falls, a migrant from the tundra and taiga of the far north and now on our Teaching Team. A sweetie and bum wing but comfortable in her new surroundings.
I can't believe I could write three of these a year...now one big 8-page issue in November. Thanks Minuteman Press of Missoula! Just mailed 100, another 100 and thanks Raptor Backers everywhere. https://www.raptorsoftherockies.org/main.asp?id=newsletter
Quite the evening sky. Newsletters out in a week, maybe sooner, printing at Minuteman Press. 350 copies in living color!
At first I thought a pair of adult red-tails were fighting over a snake, then the male left the scene. It was a stick that she dropped and caught, then finally discarded and flew away. HA!
I have been stashing all the flowers under the roof at night and hanging them again each morning. Hard frost and End of Flower Season, and thanks to Nancy Brown of Brown's Greenhouse in Florence! The best florals possible.
Saw them in the same spot yesterday so went back to the house for the camera and muck boots, this from the river.
We had a little change of plans yesterday regarding our mouse delivery from our favorite lab in Great Falls. They have supplied the vast majority of our rodents for 35 years, and sometimes we have to get creative in getting them over the continental divide to Missoula. Dr. Moses was going to drop them off at the university at 8 or 9 pm, so how to keep them cool... Best pal Rose at the lab taped them up in 3 styrofoam coolers with ice and dry ice and I had them in the car early this morning (pre-Homecoming Parade!) now all sorted and in our freezer. Check out her big label, and the bowl of mouse traps I set every night in the garage. All set for a bit, whew a close one.
Down comes the shade cloth in the eagle building all folded up now, on goes the heat for the Aplomado Falcon Sonora. Coming soon...winter.
Hot off the printing press! "Spotted Sandpiper" drypoint etching with gouache and colored pencils on gold printing ink so it glows in real life. 11" x 9"
Thanks to Minuteman Press in Missoula, I have a new line of cards for sale - Etchings and Paintings, all new and a couple not-so-new, 19 in all. They are 5 x 7 inches on Kromekote paper, a lovely finish. I have them with envelopes and a really cool display at Rockin Rudy's right next to our Raptors of the Rockies cards, pal Erin showing them off. $5.99 and Raptors cards are 3 bucks, 2 of which goes to the program.
Sonora the Aplomado Falcon gets a beak-trim twice a year, called "coping" in the falconry world. Raptor beaks tend to overgrow in captive situations for some unknown reason, and coping takes a minute, maybe two, toenail clippers, fingernail file, and round chainsaw file and done! Here she is right this minute with the new art on the wall, photo of her flying on the top right.
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