Raptors And Art week, our 22nd at the Missoula Art Museum, me and Bev Beck Glueckert. Sib, Sonora and Wes falcons posing day one, then owls Simon, Portia and Little Billie on Tuesday, sketching sessions. Now, life-size paper mache sculptures, including 5 Great Horned, 3 Barred, 1 Saw-whet, 2 eagles, 1 kestrel, and 1 flamingo (that counts!) Plus 1 Zombie and 1 Elephant Owl.
In the living room! My welded steel Peregrine sculpture and Nico heading for the kitchen.
Thanks Cindy Knutsen for the big printing press, now installed upstairs and my trial run of a Rough-legged Hawk drypoint etching. Donated by Cindy and bought some parts, now ready to rock and roll, 19 inches across instead of the little one for 30 years, 12 inches!
Almost every year Tom's little bridge over the slough has started floating, held tight with ropes and not washing away. Well, thank you Pat Johnson for installing more cinder blocks to keep it above the water. This one with the dogs, just inches from floating. Thanks Pat and a river walk every day.
We love Metcalf Wildlife Refuge, especially Mose and Nico. Right down the road!
Not this! But a big drypoint of a female hawk on a fence post, what fun! Then on to the new printing press up over the garage. First one of this size for me. I am excited.
Just finished this etching, another experiment with tools and ink. "Great Gray" is from a trip I took with photographer/pal Keith Fialcowitz in June 2011. We met up with zoologist Jack Kirkley and visited a Great Gray Owl family. Drypoint etching, 11" x 10" with printing inks, gouache, and brush pens and pencils. It brings back wonderful memories. Check out April 22nd Blog!
Our umpteenth program at Chief Charlo Elementary and here for Kevin Cashman's wonderful 4th graders. First with the neighbor's 80 foot Warehouse looming in the background, then a snapshot. One boy asked me if we had a White Pelican, "No, not a raptor," and I swear a pelican flew over the whole group, circled, less than a minute later! Magic.
A 2009 photo from the East Missoula nest that housed FOUR chicks, all fledged, very rare, and topic of my "Bald Eagle Nest" book from Stackpole Publishing! Finally all four in view at the same time, and took a couple of weeks, I swear.
Finally a snapshot with one of the two nestlings. I was headed to the beach with the dogs and turned around to go get my camera, thankfully.
Yay! One singing in the yard and so much hope they nest near-by, my favorite songbird.
Snipe Really Do Exist
I pointed out a flying Wilson’s Snipe to some visitors this week, and they were surprised to learn that there really is such a thing. Apparently one of our friendswas tricked into “snipe hunts” as a kid, pointless ventures into the night with a sack, a practical joke played on all kids. This was a male snipe performing an elaborate flight display marking his territory, flying high and plunging toward the ground. Special muscles fan out his tail feathers which vibrate and make a beautiful winnowing sound. Instead of the typical 12 tail feathers of other birds including sandpipers, snipe have 14 or 16 depending on subspecies. They must have a nest in the grass near the house, and this guy displays well past dark.
Man I love these birds and trying to get a flight shot today, an older photo here. The one today was circling the house high above with the tell-tale winnowing sound of tail feathers. We never saw one last year, formally pretty common along with House Wrens and hope they show up again to nest near-by. Plus the Soras, Vaux's Swifts and Bullock's Orioles. Fingers crossed.
Actually, Arrowleaf Balsamroot all over the place, blooming now and beaucoup at my favorite secret spot. That sign says, "Welcome Kate!" Will be perfect in a couple days when the bulk of the lupine is in bloom, but supposed to be overcast and rainy, not perfect for photography. Perfect for the flowers, and that's what matters.
This shot from 2002, three young that year and still trying to count the young this year in that giant nest. And two years ago today I had my botched total knee replacement surgery, in pain ever since. Looks like I'll have to undergo another surgery, do it again, utterly awful. I was sick for months, anemia infusion treatments, lost 20 pounds and could't stay awake longer that a couple hours. Botch = mangle in the dictionary.
With Annie Garde at the helm, Montana Public Radio from 2-4 pm MST. 89.1 and left of the FM dial, plus https://www.mtpr.org/
Our friend Holly Pickering invited us to chat with her Kindergarten Kids in Florence, here with Sib and Simon, plus Little Billie and Wes the Kestrel. We are still having major problems with Mischa the Peregrine who is not adapting to the new surroundings since we had to buy a new building and move her across the property. Very disturbing, as last year she was the Star of the Kindergarten!
Lots of Ospreys around thankfully. I heard a House Wren over the weekend, just now a Wilson's Snipe "winnowing flight sound" high overhead. These two birds that were mostly absent here last spring, sadly as they are my favorites.
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.)
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