Loon-er Landing

This bird was in our living room yesterday morning, a Common Loon that was found at a neighbor's house the night before. Darla Cotton recovered the stranded loon in a driveway after it probably landed there thinking it was water. This occasionally happens on big parking lots, the asphalt making a sheen like a lake. With their legs situated far back on the body, they require a runway of water to take off and fly, so we just had to get this guy into a waterway. Easier said than done, with the sub-zero weather lately, but we found a nice backwater of the Bitterroot River at Lee Metcalf Nat'l Wildlife Refuge. Darla said that the bird was attacking her kids in defense and the razor sharp bill poked a hole in the cuff of her pants. She had him in a big plastic container with cargo netting over the top, and he got in one quick stab wound to my forehead before swimming away. If he sticks around, it will make a first for the Christmas Bird Count next week!

Raptor Round-Up 33 Is Up!

Raptor Backers, check your mailbox today or tomorrow, as a few hundred of these newsletters are winging across the country right now. AND check it out on our web site in glorious color. Lots of great stories and photos.

http://www.raptorsoftherockies.org/main.asp?id=newsletter

Potomac Program on the Coldest Day of the Year

When we scheduled this assembly months ago, we had no idea the temperatures would be negative 22 degrees in Potomac. One bank sign displayed minus 196 degrees, but I think they misplaced a decimal point. We arrived to find "indoor recess" in the gym, as it had just warmed to ten below. Then we had the automatic bleacher installation = 7th and 8th graders. The youngsters from Bear Creek Day care joined us (bottom right.) Our teaching team birds and students were exemplary, and we love Potomac! Been doing programs there for twenty years.

Hang a Hawk for the Holidays

Sure, that 45 inch high-def plasma TV would look great on the living room wall, but how about a photo of one of our teaching team birds also? Every year at this time, we encourage people to Adopt A Raptor and support the program as a gift to a loved one for the holidays. In return, the lucky soul receives a matted photo portrait of their chosen bird, and you have a nice tax-deduction receipt and thank-you card. The suggested adoption fees range from $50 to $1000, but of course for a million bucks you get the whole crew. Donations like these make up half of our revenue and keep us going!

Ice Capades

This weekend's duck hunting with the falcons was especially challenging, with frigid temps and ice everywhere. In this photo, Sibley knocked a drake to the very edge of the ice in a shallow slough, and tried bringing it to the bank but kept slipping. When she began plucking I had no choice but to retrieve raptor and prey and laid out flat on the ice scooting forward. Right as reached for the duck I plunged through, but had a chance to sling the birds back to the shore. Fortunately the car was a short distance, and I drove home in long underwear and socks and headed for the shower. I'm glad it was relatively mild that day, compared to the 8 below zero right now!

Chesty Is Back At It

Chesty the 20 year old Harris's Hawk is back collecting sticks in the yard, and building a nest (or trying to) over the arbor on the deck. She flies around the property up to a few hours a day, for the last three years, and every now and then she gets the nesting idea. With a red 100 watt bulb in her building for heat all winter, her photoperiod is out of whack. That would tell her the proper season to molt and nest, but now she'll do both at the oddest times. I let her build away now, and she'll let me know when it's time to go back to her building for feeding- she flies circles around he house! In this photo she is trying to pull sticks off an oak tree that my Mom planted when we moved to the Bitterroot, back in 2001.

Shot 'O The Day

Yesterday, Sibley stooped 400 feet right through the woods on some ducks in a slough by the Clark Fork River, all of which escaped in a dash for deep water. Here, she signals that she is ready to go home.

Barred Owl Released

Yesterday the latest rehab Barred Owl took off into the forest, near the spot she was found hanging in the fence two and a half weeks before. She gave us one parting glance and disappeared, to hopefully put this chapter in her life behind her. No more lab mice, Missy!

ps: This looks really nice as a print, matted and framed; a nice gift for the holidays for the bird-lover. Let me know and we can have Custom Digital Imaging "blow one up."

Vital Ground Friends

We are thrilled to be included in a gorgeous two-page spread in the quarterly Vital Ground Newsletter, just out. Their headquarters are here in Missoula, and earlier this year Sib the Peregrine and I paid them a visit. Executive Director Gary Wolfe suggested that we could be featured in their upcoming issue as "Conservation Colleagues." Vital Ground is dedicated to protecting and restoring North American grizzly bear populations for future generations through habitat conservation. "Where the grizzly can walk, the earth is healthy and whole." Christine Paige wrote the story, with Randy Stekly's clever layout, and 6000 copies are printed. I especially like the inclusion of the photo of Jay Sumner and I with our falcons along side John Craighead, the pioneer of grizzly research, and wife Margaret. John is an honorary board member of Vital Ground, as is Jennifer Aniston, Jeff Bridges, Sir Anthony Hopkins, Jack Horner, and Brad Pitt. Hey, you folks are invited over any time, and let's have a board meeting at my house!

Check out Vital Ground at http://www.vitalground.org/

Battle of the Penguins

We delivered my penguin sculpture to mentor, Bill Ohrmann's on Friday, and now our birds are standing side by side. When I showed him the sculpture of the Great Horned Owl in June, the eternal question came up, “Whatcha gonna make next?” I whipped out a photo of some penguins with a laugh. Bill studied the birds on the card for a long minute, then told us, “Well, we could use stainless steel for the front...” What started as joke became a friendly competition, five feet tall, metals of your choice, on your mark, get set, GO! We conferred a few times on the phone and he wrote me a letter when were were welding away:

“I made mine leaning forward as if about to dive into leopard seal infested water and so have a fatalistic look on its face.”

“Say, I think we should now make a leopard seal- can’t you see it- made of stainless with brass spots and green marble eyes-?"

Now here they are displayed with a myriad of other majestic animal sculptures and paintings. And how cute. The Ohrmann Museum and Gallery is 2 miles south of Drummond on Scenic Highway 1, and they will have their annual Open House on December 12 and 13th, always a highlight for the holidays

Collaborative Effort Owl

This adult female Barred Owl was found hanging in a barb wire fence last Saturday in the Blackfoot Valley, wings splayed but head held high. Keith Koch recovered the bird and had her in his hunting camp, saving her life and feeding her until the transfer on Monday. Then, Dr. Sandy Moore at Ancare Veterinary did a quick x-ray to find no wing breaks. And on the way home, Kelly at the University Labs gave us some much-needed mice. So we'll watch this bird with hopes she will fully recover for release to her old haunts. This bird is the bitey-est animal to ever come into our care, so what a great attitude for survival!

"Our" Rob Wins Big

Rob Palmer, our Falcons of North America book photographer just won big worldwide, with two gigantic awards and one pending. Check out the next National Wildlife Magazine issue, as he has three images included, especially this one of a Bald Eagle catching a Red-winged Blackbird - Best Image of the Year for NWF 2009! The second huge honor is the BBC Best Bird Photographer in the World, for which he was wined and dined in London and around the UK. While there, he of course spent many days in the field with his camera and falconers. He is in the running for Best Photographer, National Audubon, and we'll keep you posted. Along with Nick Dunlop, we are working on our next book with Mountain Press Publishing and these images will be included, for sure. Way to go, Rob.

Montana Wildlife with JB

We just spent two hours with the University's Montana Wildlife Class, our first program for them in many years. Joel Berger is the instructor and we had him out on a falconry trip up the Blackfoot the week before. JB (as the students call him) is the John J. Craighead Chair of Wildlife Conservation, so he and Jay had a lot to talk about as he worked for the Craigheads for 25 years in grizzly research. My goal in the class was to get someone, anyone to laugh and a long first 15 minutes of trying my darned-est. They finally came around though, and a tough crowd. I told them that when I was a zoology student at U of M, we had to write papers rather than buy them on the internet, an observation that was lost on the class. Thanks JB and good luck in Tibet!

Road Trip to the Matador Ranch

Jay and I just returned from three days of flying and fun near Zortman on the Nature Conservancy's Matador Ranch. Guests of Montana TNC Director Kat Imhoff and her husband Jeep, we were in heaven on the Highline on northern mixed-grass prairie. The Matador is a 60,000 acre "grass bank" where 13 families graze their cattle in exchange for practicing conservation management on their own ranches. We found our favorite spot right away, a Sharp-tailed Grouse and pheasant paradise, with ducks in ponds nearby. Pictured here is Jay's 1 1/2 year old Peregrine Marlis in a close fly-by ( I meant to cut that wing off, yea, that's it.) The grouse proved hard to keep a foot on, and we have great respect for this new and slippery quarry. Special thanks to Barbara Cozzens, TNC Director of Northern Montana Prairies for her amazing hospitality and cooking, and especially stories that kept us all spellbound. We'll be back, as the area is surrounded by cliffs that surely hold some Peregrine eyries!