The following is the beginning of a piece by Cat Urbigkit that showed up on Stephen Bodio’s Querencia blog yesterday:
Making headlines across the West of late is a two-page preliminary report issued by a Wyoming Game and Fish Department biologist noting that barbed wire fences pose a collision hazard to Greater Sage Grouse. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is expected to meet its court-ordered February deadline to determine if sage grouse should be granted Endangered Species Act protections, so the report will come into play there. Those who oppose livestock grazing on public lands are also latching onto the report as another reason to rid the western range of its agricultural industry, and its associated fences.
But everyone might be reading more into the report than it merits. WG&F biologist Tom Christiansen noted it all began when two separate falconers provided incidental reports that grouse had been injured or killed on the top wire of certain fences located near important grouse areas. The area is just to the southeast of where we ranch, in the border area of Sublette and Sweetwater counties. This area is believed to have one of the largest concentrations of sage grouse on the planet. It’s falconer Steve Chindgren’s stomping grounds (the falconer who is the subject of Rachel Dickinson’s Falconer on the Edge).
According to Christiansen’s report, “One of these falconers subsequently began marking such fences with aluminum beverage cans in a volunteer effort to reduce these mortalities.” (Click here to read the rest of the post . . .)
If you are not familiar with this blog, I urge you to check it out. Several people post regularly including Cat Urbigkit, Matt Mullenix, and Steve Bodio and the topics range from falconry to coursing dogs to natural history.
In September I took a trip to Gaspe Peninsula in Quebec. And although I was really looking forward to seeing where the St. Lawrence River leaves the confines of its banks and flows into the ocean, one of the biggest draws for me was the night train from Montreal to Gaspe. Trains have always held a fascination for me, drawing on some part deep inside that really wants to live in the 19th century (although I’m not so much of a sentimentalist that I don’t know that 19th century train travel also involved lots of soot and hard seats). (click here to read the rest of the piece . . .)
Paul Nicklen, a National Geographic photographer, tells of his surprising encounters with a female leopard seal in Antarctica over the course of four days.
Here’s what passes for news in Cary, North Carolina:
“CARY — Blanchard, a 22-week-old pet rooster, was killed while strutting in his owners’ yard Saturday morning by a hawk that should have been hunting for rabbits.
Ann Richard and her husband, Dieter Griffis, got the startling news when the hawk’s owner paid a visit to their Green Level Church Road home to apologize. The owner told the couple, who were too distraught to catch his name, that he had been hunting with his hawk on a farm across the street.
The hawk, which was released to hunt rabbits during an extended North Carolina falconry season, flew to the couple’s property and mauled Blanchard, a light Brahma chicken, a breed originally imported from India and named for its white base coloring.”
To continue reading and see how the plot thickens, click here.
I went out flying with Tim yesterday morning but there were no ducks to be found on the little pond. MacDuff flew over the pond, took a quick look, then headed for a flock of pigeons that were coming off a nearby horse farm. He chased the pigeons then took some passes at a ball of starlings that erupted from a clump of trees. Finally he came back over the pond, hoping his fortunes had changed. No such luck.
Last summer, Scott Farrell interviewed me for his website Chivalry Today. Just discovered the podcast the other day. I share the posdast with a Zulu stick fighter and a chess-playing philosopher. Here’s his intro to the podcast:
“In This Episode: Scott interviews author Rachel Dickinson, whose new book, Falconer On The Edge, explores the lifestyle of the men and women who hunt with birds of prey in today’s world, and carry on the traditions of this chivalric sport. Plus: A conversation about the game of chess and the philosophy of chivalry with Prof. Benjamin Hale, senior editor of Philosophy Looks At Chess; and some thoughts on honorable behavior in Zulu stick fighting.
Giant jellyfish sunk a Japanese fishing trawler the other day according to a story in the Telegraph.
Here’s the beginning of the story: “The trawler, the Diasan Shinsho-maru, capsized off Chiba`as its three-man crew was trying to haul in a net containing dozens of huge Nomura’s jellyfish.
Each of the jellyfish can weigh up to 200 kg and waters around Japan have been inundated with the creatures this year. Experts believe weather and water conditions in the breeding grounds, off the coast of China, have been ideal for the jellyfish in recent months. (click here to read more . . .)
This is unbelievable footage. A BBC natural history film crew filmed an attack on a white reindeer calf by a golden eagle. The Sami — reindeer herders in Finland — had told researchers that this could happen but it has never been documented on film before. Although the golden eagle is not the largest eagle in the area — the white-tailed eagle is larger — the golden eagle is more agressive. The Samis say that it is usually immature goldens attacking the calves. And they usually attack the white calves rather than the tan or brown ones.
This is from BBC Earth News:
“One eagle was filmed swooping down and grabbing a calf, while another pulled out of an attack at the last minute.
A BBC natural history film crew gathered the extraordinary footage along a reindeer migration route in northern Finland.
It finally proves this eagle species does occasionally hunt reindeer, something suggested by forensic evidence and the local Sami people.
The crew filmed the behaviour while capturing footage of the reindeer migration for the BBC natural history series Life, though the images were shot at too far a distance to be included in the final cut of the high definition programme. . . (click here to read more and see the video).
As the days get colder in Upstate New York there’s hope that the ducks will begin migrating through with some regularity. Each day, before dawn, Tim gets up, puts his peregrine MacDuff in the back of the truck, and starts driving around the countryside in search of ducks that might have dropped into ponds during the night. So far there’s not been much action.
Tim Gallagher and MacDuff getting ready for the hunt
