She is not getting aerial as fast as I’d like but she is working perfectly with the dogs.
Irbis,as befits his youth, stays a respectable distance away. Ataika would rebuke him if he didn’t.
Ataika, who knows how to inspire confidence in a bird, gets a lot closer in hope of a tidbit.
Despite some recent data from Africa, it seems that southeast China still looks to be the most likely point of dog origin. But they might have eaten them at first, as some people there do today. HT Reid.
They are looking for the Mongolian Death Worm again. I must say more people THERE believe in it than, say, British Columbians believe in Bigfoot.
Coursing with cheetahs is (accidentally) legal in England! And here is a very elegant steampunk cheetah for a rainy day. Check out his other creations too, especially the elephant. HT Sari Mantila.
A pitcher plant that eats rats!
The first traces of color have been found in Dinosaur- aged bird feathers— dark and irridescent like a grackle’s. HT Annie Hocker.
The daughter of Prince Kropotkin, the gentle Russian anarchist and amateur animal behaviorist, became a Goldwater Republican.
A GREAT blog I don’t mention enough: Smartdogs.
And a promising new one, by “Nagrom” of Rum and Donuts: Armed Bohemian.
And finally a video link to what one might call the sublimity of predation: Sardine Run.
Perhaps the ridiculous, the risible, and the maddening first?
Che’s daughter poses nude (but armed) for PETA.
Copenhagen decides that walking helmets for pedestrians are a good idea.
Chas knows who the dope growers despoiling National forests are: it’s those pesky Finns!
Scroll down to the second photo.
I should probably take this one more seriously: do novelists write better when they don’t drink?
But not this one: the government has banned the sale of old children’s books because they contain a miniscule amount of lead. Zero tolerance, no exceptions.
HUndreds of priceless bird skins, including ones collected by Darwin, have been stolen form the British Natural History Museum at Tring, where Lord Rothschild started the collection. Rogue taxonomists?
Many people– Chas, Annie D, and others, sent me links to a CANARY FIGHTING ring– see here, here, and here. I have never heard of such a thing, and would strongly suspect a hoax, except the names of the participants all seem Portuguese, even Cape Verdean, if names I know from my youth are typical. Could this be some weird ethnic thing?
Next post, more…edifying links.
From a few overwhelming weeks– broken ribs (now tolerable, but not conducive to much but insomnia) a sick dog (Coronavirus, now totally recovered but scary enough for a midnight emergency run) a sick pigeon, a recalcitrant if friendly hawk (maybe the warm weather is keeping her weight up but I am beginning to think she is a “Breathairian”). Add Many guests, a new writing project or perhaps two, some other projects (butchered a sheep) and you get enough distraction that I didn’t know whether I was coming or going. I haven’t even gotten my license or opened dove season yet!
BUT:
I have lots of links to the sublime, the ridiculous, and the infuriating, as well as two whole posts that probably fall under the ridiculous heading.
I have , of course, update photos for dog & bird.
I have three virtual “photoessays”: the sheep butchering (courtesy of Peculiar, who has found he wields a mean Saws- All as well as a camera); a trip by Vadim Gorbatov and his son Andrei in southern Kazakhstan; and some of John Burchard’s photos of historical falconry in Arabia, if he permits.
I would also like to congratulate MDMNM and his bride, the lovely Amelia, whose wedding I missed due to those ribs, and Lauren McGough of Aquiling, who is off this weekend to spend ten months in Bayaan Olgii, Mongolia, on a Fulbright, to become an eagler’s apprentice and the first female Berkutchi.
Finally, I hope to review some long- overdue books– I’ll list and recommend them in another post, then see if I can write more.
Expect some of this this afternoon but not all– it is still uncomfortable to type for long stretches.
Oh and: Lib reminds me that courtesy of Tim Gallagher I am now on the masthead of Living Bird magazine, as a contributing editor. It is an honor.
Once I had decided to keep Notches, the little Black-And-Tan hound, I naturally sought to fulfill my old desire of training a trailhound to pursue a variety of game, as the old time pioneers had done. I knew that with this previously traumatized dog, I would have to proceed slowly and patiently. At first she would not leave my side, even when out for a run with my other dogs, when they jumped and pursued various critters. When she cringed in fear at the first raccoon we encountered, her behaviour reminded me of other hunting dogs I had seen who had been “trained” with shock collars. My guess was that she was someone’s effort to make a bear hound–common in that area–so raccoons had been taboo for her. Or, she may have been one of those unfortunate pups thrown into a barrel with a grown raccoon, and expected to fight it out. This barbaric method will certainly show you which pups have the most grit(at that time), but it also ruins more good coonhounds than it makes.
Notches at last began to run with my other dogs, baying with excitement when she did so. For such a small hound, she had a deep, rolling bawl that carried far, and I was pleasantly anticipating many future concerts of “hound music”. After a time, having learned the territory well on our daily ramblings, and in no danger of being lost, and having gotten no adverse reactions from me when she ran with the other dogs, she began to do what all trailhounds were born to do–trail game! At first, she would just jump and trail rabbits. She would come back after a good run, cringing and peeing in fear at my possible reactions. Imagine her relief when, instead of punishment, I praised her lavishly! Once she realized this activity was not taboo, she became an extremely enthusiastic rabbit hunter, and I watched and listened to many a spirited rabbit chase. The clever cottontails never took her far, and Notches was often in sight as the rabbits circled back and forth in their brushy home. This suited her perfectly early on, as she was reluctant to range out very far from me.
As her confidence grew, she began to experiment a bit more, and go after other game along with my other dogs. For each and every effort, she received only praise and admiration from me. Very quickly, she added deer, fox(both red and grey), squirrel, ‘possum, and even ruffed grouse and wild turkey to her repetoire–a real “trash hound”! Watching her trail turkeys and grouse was especially intriguing to me, as I had not realized before that trailhounds would show interest in gamebirds. Whenever she hit their scent, she would bay as enthusiastically as when on furred game, and often trailed them until they flushed. The birds usually sailed across a hollow or two, and then settled back to the ground. Notches would stop baying where the birds had left the ground, and then air scent them silently until she picked up where they had landed, and continue baying at that point.
True to the old stories, I was able, most times, to decipher exactly what she was trailing by the tone of her voice, and/or the patterns she was running. Whenever it snowed, I was sure to be out with my hound, so that I could verify by tracks exactly what she was trailing, and so honed my own “hound ear”. In time, her favorite game to trail became fox, both red or grey. The greys were more common in the thick mountain forest where we lived, and I especially liked these hunts, too, as the greys ran a tight, circular pattern that kept my hound close, and I often got to see the nimble foxes as they weaved through the brush. I never killed anything, so all the critters became quite experienced at eluding my hound, and my hound became increasingly skilled at deciphering their trails.
A few times Notches picked up and followed black bear trails. Her voice had a questioning quality about it when she did so. I never encouraged this, not because I was not interested in bears(which I certainly am), but mainly because where I lived, the local black bear population was heavily persecuted, and I did not want to add to the hunting pressure they already had to deal with. Because I showed no interest in the bears, Notches soon began to ignore them, too. One creature which she never showed any desire to trail was, of course, raccoons! I jokingly began to call her my “Black-And-Tan-Everything-But-Coonhound”!
My “training”, therefore, was simply to take my hound out, let her do whatever she wanted, and praise her for whatever I wanted her to keep doing, and ignore her when she was doing something I’d rather she not. No beating, no yelling, no shocking, and Notches molded her performance to suit my desires, while fulfilling her own drives as an energetic scent hound. But then, of course, I was not so particular as most houndmen are these days. Next–the inevitable encounter with the dreaded raccoon….to be continued……
It’s always a pleasure to watch the cowbirds as they pick for bugs and seed heads in wool, even as the wool remains on the sheep. Most of the sheep don’t mind their presence at all, and the birds fly/hop from the back of one sheep to another. The fattest brown-headed cowbirds I’ve ever seen stayed in our corral one winter as we grain-fed some calves.
Cowbirds are parasitic birds, laying their eggs in the nests of a wide range of other species. They apparently never raise their own young. A female may lay up to about 40 eggs per year, but only three percent end up as adults. The female monitors the nests she parasitizes, and may destroy the nests of host birds that won’t care for her young.
Cowbirds were originally a bison-following bird of the Great Plains, but are now often seen foraging on the ground in agricultural areas for seed, most often in association with grazing animals.
We were totally surprised this morning to see these two bull elk as we were driving into work.
This was quite near our office, which is in west suburban Denver (Lakewood, for those who know) on the edge of the Front Range foothills. There are countless mule deer around here, but elk rarely come this low, especially this time of year.
They had somehow made their way across a four-lane highway (C-470) and up West Alameda Parkway. The sign on the fence post shows it’s the boundary for a large city park/open space area, the best place for these guys to head for the day.
Now that I’ve done a depressing post with nothing good, here’s one with something good. I’ve spent lots of time in the sheep pasture lately, and have been toting my camera around to document everything that is occurring. Have I mentioned that burros are very nosy creatures? I have pictures that prove it!
Rena the Akbash (all white dog) and Rant the Central Asian Ovcharka let off a little steam this morning. Here is Rant standing on Rena, looking like some bad ass. He’s younger than Rena by a year, and isn’t near as tall, weighs a lot less. But it’s only a matter of time before he’s bigger.
I don’t believe there were any feet touching the ground in this shot. We moved the camper close to the night pen, and the dogs played tag around it this morning.
Demonstrating the benefits of cropped ears on a guard dog:
There is nothing that makes Rant madder than anyone or anything grabbing his front legs. Rena knows just what buttons to push.
Rant has very big feet, and uses those front legs to slap and grab with. Very cool when he stands up on his hind legs to wrestle – the Ovcharkas do that a lot.
Our predation issues are still not resolved. First we had two big lambs killed and entirely consumed, in one event. Then things were quiet for a full week.
Last Friday morning’s early sheep check led me to a just-killed 90-pound lamb – nothing much eaten but the liver. Once again the scene was so fresh it must have just occurred – blood everywhere, upset dogs. Rant took Luv’s Girl to the ground for coming near the kill, which he was guarding but wouldn’t touch. Things were very tense.
On Saturday, I found another completely consumed lamb along the river – just blood and the pealed-back pelt. I called in all the kills to our Wildlife Services guys, who were responding to major wolf problems at the time. One outfit had 37 sheep and one yearling steer killed and one injured guard dog. A pack of six wolves were killed in order to stop the depredations. The next day, a pack of five wolves were killed after killing three guard dogs and 45 sheep. Our problems were much smaller in comparison, but we were also working really hard to try to minimize losses as well. The sheep were spooky and things were in a general state of unrest.
Sunday morning, an adult ewe – a big, beautiful Rambouillet – was killed. Only her udder was eaten. We could see where the ewe had been attacked, tried to flee, and was eventually taken down. A single bite to her throat was her blessed ending.
The last two nights, federal trappers have set wolf traps in attempt to catch the guilty predator. They have been unable to determine whether it’s a bear or a wolf – it’s one or the other.
I hate traps, but because this predator issue has continued to drag on without resolution, agreed to the trapping effort. In order to do that, the dogs had to be contained so they didn’t get hurt. We have a hay stack pen located right next to the highway in that pasture, so we started locking the sheep herd in the pen at night, with the dogs inside with them. It’s a scary situation, because if a predator gets in the pen, the sheep can’t escape. None of these decisions are easy, and they all have pitfalls.
This is me sitting in the pen, giving everyone good night kisses. Yes, I’m a sheephugger too.
With two nights of trapping, nothing has been caught. This predator is either not appearing for some reason, or won’t come to a bait. Nothing has been killed for a few days, but we’re nervous about the days ahead. Two guard dogs, three guard burros, and a pasture of horned cattle that don’t like canids hasn’t been enough to protect our herd out here in the sagebrush, hundreds of miles from Yellowstone, even when our presence is added to the mix.
This is one of the coolest things I’ve seen in a while. NY Times tells of a recent paper describing how paleontologists have examined bird fossils with an electron microscope and discovered traces of melanosomes. These are pigment structures that give feathers their colors. One 47 million year old sample proved to have dark glossy feathers with a metallic sheen, much like you’d see on a grackle or starling.
It should be interesting to see more results as this technique spreads.