With thanks to Steve for posting some pictures of our season opener on rails, here are a few more shots from today’s closing day of the early season in Louisiana. To celebrate the “end of a great beginning” to the 2015-2016 hawking season, I Googled a recipe and found our friends Hank Shaw and Holly …
Author: Matt Mullenix
UPDATE: Cooper’s release
Steve and Libby releasing the haggard Cooper’s hawk that visited their pigeon loft recently.
Eagle Snatches Child in the Park: Thoughts?
UPDATE: Huffington post reveals evidence of faked footage. For those keeping score at home, I’m now two for two at perpetuating bogus memes on this blog. My next post, should there be one, will contain only factual content (Boring, yes, but safer.) –Matt Mullenix A Facebook friend forwarded the above video footage. Perhaps you’ve see it, …
Wrong, Dead Wrong
Steve and Friends, SECOND UPDATE: Alternative gripes substituted UPDATE: MATT ERRS IN FIREARM ID. Lawd. How funny is that title now? The following gripe is totally without basis (see gun link). But I leave it intact, like a coyote pelt on a fence, as a warning to others who dare to tread where they have …
Pilgrimage
I’ll be travelling next week and part of the following one to Kingman, Arizona, to meet this guy, Harry McElroy, who has been a hero of mine for almost 30 years. Harry has taught and inspired at least two generations of falconers through his articles and books (4 titles and counting) and his willingness to …
Enjoying a Fine Recession
As Election Day approaches, one could be forgiven for thinking our country has never seen a harder time than now, nor faced a bigger threat than the wrong man being elected on Tuesday. This is a triumph of salesmanship. It is the power of vast stacks of cash that political speech can build a different world on top of the one we …
Rail Season
The orbit of my falconry is a long ellipse, mostly hidden from sight or thought from March to August, except for the minor husbandry of a molting hawk. I feed Ernie in the afternoon and bring him inside at night to escape the mosquitoes and the raccoons. He bathes and preens and naps all day, unhurried and apparently as unconcerned about the approach of hunting season …
Last Child in the Woods?
There are advantages to life in the suburbs, at least in a state known as the Sportsman’s Paradise. I gather most suburban kids have more in common with urban kids than rural ones when it comes to hands-on wildlife experience. Luckily for our children, the wildlife is close at hand and the neighbors are …
All Hallows Eve
The layout of our little community of Riverbend lends itself to an occasional block party. The streets and single-family homes are aligned in two lobes, like lungs to the left and right of a main bronchial boulevard that runs north and south along the spine of the subdivision. This arrangement limits traffic to a shallow, …
More Local Hawking
A few photos from a recent visit by my friend Chuck from Houston. Chuck has hosted me in the past and shared his fields, and I was glad to be able to return the favor last weekend. Chuck flies a very good Red-tailed hawk that is just starting its seventh season, and a Red-shouldered hawk also, …