At almost 64, in difficult health, one takes decisions about acquiring animals ever more seriously (obviously I hope, I mean animals you work and play with– hounds, horses, hawks)… We are going through much soul- searching over our “last” dog; not morbidly; actually one reason we must choose carefully is that we want an Ataika …
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Hereditary cool?
My late friend Aralbai of Bayan Olgii was sometimes known as “The Coolest Man in the World”, on the strength of this sort of… call it an Internet poster made (not by us) of him: Here he is in younger days, with his son in 1997 on our first expedition. He was a dedicated hunter, …
Panhandle Eagle
The week before Christmas, I was driving home from Arkansas when I was surprised to see this Bald Eagle about 10 miles north of Dalhart, Texas. He was sitting in a cottonwood about 40 yards off of US 87 watching the traffic roll by. I assumed this was a “he” as he seemed sort …
Bobcat
Bobcats are relatively common here; seeing one without hunting it, much less so. So when John Wilson caught this image on his new camera trap, I was excited (he lives about ten miles out of town in the foothills). I think I am going to get one. I am inclined to set in in the …
“First the Hawk…”
Matt Mullenix is still part of the team here at Q, but has temporarily misplaced his access, so has asked me to post these reflections on perfectionism he wrote down after yesterday’s hawking, and my response. The phrase comes from the useful maxim, one of the first any aspiring falconer should memorize and carve on …
What wine goes with..?
A reliable guide:
RIP: Patricia Ryan; 1938- 2014
Nobody I knew ever called her “Patricia”; it was as PAT Ryan that she became famous… Oh, wait a minute. Unless you made a living in the writing trades in the sixties through the eighties, you probably never heard of her. She was the least visible great editor during those years, when you could make …
Fishes, wishes… and a caption, please
Guy Boyd, gyr tiercel “Darwin”, huge rainbow. Story? Take it away! Guy’s was “Game is getting thin on the ground around here, so…” At least one person who saw this image “believed ” it– people are distressingly uncertain about raptors and their habits. Of course they also think raptor means Deinonychus… More fish. Sometimes, …
Still more gratuitous dog images
For the end of the year. Jutta’s girls in Germany once again, on a bright windy day… An end- of- the- day game painting Jonathan found in a museum in Brussels, with greyhounds. And Princess Ataika, who can find a throne anywhere… at home or on the road, in this case Jim and Penelope Caldwell’s …
Rigby Returns
The real thing, made in London on the old patents, the old ways. I have owned one once, a “.275”. So did Walter Dalrymple Maitland Bell, who shot many elephants with that “tiny”, actually moderate, caliber. And Jim Corbett (man -eating tigers), and Eleanor O’Connor (mostly edible horned things). They have a stock of older …