No Respect

These fine photos of a cow giving birth are by John L Moore of (near) Miles City, rancher and novelist. If they were of antelope, they would probably be on the cover of a magazine, but domestic animals get no respect. Johnson and Janiga, the authors of the magisterial Superdove, on feral pigeons, say they …

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William “Gatz” Hjortsberg, 1941- 2017

Chris Waddington, my old editor at the Minneapolis Star Tribune and now a happier man in his belovcd New Orleans (even though Katrina flooded his house) emailed to tell me that our mutual friend Gatz Hjortsberg died at his home in Livingston after a “short illness” i.e. pancreatic cancer (it’s a bad one; it’s the …

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Humor from Annie D

“He was such a good dog, very strange breed, and didn’t train well, but a good boy nonetheless”

Best Dog Photos…

Taken by Dellas Henke of Michigan over a decade  (?) ago, and sent a few days past. The last one of Lashyn especially almost made me cry for her beauty, innocence, and youth…

“Great Moments in Pigeon Keeping”

..as Jack said in a recent email.The Grand Canyon guides knew long before the scientists about the huge stable non- migratory Peregrine population in the Grand Canyon, the Colorado and its tributaries…  Photos by the late great Wesley Smith of the homers he used to take down the River in the days of film cameras, …

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Golden Eagle Migrations

Researchers recently discovered the importance of Montana’s Big Belt Mountains (near Bozeman) as a raptor migration flyway, and their first major monitoring effort for this flyway began in the fall of 2015, and was repeated in fall 2016. This route recorded the greatest number of migrating golden eagles of any site in North America, with …

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Introducing Patricia Cooper

As some of you know, I virtually cannot type anymore. But I have many books to write yet (Yojimbo: “I can’t die yet– I have too many people left to kill!”) and Libby can’t  easily take dictation, partly  because she can’t hear my hoarse Parkinson’s voice, and partially because by evening she is exhausted and …

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Visitor

Lane Kleppen, who grew up on Montana’s bleak and beautiful Hi- line, (his older stay- at- home brother  Trent sends us wonderful photos from there, another friend who was born at Fort Peck has written the definitive book on it, Corb Lund the definitive song (scroll down), and still another friend, John Carlson of Prairie …

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“Great Planet”

 John McLoughlin, the sage and hermit of Talpa and the least known paleoartist who helped discover the birdlike nature of Dinos, sent me the following: “Wild radioactive boars contaminated by the meltdown of the Fukushima nuclear plant six years ago are now roaming northern Japan by the hundreds, rampaging through crops and occasionally attacking humans. …

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