Cat Urbigkit has just returned from Mongolia. I hope she will be writing here in detail soon, but meanwhile here are a few teasers. Here is the parade at the Eagle festival: in front, my old friend and drinking companion Aralbai, a major character in Eagle Dreams: His son Armanbek, who was about twelve when …
Tag: Falconry
Rio
Rio was kindly lent me by Brian Millsap after my losing Shunkar aka Birdbrain. He is a three year old passage Harris’s hawk from Texas, and an experienced rabbit hunter. I am still figuring him out. After my many years of emotional falcons and Accipiters he seems a solemn, stolid little owl. Speaking of Birdbrain– …
BirdBrain’s New Hood
Shunkar’s training continues well. He just got fine new hood from Ken Hooke. His is fairly conventional but Ken does an amazing range, including Asian styles.
Beginning Training
Took Shunkar (usually known as simply “Bird ” or “Birdbrain”) out today for his fist lesson on the lure. He spent a lot of time just staring, amazed, but he was hungry and got to the lure eventually.
Bird Update
They grow a lot in four weeks, don’t they?
Sunday Pix
On Sunday this time of the year we do a lot of stuff around the house, garden, with birds etc. Patrick Porter of the Pigeon list (also a bird hunter, botanist, horticulturist, and damned good writer), sent Libby a bunch of huge Dahlia tubers. (Wish I had thought to show scale– some of these are …
Young Hawker
The cover of the Georgia Fish & Game brochure for this year. As Anne Pearse Hocker says, no “Nature Deficit Syndrome” here!
Preview Pix
Baby Gyr- Saker tiercel just in from New York, having his first meal at Casa Querencia. Stephen Grant of London Best quality hammer side- lever 12- bore, circa 1880, virtually new and unrestored. It weighs a bit over 7 lbs and is probably a pigeon gun. To quote expert Robert Braden: “After all, it is …
Hare Hawking
Tom McIntyre (his most recent book is here) sent this You Tube of a Saker falcon attempting to catch a hare in Arabia. It is much like we do, except that WE still use salukis to help (ok, Asian tazis) and we don’t chase the hare with the truck! The hare still gets away though– …
Red Planet
Chas has a pic up he took while visiting what he call our “Operation Ocotillo terraforming demonstration project”. You can see Libby and me in the background. In this spirit, I thought I’d post pics of another Martian locus here, with the caption: “Though we hadn’t yet added water, the dry habitat game was abundant, …