I want a Cooper’s hawk but this one is a breeding adult, too old and too valuable to the population to keep, not to mention illegal. She trapped into my flight loft today and I will release her to make more tomorrow. She weighs nearly a pound, huge for a western Coop, and is a pure Velociraptor. Wonderful word, “haggard”…
She was not pleased
The tundra subspecies and other high- latitude migrating Peregrines are in very good shape.
Peregrines are one of those capital- C “Charismatic” species who always get press (whether the label “endangered”, once attached in the popular collective mind, will ever be removed is matter for a long essay). Meanwhile, the obscure and beautiful little Amur falcon, like its sister species the Sooty, may be genuinely endangered because (A) it has a very long strange migration route, and B) therefore, one of the migration’s concentration points supports an unsustainable and grotesque slaughter for no real reason at all (I am a supporter of sustainable traditional use, but this massacre sounds more like the unconscionable “tradition” of shooting everything that moves in Malta than any kind of aboriginal custom). The video is not for the faint of heart…
What my friend, Albuquerque sculptor and naturalist Sarah Madigan Keenan is making of a Barbary falcon killed many years ago…
And another example:
Helen’s Gos.
Have been ruining my health and especially my right, mouse- running hand (Parkinson’s overlaid with arthritis exacerbated by gout and maybe carpal tunnel syndrome- AAARGH!) working overtime on the last details for the eagle book- I promise a real cover soon. I need a few days away from this keyboard, working at the town library.To tide anyone who misses me over I’ll put in a few photo posts, links, and quotes today– SLOWLY.
Here is a wonderful shot of a Goshawk on the prairie by Tom Donald of Saskatchewan, falconer, pigeon man, pouter breeder, and pioneer (70’s!) in the falcon- saluki chase on hares.
This a wild bird– Gosses seem far less tree- bound than other Accipiters. I have had them shadow me while hunting birds in the prairies near Lewistown Montana, and they nest way out into the tundra in Siberia, in the low willows along streams. Migrants sometimes cross the Bering Straits and end up in such places as Wyoming; I always wonder about Siberian genes when I see one with color this light.
From reader Roberto Buonfante comes this “natural” domestic pair and their young, in Italy: a Buteo X Buteo (Redtail jamaicensis x Ferruginous regalis) mated to a Harris (Parabuteo–!– unicinctus) and their first of several successful clutches.
Seems they might make great hare hawks! Roberto writes:
“… the Harris [and] the red/ ferr. were placed in the same aviary to moult because they were tolerant of each other. When the female started to carry material he obviously understood and gave them the chance. The day he candled the eggs he was in shock. We are talking about natural captive breeding of Buteo mix crossed with Parabuteo. I know the breeding was repeated 2 times in the same season, another oddity considering they were raising their young.
“He had a hard time to sell them and like always once gone everybody wanted them.
.. Do not remember if he had both sexes, I would assume yes considering there were several chicks.
“It seems that this specimens have taken all the best features from their relatives, tame as harris, aggressive and big footed like red tail, large size from ferruginous.”
In remote, dirt- road Magdalena, wildlife comes into town. Deer track through the central arroyo, followed by mountain lions. An adolescent lion got himself cornered and darted in the High school yard a couple of years ago; a bear went up an electric pole and was electrocuted the same year. Coyotes challenge the hounds from inside town limits before dawn and reduce them to a fury of howling.
But birds, even ones you don’t think of as human commensals, can be even bolder, going about their lives in the artificial canyons and woodlands with little attention to humans. The following sequence yesterday begins with my shooting from my own front porch facing south and pointing just slightly west and to the right. Apologies for quality– I was using a point- and- shoot that lags when you push the button, while trying to time myself to catch the falcon’s rushes. All but the last will enlarge twice if clicked on– it will go only once.
I was dozing over my book about 4 PM when I was roused by a mad chorus of raven croaks and kestrel “kleekleeklee!” alarm notes. I went out to see a raven standing in the street 100 feet away. Ravens don’t do that.
He had evidently been poking his sinister beak into that little hole in the upper right corner of the storage shed across the street, where the falcon’s eggs had hatched, and the female had caught him. She stooped at him again and again until she drove him to the ground, though he must easily have weighed three times as much, until he was squawking and ducking and trying to get under the hedge.
She hit him again and again, turning over at the end of each swing or hanging in the wind between strikes (click to enlarge– she is at upper right).
Only my coming forward to try to take a closer photo finally gave the raven an opportunity to break away, while mother kestrel cursed impartially at me. The raven was not visiting today…
If all works out, my next hawk and first Harris at Matt Mitchell’s last week…
Anne Price of the Raptor Education Foundation flies the excellent taiga merlin Tish, who has been drawn by Vadim Gorbatov “bulldogging” a starling (Cowgirl Tish).
We were discussing Cheetah who is half taita (or teita) falcon. The species lives in the river gorges of eastern and southern Africa– I have seen nests near Victoria Falls. Though small it is very stout, broad- shouldered, short- tailed, large- beaked, long- toed, and heavily wing- loaded. It has rusty marks on its head. In fact but for that it is somewhat isolated, and lives near dry forest rather than desert, it could be considered the smallest member of the Barbary falcon (Falco babylonicus) group, the desert “peregrine”– the two subspecies, eastern and western, were once considered races of the peregrine until they were found breeding sympatricly with other races. This species is found from Morocco to western Mongolia, where I have seen THEIR nest sites, the western birds known as Barbary falcons and the eastern as red- naped shahins. The Barbs are little; some rn’s are bigger than peregrines.
Look at the directions evolution has taken small falcons. The teita (a male, very small, about which more in a minute) is a tiny peregrine but stouter; the American aplomado has gone in a direction resembling an Accipiter with a falcon head, long, lanky, long tailed; the merlin is a mini- desert falcon built for swift pursuit.
Second pic: teita, unhappy Tish. Both weigh plus or minus 180 g; “little” Cheetah over 500.
Third: Anne with same. LOOK at proportions!
Fourth, fifth: Red Nape in Almaty Kz breeding project where she dwarfs a male Siberian peregrine– yes, females are bigger but she was huge, though still with those broad shahin shoulders like a teita or Barb. Incidentally they are called Lashyn– my dog’s name– there.
Last, male (I think) rn in Kyrgizstan.
Are the peregrine relatives, probably separated only 12,000 years or so, species or not? Check this scholarly pdf and get back to me…
Tom McIntyre sent this photo his friend Keith Benoist snapped in Mississippi last weekend. Suggestions include Swainson’s and broadwing which I doubt– slighter and migratory– and Harlan’s which is possible though ours tend to be more “speckly”. I call darkish (for the east) redtail. What say you?