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 …
Tag: Raptors
Links: Good and Bad News for Falcons
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 …
Scupture- in- progress
What my friend, Albuquerque sculptor and naturalist Sarah Madigan Keenan is making of a Barbary falcon killed many years ago… And another example:
Mabel
Helen’s Gos.
Apologies and some light blogging: Prairie 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 …
Strange Tri- Hybrids
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 …
Avian Drama, Home Version
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 …
Baby
If all works out, my next hawk and first Harris at Matt Mitchell’s last week…
Three Small Falcons, and Thoughts on Speciation…
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. …
ID Query
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?