Life beyond falconry? - no myth

testing the donation site

2011-02-02T06:38:00.000-08:00

Laura is strapped for cash... this happens when you're a freelance journalist.

Happy New Year

2010-12-31T20:11:00.000-08:00

It hasn't been the best year, but we count our blessings: a good hawk (62 bunnies and a few other items), a good dog, friends, family. I still have a job, a solid house, and a reliable car. I miss a friend who committed suicide a few weeks ago, even though I didn't know him all that well. Of happinesses, I've met someone new, not Ms Right, not Ms Right Now either (I avoid that these days), out of my league, but she's interesting to talk with.

I wish all my friends and family to have a prosperous, happy, and healthy 2011.

still somewhat here

2010-10-25T21:50:00.000-07:00

Mr Goshawk, after much nail biting and cautiousness, is turning out great. Nine weeks since his first bunny and now he's at 26. Flying weight is currently 615 and it could be brought a little lower to push him into boldness. Manners are still decent; screaming is still a problem but is a lot less than it was 4 weeks ago. I haven't hooded him, and keep talking about OCing him to take it, but he rides in the box fine.

goshawk time

2010-06-06T21:50:00.001-07:00

I've finally committed (heh) to buying a NA gos from the Brunotte project. She'll be shipping a 14 day old tiercel as soon as she gets my cheque. I'm a little worried (as I always am with a baby bird). My chickens will probably be getting a bunch of quail as bedfellows since the few bags of English sparrows I've collected will certainly not last long. (The freezerful of crows I'd stocked up with Mr P were lost when I left the freezer unplugged.) I'll eventually need a remote launcher, too. Excitement and dread...

gone over to the dark side

2010-04-24T23:01:00.001-07:00

Yep, I've done it... gotten a facebook account. I'm posting there and not here. For the miniscule number of people who actually read this blog, I'll update.

In February, I put Mr P in a breeding project, only to learn he's somewhere between an imprint and a misprint. I've emailed a breeder friend for advice. If he won't breed naturally with a female Harris, he might become a semen donor... we'll see.

It was something of a surprise to realize how much excitement hawking brings, and how one gets used to having it. I had never thought of myself as adrenalin-addicted, but apparently I had withdrawal. I haven't been without a hawk in about 8 years, and found myself itching to get out and hunt something. The pellet rifle gave me some replacement satisfaction, though it's not quite the same.

Recently I bought a nice shotgun from Steve Bodio and am trying to re-learn how to shoot one of those.

I took a class in TIG welding and built a couple of stainless steel perches. Fourteen words isn't enough to describe an entire month of effort, frustration, and deep satisfaction. I'm learning, I'll still be learning, and it's great.

Happy Twenty-Ten

2010-01-01T21:51:00.000-08:00

I can't boot 2009 out the door fast enough. It's been a crappy year, personally speaking. Here's hoping for 10.

Socio/politically I'm pretty content. The shine has come off Obama but I still feel he's an overwhelmingly positive force for the US, which is far more than I could say for the previous administration and something I wouldn't have expected from McCain/Palin. In this first year he's tackled so many things, wrestled this ship of state from its disastrous heading into safer waters. If he can keep the pace for the next three it will be a wonder. And even if he can't, he will still do a lot for us.

I wish for my friends and loved ones good health and success in the year ahead. I wish for the world peace, tolerance, and cooperation. There are two ways to deal with clashing views: one is to deem the opposition evil, to be hated and destroyed; the other way is to acknowledge that other opinions have the right to exist, and differing opinions sparks human creativity. We would be a damn boring world if everyone thought the same thing and all believed in the same right and wrong.

[I was listening to NPR the other day and during an interview, a rather ridiculous idea came across: that people with differing opinions must at some point come to agreement based on the conviction of one party or the other. In short, if I believe something strongly enough, your opposing opinion will be swayed by the strength of my conviction, and we should eventually agree. IMO, this cannot possibly work or even be desirable.]

I wish for our future people who will be motivated to making the world better. We have a great example in our president... let's keep it going in our own smaller spheres of influence.

"independent reviews" -- ha!

2009-12-03T19:45:00.000-08:00

Is there even one website out there that reviews international phone cards and is NOT a shill for a specific card? The claims that the reviews are independent and unbiased are such blatant lies it's laughable.

sense always takes over, doesn't it

2009-11-29T18:04:00.000-08:00

A friend had gotten a new tiercel HH, but due to a knee injury was no longer able to train him. I asked around and found someone. Since I was seeing my mom for the Thanksgiving holiday and my friend lived in the area, I figured I'd make it convenient for everyone and pick up the bird.

He's the progeny of my sponsor's HH, a nice gamey bird. In this eyas I could see a bit of her, too. He was a bit feisty and very quick. I haven't had a young HH in at least 10 years, so it was a pleasure to see his curiosity and focus. His siblings, I was told, are catching bunnies already. You could tell was so ready to go out and fly and catch something!A little sentimentality and a fat dose of sensed potential got me on the phone to the recipient. I told him I was interested in the bird and I wanted to hang onto it, at least for a little while. He seemed okay with that.

Sense reminded me I had only one bunny field within an hour's drive of me -- and that was on private property, escort required. Even jackrabbits are harder to find. There's so few wild, unfenced places left here. Sense told me although crow is certainly a good skill for a young hawk to have, I did not want to create another crow hawk. A crow hawking cast sounds cool but I don't think it's do-able, especially with a partner like Mr P.

I phoned the recipient the next day and said I'd changed my mind. He came by and picked up the tiercel that evening. I wish them both well...

horror on Midway Atoll

2009-10-19T17:23:00.000-07:00

This is simply awful. Albatross parents mistake brightly colored bottle caps and bits of plastic for food, and feed it to their chicks... who die...

overboard

2009-10-09T18:48:00.000-07:00

I like Obama, and wanted him for president since the idea started being suggested. I think he's done more for this country in 6 months than the previous administration did in 8 years.

But the Nobel Peace Prize? Come ON folks.

Having a far more approachable global attitude is great. Stating a commitment to reducing nuclear weaponry is wonderful. Guiding my country through avoiding depression, and to the beginnings of economic recovery, is a relief.

But none of it is really Prize-worthy. The Nobel Institute says it is for "his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples." Obama has done some, but not a LOT, not on the scale of Carter, let's say. He has been primarily a speaker, an inspirer, a motivator -- and there's a lot of value in that. But results are a different matter and remain to be seen.

I'm skeptical of the Institute's motivations. It only creates more pressure on the man with the biggest plateful of pressures since Roosevelt.

speak of the devil..

2009-09-15T21:30:00.001-07:00

And my falconry license has arrived today.

where o where?

2009-09-13T18:36:00.000-07:00

Earlier I had wondered when I was going to get my falconry license. I phoned Portland and it turns out the fed has set up Region 8, a new office in Sacramento. We used to send everything to Portland, now Portland's sent everything back down to Sac. They gave me a number to call, and I left a message there.

Falconers generally don't consider phone calls from USFWS to be delightful, but a very nice young lady called me at 7pm on a Friday evening to tell me that she had my check and my paperwork. Region 8 had been open just over a month, so undoubtedly there will be a long delay in actually getting the license. But at least I know they have it.

so far so good

2009-09-13T02:26:00.000-07:00

In two days, I will have not smoked for four weeks. There's been maybe 3 slips where I smoked a quarter of a cigarette, but overall it's good and I am pretty determined to stay quit.

smoke emotions

2009-09-01T20:24:00.000-07:00

Something I've often said is that cigarettes are the wonder drug. You're tired, you smoke and perk up. You're tense, you smoke and relax. Cigarettes are whatever you want them to be and that's a huge part of why they're so addictive.

Recently, I talked with someone who had quit 14 years ago, and he said "cigarettes are entirely emotional." Being a bit Spockish it took me 2 weeks to figure out what he was saying and apply it to quitting.

It's all about association. Cigarettes are whatever you want them to be. They're all about affecting how you're feeling. But the thing to understand is the emotions you had were there to begin with, and the emotions you have after the cigarette are YOUR emotions.

The cigarette does nothing.

Example: You're tense, and you step outside and light up. What you're doing walking away physically, mentally, or both. You take a break -- you get away from the problem -- you pause for reflection. That's what relaxes you, NOT THE CIGARETTE. Associating the relaxation with the cig is the error.

If you're happy, the cigarette does not make you happier. If you're hungry, the cigarette may put a flavor on your tongue but you can do the same thing with anything else. Tense, bored, needing relaxation or a break -- you can do it just as well without.

Disassociate the emotion from the cigarette and you will lose another (possibly large) reason to smoke.

the chantix is almost perfect

2009-08-25T21:05:00.000-07:00

I haven't smoked for a week now. I've been taking .5mg/day for 10 days and, because it gives me problems sleeping, plan to stay there. (I was supposed to step up to 1mg a week ago, and 2mg 4 days ago, but if it keeps working at .5mg there's no reason to do more.)

The only side effect I get is really crummy sleep. I should count myself lucky, since I could be having anxiety, headaches, nausea, suicidal ideas, and/or a "potentially fatal" rash. Instead I can't get to sleep till midnight, wake up at 3am for an hour or so, and wake up at 5:30 am, sometimes getting back to sleep, sometimes not.

However, I don't seem to feel the lost sleep much. I might nap an hour or two once or twice a week. By the numbers, it doesn't make up for the loss, but it seems to be all I need. It could be the meditation I've been doing for the past couple months, could be the dopamine makes me feel the loss less.

In any case, it's worth it to not be smoking. The drug has made it incredibly easy to pass on the urge. They tell you urges only last a few minutes, and while this is true, it just isn't that simple. I get beset by urges: the first I could pass on, but urges would keep coming every 5-10 minutes, until I gave in. With the Chantix, the first urge goes away easily, and subsequent urges (if they come at all) are noticeably weaker.

I plan to do the full 12 week course (though as I said at a low dosage) and hopefully at the end of it I will have built new habits and will have enough groundwork laid that it becomes something in itself, not to be destroyed.

The standard warning label:
Some people have had changes in behavior, hostility, agitation, depressed mood, suicidal thoughts or actions while using CHANTIX to help them quit smoking. Some people had these symptoms when they began taking CHANTIX, and others developed them after several weeks of treatment or after stopping CHANTIX. If you, your family, or caregiver notice agitation, hostility, depression, or changes in behavior, thinking, or mood that are not typical for you, or you develop suicidal thoughts or actions, anxiety, panic, aggression, anger, mania, abnormal sensations, hallucinations, paranoia, or confusion, stop taking CHANTIX and call your doctor right away. Also tell your doctor about any history of depression or other mental health problems before taking CHANTIX, as these symptoms may worsen while taking CHANTIX.

Some people can have serious skin reactions while taking CHANTIX, some of which can become life-threatening. These can include rash, swelling, redness, and peeling of the skin. Some people can have allergic reactions to CHANTIX, some of which can be life-threatening and include: swelling of the face, mouth, and throat that can cause trouble breathing. If you have these symptoms or have a rash with peeling skin or blisters in your mouth, stop taking CHANTIX and get medical attention right away.

The most common side effects include nausea (30%), sleep problems, constipation, gas, and/or vomiting. If you have side effects that bother you or don't go away, tell your doctor.

You may have trouble sleeping, vivid, unusual or strange dreams while taking CHANTIX. Use caution driving or operating machinery until you know how CHANTIX may affect you.

my low rent espresso setup

2009-08-24T19:46:00.001-07:00

Left to right:
Gaggia grinder (used, $120)
stainless steel tamper
plastic ice cream lid to protect from tamping dents in the wood (a little too late already)
homemade knockbox (plastic storage box, 6" bolt, 1/4" aquarium tubing)
Silvia holding up import-store-$1.50-each latte cups
stainless steel steaming pitcher from the old espresso kit

I just received a "new" steaming tip from Chris's Coffee Service. I just could not microfoam to save my life with the 3-hole tip, so the techs sent me a single-hole. I screwed it on and instantly produced a nice batch of microfoam, which eventually led to a falconer's latte: jack in the cup.

could anyone possibly fall for this?

2009-08-23T09:06:00.000-07:00

A bit of phishing spam I got this morning at my hotmail account. I count at least a dozen grammatical and formatting errors you would never see in any business letter. And a proper phisher would at least have the name of their website obfuscated in some way. Which all goes to show that criminals are generally stupider than average people.

:
Dear Member.

We Here at Microsoft inc (MSN, Verizon, X-Box Live, MSN Live, Hotmail, Quest, And other services we provide.), are sorry to inform you that we are having problem's with the billing information on your account. We would appreciate it if you would go to our website and fill out the proper information that we need to keep you as an member.Please Update your account information by visiting our updates web site below.

http://msnetwork.ftpaccess.cc/

James Brady.
Microsoft Updates Center
Account Team.
Number.561920703

We do hope to continue doing business with you...

yeah, a little late to notice, but...

2009-08-21T11:07:00.000-07:00

I mailed everything off in late May but haven't yet received my license. California has cashed my check, but the feds haven't (ain't online banking terrific?) Phone call placed...

not sure which is best.

2009-08-09T16:04:00.000-07:00

The Evelyn Lundberg Counseling Agency (Prairie Home Companion)

just about at the happy ending

2009-08-04T22:53:00.001-07:00

I went through this earlier this year. I've been in love purgatory for quite a while, moving forward yet never able to fully let go.

But now she's coming back, and for good. Finally, she is absolutely certain she will never go back to him.

There will be a transition period while she ends her connection to her ex. (Personally, I wish she didn't care so much that she needs to do that, but if she must in order to be at peace, I won't stop her.) We've half resumed what we started, but once she's defined terms with him, we'll be completely free.

Although her words in the past couple weeks were the same as all the times she'd failed to follow through, I sensed she was really serious this time in a way I cannot name. I can't explain it: I slept well and rarely felt anxious. Those who believe in the psychic would probably say we're connected. Those who do not would say I just didn't believe her anymore, that I had finally learned to pay attention to deeds, not words.

It's a happy end. I'm in a bit of shock, but the same kind you feel when your lottery ticket comes up with all the right numbers. Monday, she said just about everything I'd wanted her to say, and it was so complete and definite that Tuesday I wasn't sure I had dreamed the whole thing...

Some folks here know what I've been through. They cannot be thanked enough for their sympathy, advice, and good thoughts.

like fiats

2009-07-31T16:24:00.000-07:00

Silvia is no longer the steamy chick she was when she arrived. She's still oh-so-hot and makes an excellent espresso, but that extra, more ephemeral quality that divides good from great has failed.

Tech support says a temperature sensor is broken. They're shipping a new one, and fortunately, opening up the machine and installing it will not void the warranty.

This is, interestingly, just like computers. They either fail immediately, or they last a decent lifetime.

But in the meantime, no lattes...

lots o latte

2009-07-25T22:00:00.000-07:00

My Rancilio Silvia arrived Monday and since then I've been cloistered in the kitchen like some mad scientist. I took apart my Braun grinder and adjusted the burrs down to get espresso fineness (and while I was at it, cleaned it for the first time in years.) I pushed on the bathroom scale to get a feel for 30 pounds of tamping pressure. The odor of burned grounds pervaded the kitchen. Glasses of sadly flat hot milk with a cap of stiff foam got tossed.

It took some self control not to practice more than 3 times a day, but I dislike tachycardia more than I like lattes. After a few days I found the right combination of grind and tamping pressure to pull an acceptable espresso shot. This morning, by luck, I did the right thing with the steam wand and got a beautiful microfoam, and immediately tried my hand at latte art.

[review] Kingdom Come, J. G. Ballard

2009-07-10T20:08:00.000-07:00

JG Ballard is probably best known for Empire of the Sun, which was put to the screen by Steven Spielberg. Most of Ballard's books have to do with ambivalent relationships with ambivalent women, but his last few novels focused on suburban dystopia. Kingdom Come is one of these, and its black comedy had me laughing out loud. From reviews of Ballard's work, general opinion is that this is the best of these newer stories.

Plot. Richard Pearson's father is one of the fatalities in a gunman's rampage at a huge shopping mall in the suburb of Brooklands, a town off the M25. Richard, a recently fired advertising executive, comes to Brooklands for closure and instead finds a mystery.

The gunman, a mental patient, is released due to lack of evidence -- a few witnesses placed him elsewhere in the mall during the shooting. As Richard speaks with the police, a doctor who had treated his father, the gunman's psychiatrist and his father's solicitor, a picture begins to emerge about the role of the mall in the lives of suburbanites. There is either hatred of this shrine to consumerism, or love of it. The mall, a vast, self-contained mini-city with three hotels and its own TV channel, sponsors weekly sporting events that result in drunken rampages against the immigrant residents of Brooklands. Ballard twists this into sublimated hatred of those who are using a different economic channel than the Metro-Centre mall.

Richard, in search of his father's killer as well as trying to get a grasp on a man he barely knew, is drawn into the war between mall-haters and mall-lovers. The mall becomes an ideology unto itself, and only chaos can erupt.

Review. This is satire with a pit bull's bite. It's completely over the top, hauling in heavy-handed comparisons to the development of Nazi Germany. But at the same time one senses in the details a little too much underlying reality, a genuine potential for suburbia to behave in this way. The funniest scene, to me, was the trio of giant animated teddy bears, the anchor point of the mall. They, too, were shot by the gunman, and the mall patrons leave shoals of flowers, jars of honey and get well cards at their feet. (You just know this would happen in real life, and almost certainly has.)

Ballard's writing is a bit choppy. There might be a jump of days or a few weeks between chapters, with an unrealistic lack of continuity in Richard's knowledge. The loyalties of various minor characters are not often clear. Also, at one point, the mall's public relations manager, Tom Carradine, is referred to as 'David Carradine' a few times -- an editor's oversight that will hopefully be corrected in future editions. One senses from this that Ballard wrote it in rushes of inspiration. But overall, a good and memorable book I want to hang onto next time I need a good laugh at suburbia.

sometimes we find happiness

2009-07-09T22:29:00.000-07:00

in the smallest things. Well, maybe not so small, because if they give us happiness they become larger, more significant, in our minds.

There's someone I love deeply who I can't have in my life, but we spent some time together today. We completely avoided the subject of not being together -- something we've done almost constantly for the past year, something that coats all our conversations with tension and frustration. Sure, it was an artificial peace, but it was peace nonetheless, and a semblance of the relationship we'd had before.

A small thing, but to be appreciated nonetheless.

When Brits rap

2009-07-06T13:26:00.001-07:00

If the English do rap, they should never, ever stoop to imitating American rap. Below is the very finest example of what British rap should be: about tea. (Plus a great piano riff)

The artist's name is Elemental.

And some lyrics. (I'm not sure of all of it...)

Love a cup. I would -- ah, god YES. Oh that is gorgeous. Yeah!

I need a cup of the brown stuff the shade of an acorn
Made warm by the same source that I take my cakes from
Using a tea pot, a mug or fine china
Being hooked up to IVs, and constant supplies

But a drip for my urges might verge on perverted
for an earthy brown tea I’m certain it’s worth it
With Sherpas who work herds and use a fresh fountain
I deserve brews from Peruvian mountains

I’ve slurped up a cup from an elephant’s trunk
with a couple of monks who utterly stunk
I’ve had bourbons with sultans and creams with queens
and I’ve bathed in Earl Grey -- I’m really that keen
And missionaries dismiss me for my single epiphany
The difference between him and me is a simple sip of British tea

So when times are hard and life is rough
You can stick the kettle on and find me a cup

Now when I say Earl Grey, you say: yes please
Earl Grey: yes please
Earl Grey: yes please

When I say Assam, you say: Lovely
Assam: Lovely
Assam: Lovely
When I say ooh, you say ah
Ooh -- ah
Ooh -- ah
Ooh -- ahh

I’ve been around the world in 80 brews
to see the place you take me to
to make the brew that tastes like
the cream cakes made by angels do

I’m not the same as you, get shaky with aim
To swig amazing fluids, but don’t make it the same
Now using fine leaves picked by pretty maidens
in a bag knitted by a seamstress who lives in Copenhagen
Brewed up in a pot made of semi-precious metal
And then let the blessed contents settle
in my very special kettle

Now when I say Oo, you say: long.
Oo: long
Oo: long
When I say herbal you say: no thanks
Herbal: no thanks
Herbal: no thanks

Mmm... no... no, I want... I want milk in it.
Strong though -- I want to see that spoon stand up!

If you’re tired of tea, then you’re tired of life
Ah I’m madder than a hatter, it defies my might
Liken me to Earl Grey, Assam, or Ginger
Lapsang, Soushong, raise my pinky finger.
Keep your sodding coffee in a proper copper coffee pot
and spot me lobbing teapots at your poncey rotten coffee shop
coffee clocks, nodding off
lost a plot, sodding off
Need some caffeine, tannin, and a Battenburg to top it off

Cut them off a different block
A different lot can take their pay
On 80 cups a day, I haven’t slept for 80 years!
You can say I’m mad with tea or, or just say I’m mad.
Oh, you can’t stay any longer? Oh... actually, I’m, I’m quite glad --
All the more Battenburg for me
I can barely pour, my hands have got a bit shaky from caffeine.
Oh, I love it though.
I’d sell my own grandma for a cup.
Well, I’d sell *your* grandma for a cup.

snake and monkey

2009-06-29T06:52:00.001-07:00

will never trust each other :( .

uncaptureable moment

2009-06-25T12:59:00.000-07:00

I was watering an empty space in front of the feijoa in preparation for putting in some plants, and a most remarkable thing happened.

The dog has chewed branches off the feijoa multiple times and I was never able to catch him at it. It's a young shrub and he would eventually do a fatal chew if I didn't do something, so a few weeks back I staked up some plastic aviary net around it. It's 3 feet high and seems to have been enough of a deterrent, though he could push under -- or chew through it -- if he wanted to.

Anyway, I was watering the feijoa's area when a hummingbird came to hover nearby. He looked like a young guy (or gal), all green, and bold as hummers are, was floating about five feet away. He was all interested in the hose spray and moved the edge of the arc, dipping in and out, seeming to drink a few drops. I don't blame him; today's the first day that has felt truly summery. He tasted one of the flowers nearby, then went into the apple tree.

The hose was on the blast setting, but you can dial down the pressure, which I did. He came back and hovered at the edge again, then dropped down into the center of the spray, getting seriously wet but still hovering, for several seconds. Then the weight got to be too much, and he landed on the aviary net about halfway down, where he was still getting the full spray. He popped his wings out and was thoroughly enjoying himself, shaking down occasionally. This went on for maybe 20 seconds, and then he'd had enough and flew up into a flowering tree nearby.
Only then did I stop being mesmerized enough to take a picture. He kept shaking water off for another minute and then he was on his way.

season's end stocktaking

2009-06-07T14:15:00.000-07:00

The molt is on. I have a habit of not porking the bird out 24/7 but rather keeping him where I can get him to flying weight within a day or two. For Mr P, that means around 650g. It's high enough to keep the molt strong, especially if I keep quail and chicken liver in his diet. To my embarassment, I haven't broken out a single quail in the past six months. Crow is good meat for hawks, and having a glut of fresh ones all the time, I forget the importance of varying his diet. The frozen quail are probably no good now, so I'll pick some up the City sometime this week.

The chest freezer is over half full; I'm guessing I have at leat 70 crows in there, all from this season, and after I gave L about 35 to feed his crew. I don't do a game count (the wall-stamping, though, will eventually get me specific), but a conservative estimate would be 275 for the season and 340 on the outside.

4/9/09-6/7/09
69c/4s/1d

finally

2009-05-29T10:27:00.000-07:00

a primary.

it doesn't get simpler than this

2009-05-28T17:34:00.000-07:00

And tell me this dog doesn't look like he needs a beer:

itching

2009-05-27T22:59:00.001-07:00

P's dropped a few downies and body feathers, but no flight feathers. I must admit that, except for the sharpy last year, I haven't kept a proper falconer's log in years. Memory fails (far too easily): is he behind schedule or does he normally start in June? or July?

I want him to start molting, and from his early-morning yakking, I think he'd like it too. Feeding him all the quail, chicken livers and crow he can eat would kick-start it, but for some reason I want a drop to tell me we're done for the season. Just one.

Quarry is jumpy and hard to find -- they're nesting too -- which makes for less-than-satisfactory hawking. We got just four plus one starling last week. Getting the car painted would buy some stealth...

six weeks and silliness

2009-05-14T17:22:00.000-07:00

A short while back, a falconer friend in Pennsylvania and I were joking about the Silver SUV of Death and WWII planes. This convo led to my purchase of a rubber stamp of a crow on Ebay. Since I didn't want to mess with my car, and besides, I juggle enough things car hawking already, I started stamping the wall in the hawk's room.
The little half-stamp is for the starling. The upside-down one is for the accidental take of a human-edible bird. (Roasted, with apple and jam stuffing. Eminently edible.)

Speaking of starlings, I've been stowing all small birds in the freezer in anticipation of a small raptor to feed them to. On a whim I decided to step up the action and built a starling nest trap.
This crazy monster is a birdhouse mounted on a 4" sewer pipe. A starling takes a peek inside and sees an eligible nest (artfully faked up with twigs, grass, and a hot glue gun.) Then, in theory, the starling gets so excited at the prospect of nest theft that it leaps in, and instead of landing in the nest, falls through the hole in the bottom of the birdhouse -- aaaaaaaahhhhhhhiiiiiiiiieeeeeeeeeee! -- down the pipe and to the bend. It then sees light (yes, at the end of the tunnel), and walks into a wire cage at the end, where it conveniently finds food, water, and eventual freezing.

I have no idea if anything will happen. I hear them every day, but I know the flock is quite small. Just a bit of nonsense to spice up the season.

probably a bad idea

2009-04-26T22:16:00.000-07:00

I love goshawks in the abstract: in my eye they're the most beautiful bird of all, they're determined and they fly like jets. Given the right training they can be sweet on the fist and consistently deadly. But in practical terms, a tiercel gos really not right for what I've got. Ducks are only here for a few months, half of which is past duck season, gosses can chase crows pretty far (in carhawking this means significantly higher danger of losing your bird in a space you can't get to, like behind a building), quail and bunnies are nearly an hour away, and there's only one place nearby where pheasant can be found consistently.

But I still do love a gos... years ago I had one for a few months and would like to try it again. But maybe it's just not the right place for one now.

shifting into spring

2009-04-22T21:43:00.000-07:00

Mr P is giving the call almost every morning now: "Single male HH, 13 years young, looking for a sweet female to make a nest with. Excellent provider of sticks and food." Or at least that's how I interpret "ak-ak-ak-ak-gak-gak-gak-ak-ak-ak." Little bits of down are just starting to star the perch (only one alula has dropped so far), and his field behavior is not quite so enthusiastic.

The crows are nesting too. They've scattered out of their big winter flocks, have been playing with dried grass and twigs for weeks, and now they're paired up, a little scarcer and warier. This week wasn't quite so productive -- "just" 7 -- and I'm half considering putting P up early in hopes of taking him up early, when the young ones are getting on the wing and being stupid.

Put my name on a list for a tiercel gos... that'll be a challenge.

pig happy

2009-04-18T16:13:00.001-07:00

My mom is a roast pig (siu-yook) connoisseur, or maybe just a fresser-fusser. Knowing I live in a place with a Chinese population over 20, she has over the years sent me hoofing all around the Bay Area for the perfect pig -- not too salty, enough of the other spices, and crispy fluffy skin. Above all, gotta be tender and not dry. Very few places meet her exacting Jungsan (Zhongshan) criteria.

So I'm at the Safeway on Washington St in San Lorenzo, and wandering across the parking lot toward the Longs Drugs when I see "Chinese BBQ" in nice red neon letters. It also says "Chinese Fast Food" which tends to make one shy away, unless one is in the mood for fat oily chow mein noodles. But BBQ of any ethnicity sparks interest. I come alongside the window and hanging in full, lovely view are ducks and chickens and pork ribs, brown and gold and red, all of them dripping.
(This is a pic from the web, not the actual restaurant.)

As I go in, a side of roasted pig appears, hanging from a hook on a steel pole. Inside looks like any nameless Chinatown BBQ place: checkerboard tile floor in neutral and white, formica tables or the modern equivalent thereof, industrial fluorescent overhead, and a slight sense of grime. Chinese don't believe in remodeling before opening a restaurant -- improvements come in dribs and drabs, if they ever come at all.

The pig looks looks promising, too. Good color and that bubbly quality to the skin like chicharones, not hard and flat. I talk to the customer ahead of me and she assures me she's picky about her pig and this is a good one. My heart soars.

I get a half-pound just to try it out. They also sell five gin-dui for a buck, which is a steal for the sweet.

As for the pig, I know my mom will find it near perfect. (A titch too salty for me -- I hardly ever salt anything so I find most prepared foods too salty.) I'm real pleased to have this place so near my house, so I can make my mom pig happy any time I see her.

Edit: While googling around for the image, I found this recipe from someone who made roast pig at home. Muahahaha...

no bore Borges

2009-03-19T23:22:00.000-07:00

I've been reading Jorge Luis Borges since forever. One senses infinite time in his writing, akin to Archibald MacLeish's poems. He presents you with an environment that surprises and tickles the mind. And I enjoy Borges's labyrinths and infinite libraries. Bridges always seem to pop up in my fiction and carry similar symbolic value.

I'd always checked him out from the library, so finally last week I splurged a few dollars at ABEbooks.com and ordered Labyrinths, A Universal History of Infamy, Dr. Brodie's Report, The Book of Imaginary Beings, The Book of Sand, The Aleph and Other Stories, and Ficciones. (Seven books for about $50 -- I love ABE.) A few arrived this week, so I'm going to be curling up for a while.

you WANT a not guilty plea?!

2009-03-12T20:37:00.000-07:00

Okay, so Bernard Madoff was caught for his Ponzi scheme. He says he knew what he was doing and knew he'd get caught one day. He says he's sorry and pleads guilty. To everything.

Some of the bilked wanted a trial, allegedly to bring more details to light.

This seems silly. The feds' investigation should be sufficient. I can't think of any reason to bring Madoff to a public trial except for the satisfaction of hearing him pronounced guilty.

Enough money has been lost on Madoff. Let's not waste any more.

cynical about stupidity

2009-03-03T21:50:00.000-08:00

I'm not a member of SEIU and the more I hear about them, the less I'd want to be. Check out this email from their president, who sounds like he was just browsing Youtube and came across the video -- but neglects to chop off the bit where his web producer asks for his approval. One could read it either way, but Stern's words have a disingenuous feel.

from Andy Stern
to {friend}
date Tue, Mar 3, 2009 at 9:54 AM
subject Hey

{friend's name},

Check out this video. It's hard to believe they actually said those things.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mOM0AMUqviY

- Andy

Sent from my iPhone

Begin forwarded message:
From: "Michael Whitney"
Date: March 2, 2009 9:32:51 PM EST
To: "Andy Stern"
Subject: video

Hi Andy -

We finished the "horror" video. If you're OK with how it looks, feel free to send it around.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mOM0AMUqviY

Thanks for your help.

Michael

we chose

2009-02-25T22:14:00.000-08:00

I spent the weekend with my mom, a card-carrying Republican, and as could be expected I got a dose of Fox News. These fine folks refer to Obama as "The Chosen One," their heavy-handed satirical comment on the popularity of our new president.

After eight years of Bush, anyone's going to look like a savior. And Obama is actually acting like real one: he's focused, and he's concentrating his effort not on supporting a futile war, but on supporting us.

He is the chosen one, not as demigod, but because we chose him to lead our country.

10 crows a week, that's all we ask

2009-02-19T21:54:00.000-08:00

The birds are transitioning from big flocks to smaller bands. Last week was great -- three each day -- and as the days grow longer, so will the number of days per week we can go.

I need to be more on the ball with jump-ups, though. Time with the new dog has been keeping me from doing much more than tossing the bird a chunk.

Speaking of the dog, the hawk hasn't gotten him yet, though not for lack of trying. Fortunately the dog has usually had the smarts to make himself scarce when I'm dealing with the bird. Not always, though, and he's sure to find out why consistent behavior is a good thing.

once bit but never shy

2009-02-01T17:40:00.001-08:00

On Friday P caught a squirrel, which managed to bite him in the foot. It was just a superficial cut, very little blood. A little neosporin and everything is fine -- a slight swelling is all, and it looks better already. We caught 2 crows on Saturday and 2 today even though he was a little high, so obviously it isn't bothering him much. He's also eyeballing the squirrels now.

I've been roaming for new places, and found a few. I still avoid neighborhoods as much as possible and stick with industrial parks. Early in the morning, shopping malls are good too. They like construction sites -- newly turned earth -- probably for uncovered insects, but also for the grit. Recently I came across a flock of almost 200 at a pile of clean sand for construction. We caught one there, of course, but alerted 199 to the Silver SUV of Death.

well, usually

2009-01-31T21:16:00.000-08:00

Good dog:

A couple trips to our local dog park has turned him into a car convert, almost. On our way out, he's happy to get in. Going home is harder, but not nearly the ordeal it was.

He's considering fetching. He'll do it a little, but he's much more keyed into running with other dogs and any human. Balls are a degree of separation. But he's starting to do it a little.

He's a total love bug. He goes into ecstatic bliss when I rub him on the head, collapsing like a cat (yeesh) with all feet in the air.

For entertainment, he picks up windfall apples, tosses them in the air, and chases them. The only problem there is that he eats them, too.

Bad dog:

I don't think he'll ever like being in water. His fur is pretty thin in places, so in some ways I can't blame him.

He's chewed two power cords -- I'm going to need to buy a new paper shredder. Maybe one day he'll find out that's a really bad idea.

He seems to want lots of stimulation. He'll find cardboard boxes, sticks, plastic bags, anything, and get on a project to drag them to his favorite spot in the yard and tear them up. On my workdays I never know what I'll find when I come home. To my dismay he's "trimmed" the lower half of the feijoa, and I'm worried he'll inadvertently kill my baby lemon verbena, which is only 6" high right now.

Super dog:

He needs an hour of serious running every day, or some running and a decent walk. Last time at the park he met his match in a Jack Russell, who ran and played so long that when we came home, he collapsed for several hours, alternating between the warm sun in the backyard and the cool under the car.

Mottledog:

The general concensus is that he's pit, lab, and maybe some Australian shepherd. The white on his chest has grey spots, i.e. ticking. From his narrow shoulders, I thought he was some other terrier, but a lot of people have said he has a pit's head. When he yawns, one can see his jaw at the hinge end is very broad, which also makes me think pit. However, I'm not about to get a DNA test, so it will always remain a mystery.

dog behavior

2009-01-25T22:19:00.001-08:00

I've found he has problems with small enclosed spaces. It takes a huge amount of coaxing to get him into the car. All the happy talking and treats just don't do much good. One time I had to just pick him up and put him in there. He came from the pound -- until now, being in cars hasn't resulted in anything good.

We took a 3.5 mile trail walk today, which he liked, but I when we got home I found a tick on me, so I thought I might give him a bath. He does smell a little, too, though nothing bad. But he wouldn't go into the bathroom: another tight space. Eventually I decided to bag the bath and just get him to go in. I put his dinner there, which made him trot back and forth whining with indecision for five minutes. He finally stepped in a bit at a time, stretched himself out as long as he could go, took a bite, and backed out asap. He repeated this a bunch of times, but each time he stayed a little longer and backed out less.

I may do this with the car, too.

Other than that I think he's starting to settle in. He's started to fetch with some enthusiasm. I'd like to let him *really* run in a big space off-leash but don't yet trust him to come back. Fenced dog parks aren't that big anyway, and there isn't one anywhere in town, either.

final dog

2009-01-22T20:33:00.000-08:00

This isn't Arawan, but another dog I met at the Sacramento County shelter. My friends on Nordinho voted to name him Mavro.

black is the new hispanic

2009-01-18T07:55:00.001-08:00

Have you been seeing a lot more advertisements showing distinctly black people? I have. The indistinct, caramel generic person-of-color is losing space to the United States' self-created minority. Obama may have light skin but the 'fro flags him as not Hispanic, Asian, or Indian. The GPOC is designed to appeal to the largest number of non-white buyers -- the smiling model "could be" the same ethnicity as the viewer.

But now blacks, who are only our third largest minority (behind Hispanics and Asians), are coming to the fore. They deserve and need the recognition that they are a political force and an economic power -- something they might know as a fact, but do not truly believe.

dog time

2009-01-09T20:37:00.000-08:00

After a many-year desire and the more recent advice of friends, I'm planning on getting a dog. I've been searching through our local rescue websites and there's a dark lab mix bitch, 7 months old, who seems interesting. Her name's Arawan (and if I adopt her, will promptly be renamed... I mean sheesh, they should at least have spelled Erewhon correctly...) The description of her character seems like she could be suitable for me. The only problem is that she's reportedly not housebroken. I'm housebroken, so she needs to be too!

I'm driving out to Lafayette tomorrow to have a look at her. I'd like a dog that has some potential for finding and flushing, so I'll take a bit of bird wing with me and see how she reacts.

at the meet

2009-01-07T22:46:00.001-08:00

Here's a photo of friends at the meet: A & R (the rare woman dirthawker and her longwinger bf), and my buddy K0 in the weathering yard

R's new prairie -- trapped 6 days prior and already looking confident on the perch

J's peregrine at the pigeon derby

headset followup

2009-01-07T00:01:00.000-08:00

Forehead-slapping time.

Apparently there are two kinds of adapters, audio-only (for headphones) and audio+mike (for handsfree headsets). The adapter I bought on Ebay was the former, but was described as a "headset adapter." I just assumed they all had the microphone function. And one wonders if the microgram of metal saved in the audio-only adapter is such a huge savings to the manufacturer that it's worth their while to have two types.

So... I went shopping again. Some of them, though described as headset adapters, say things like "Not compatible with adjustable volume type headsets" or sneak the phrase "audio adapter" in the fine print. To me, that's not plain English. Most employ a common habit with advertising and completely omit saying what the item doesn't do.

Eventually I found an adapter that was clearly described as being meant to connect a phone headset. It costs about twice as much but it's what I need.

headset headaches

2009-01-05T19:48:00.000-08:00

Me and headsets are just not meant for each other.

I've had 3 bluetooth headsets in the past 2 years, and none of them have been very comfortable and they seem to be grbling all the time.

I figured this was due to it being bluetooth and tried a plug-in headset. The first one I bought was a total piece of cheap crap, with a painfully hard earbud, a boom mike that was perpetually dropping and the whole thing sliding off my ear like it was made of greased teflon.

After research I decided the Jabra was probably going to be the most versatile: a selection of earpieces and a shape that looked like it would stay in place. I got one through Amazon and my guess was right. It was super comfortable and I could put it on either ear.

The first problem, though, was that the connector wasn't the right one. The Amazon vendor had said it was for a Samsung, but it was the standard 2.5mm connector, not the 20-pin. They refunded me a few dollars to buy an adapter.

When the adapter arrived, I found the headset didn't work -- no sound at all. Having been a computer troubleshooter all my life, it took no thought to try the Jabra with my mom's phone, which did have a 2.5mm. Still didn't work.

The Amazon vendor cheerfully refunded the balance and I bought another Jabra on Ebay. This arrived today, I hooked it to the adapter and to my phone. Lovely -- I heard everything loud and clear, even needed to turn the volume down. Then I noticed this Jabra's voice-command activation button doesn't seem to work. Well, it wasn't that big a deal, it's not like my thumbs have been amputated. To test it, I called K0, and got voicemail. I started leaving a message and got the recorded voice asking if I wanted to leave a callback number. I press the buttons to review my voice message.

No message, just silence. The mike doesn't work. Or, possibly, the adapter connects on the speaker but not the mike. I'm going to have to borrow someone else's phone to test.

But right now I am about ready to wind all these little wiry bits and pieces onto a fireplace poker and slowly heat them until their insulation melts and bleeds.

a decent meet

2008-12-29T19:20:00.000-08:00

Got to see a goshawk chase a jack, and the pigeon derby ("pigeon derby" NOT "sky trials," meaning a pigeon might die) was fun. (As it was, Hanford has added 10 new healthy pigeons to its population, one for each entrant in the contest.)

I didn't catch as many as I expected, but it was a new place for me and I didn't know where to find slips. Country crows are much more car-shy than suburbia/industrial crows -- they get on the wing much earlier, too early for the HH.

I had a chance to see how old friends were doing and got to know some faces better. I'm total crap when it comes to faces/names and hawks flown when given in a 3-minute conversation, but when you kick back and hang out for a while I absorb much more. Old faces became friends.

Yes, she did come to me, not as completely I would have wished, but the possibility of a future with her looks a bit more real. And at the same time I'm less saddened by the idea of a future without her.

off to the CGA meet

2008-12-25T20:18:00.000-08:00

I'll be here tomorrow until Sunday. Thrills, spills, and in between, plenty of boredom. That's the way all falconry meets are. But it's a chance to see friends you only see at a meet, see other birds fly, and talk about hawks, falcons, and killing furry and feathery items. The weather outlooks seems promisingly warm for the central valley in winter -- highs of 45-50 for the next few days.

It'll probably be a great place to ditch the 45 pounds of Christmas candy currently in my possession... ;)

I'll probably bring the computer. It's always a handy item these days, especially for finding restaurants in a place you have no clue about.

And I hope she'll come to me...

not sure if i believe it

2008-12-20T22:49:00.002-08:00

seeing seven pounds

2008-12-20T20:29:00.000-08:00

I went into this movie not knowing anything about the plot. About 60 minutes later, I still didn't know anything about the plot. I was somewhere between still curious, weary from trying to figure out why, and bored because I was just waiting for the answer. It only pulls it all together in the last half hour.

But when it pulled together it hit me harder than expected. Will Smith's character is bestowing gifts to seven people he decides are deserving of a better life. (This is to make up for seven people whose lives he took through cavalier use of a Blackberry while driving.) He deeds his remote beach house to a woman who's getting stalked and beaten up by her boyfriend, bone marrow to a cancer-stricken boy. His final donation, by way of his own suicide, is his heart, to a woman with heart disease, with whom he has cautiously fallen in love.

The donation bit was what made this movie hard for me to watch. The mate needed a pair of lungs and didn't get them in time. We didn't need a guilt-stricken suicidal engineer, it could have been anyone. If only, though, if only.

sparrowgone

2008-12-16T21:20:00.000-08:00

Unlike the last sparrow to get lost in the garage, this one had the smarts to escape.

feeling stupid

2008-12-15T19:57:00.000-08:00

Some friends and I are going trapping after Christmas, so I put out a trap for some bait birds. I don't want to catch one now, so I left the door open. Blaine's traps have a rubber flap as a safety seal in addition to the door, but I didn't prop that open.

I set it out this morning and didn't bother checking the trap until well after dark. Frankly, I'm not even sure why I did -- having assumed a sparrow could get out easily enough by pushing the flap -- but some microgram of responsibility sent me outside.

Inside was one damp, miserable whitecrowned. Poor guy. I took him to the garage and started looking for a box so he'd be a bit warmer and definitely drier overnight. I'd let him loose in the morning.

Naturally, while I was distracted with poking around the shelves with a bird in my hand, he got loose. Flew around the garage confusedly. Sigh. Well, he will be a bit warmer and definitely drier. I'll leave the back door open tomorrow.

bye bye RT

2008-12-05T13:30:00.000-08:00

Well, she still wasn't eating by this morning. I don't know if I've just forgotten how long it takes for a redtail to tame down, or if I'm just a lot less patient about it than I used to be. I just wasn't happy with the amount of progress we had made. She didn't eat until I left her alone with a chunk of meat. She was pretty hungry and eventually I was able to pick her up and she continued eating there, but after less than 3 oz she got wary and starey again.

All RTs are good birds, but some just aren't worth the time. I'm pretty sure all of my RTs ate on the glove within 4 days, and stopped doing the full flare-up within that time as well.

So... I hooded her, drove back to where I trapped her, and let her go.

redtail slow (like snail slow, but faster)

2008-12-03T17:06:00.000-08:00

She's coming along as well as can be expected. She's down to 1152 grams and hasn't eaten yet. This is normal; I'm guessing she will probably eat by Friday. Redtails are durable hawks and have very good metabolisms. The manning hasn't progressed as rapidly as it should. I used to take a few days off after trapping a new bird; this time I haven't, so she still flares up and stares at me, open-mouthed. I've probably been slowing down the process by giving her water. She would probably eat sooner if I didn't -- redtails get most of their water from prey, and rarely drink.

Still, she's been calming more quickly as time goes on. Like my favorite tiercel RT she also seems to like being scritched on the breast.

I made a new hood for her -- I had just one female hood, and it was so squashed, stretched, and floppy it was hard to put on. The new one is the same size, just a pinch taller, but half a pinch too tall. It will do, though. RTs are durable.

And I think she's probably a small-medium female. There's a lot of size variation and I won't really know more until she eats, but even if it was 1000 that would still be considerably bigger than your average tiercel.

redtail whimsy

2008-11-30T20:07:00.000-08:00

Tis the season to be trapping. Actually, that started in October, but we see most of our passage birds in early November. There seemed to be quite a few immie redtails and Swainson's hawks coming through. Just for the hell of it, I put together a new balchatri a few days ago, bought a hooded rat (a little more expensive but so much more cooperative than feeders) last night, and went trapping this morning.

It got some interest from a mature female RT but she wasn't interested enough, which was just as well. I moved on and set it for an unusal bird I couldn't quite identify until it flushed, and I realized I was looking at a very contrasty peregrine, perhaps a tundrius but more likely a Peale's. It moved to another power tower, where another peregrine, which had the look of an anatum, was munching on a pigeon.
(The light one is at the bottom of the photo.)

The third time I set the trap was for an obvious immature RT perched on a road sign. S/he was hungry and went for the trap as soon as I drove away. S/he overflew it, though, a little nervous, and perched on another road sign directly across from the trap. S/he was there just long enough for me to get turned around and park the car. Within 20 seconds s/he hit it.So now I have a redtail without any plan whatsoever. She weighed in at 1220 gm but he has a calmness I associate with tiercels, as well as some of the delicate look. Of course, I'll do all the usual things, hooding, walking him/her around, training to come, but there's limited joy in chasing jackrabbits. I think I may just train a little for the fun of it, then let him/her go.

raising the stakes

2008-11-23T19:37:00.001-08:00

I used to max out at 3, now it's 4. We've done it twice now, but it's largely a matter of finding enough quarry. I'm going to have to trim his take-off pieces a bit smaller...

We WIN!!!

2008-11-04T20:35:00.000-08:00

I first saw Obama on Charlie Rose's show in October 06, a few months before he announced his candidacy, and was (and remain) impressed by his intelligence.

As always, a certain amount of healthy skepticism about politicians is simply wise. Campaign promises do get broken by both parties. But to have someone who at least can pronounce "nuclear" correctly is gonna be refreshing.

293 to 152, and it's not even 9pm PST here yet.

i'm so psychic

2008-11-01T21:17:00.001-07:00

I'm glad to see us finally getting drenched. Two days of rain, on and off, pretty solid at times.

This morning was clouded dark but strangely warm. I drove out to Livermore late-ish morning, went at it for an hour or so, and headed home with two in the bag. Just as I was driving back the rain began in earnest and hasn't stopped since.

It's hard to know if we can fly tomorrow but we'll be ready to go again, hopefully the weather cooperates as nicely as it did today. But if not, there's food to tide the hawk over until Wednesday.

finally the rain

2008-10-30T20:52:00.000-07:00

We have been dry, and I mean seriously dry, since May. We had one serious rain in late summer and that was it. Today was marked by sprinkles on and off, enough to feed the lawn for a day or two, but not likely to raise our reservoirs. In the East Bay we've been in conservation mode for months now. It being just me, a hawk, and a lawn that I don't mind killing, I'm well under the allotment.

We went hawking, caught one pretty quickly, and drove dozens of miles for a pair of slips, neither of which were caught. Mr P kept trying to catch the one on the other side of a cyclone fence. I don't understand why, since he usually knows his fences. By the end of the route the rain was just enough to keep quarry up on the poles. But at least we got one.

what is a "real" American, anyway?

2008-10-26T10:56:00.001-07:00

America includes all of us.

"Real" America does not mean just the Republican party. This country was founded as a place where people could find refuge from the oppressiveness of other countries. Freedom of opinion and expression is its most important tenet.

I lean towards Democratic. My friends include electricians, house painters, teachers, janitors -- people who the McCain campaign would consider the salt of the earth -- and we are all voting for Obama. We were all born and raised here. We work our asses off to keep paying the mortgage and send our kids to school. We're all Joe the Plumber, except we actually have our own licenses, and we can't afford $250K to buy a business.

But because we're not Republicans we must be fake Americans.

I want to see T-shirts that read "Joe the Plumbers for Obama."

Edit: and here it is!!!

poetry corner commercial break

2008-10-15T06:26:00.000-07:00

The trail winds up, sometimes steep
The trail winds me, and I stop, lungs a slow bellows
Amid the cool cushions of redwood scent or snappy bay
Lately on these harder trails I have come to believe
That right here, under my sternum, I have a third lung.
It is exactly where my heart would be, if I still had one.
As I hike up, pushing my pulse, sometimes I suck the air
In and in and in and in, and in a little more:
And I feel the third lung open up a slight creak.
I think if I push hard and far enough, that lung will one day fully fill
Take the heart’s place so I won’t have to feel emptied of love

the bulldog's out

2008-10-09T18:25:00.000-07:00

I cannot believe this Palin. She's coming within a hairbreadth of saying, "The niggah wants our white wimmen." I mean, come on! Obama a terrorist plotting the overthrow of America? Does anyone believe that crap? A more salient question is why she hasn't been thrown in jail for hate speech.

She's being Rove in drag, but unlike him, she's a vice presidential candidate. More seemly behavior should be in order. But then again, the Republican party has been the party of serious mud for the last 12 years.

Keep up the good work, lady. The undecideds and the moderates don't like white supremacists. If anything's going to make Obama win, it's Palin.

oops

2008-09-24T19:53:00.000-07:00

There are hazards to car hawking, as I've noted here and there. So far these have all been vehicular.

First stop on the Nearby Route is the local golf course. I was lucky today and saw a likely pair under a cypress. Everything went fine, beautifully even (in-flight catch) until P actually got hold of his quarry.

Cue women golfers, stage left.

They stared a moment at the struggle, then the boldest of them came forward, yelling at my bird. I was striding rapidly already, then stepped up my pace and -- the golf club coming up! -- started yelling at her. She was too focused to see or hear me. Fortunately, she only prodded my bird and by then I was there. I told her I was hunting and she said she didn't know, I said it was okay, and everything was hunkydory.

Whew. I think I got away lucky. People have different reactions to hawks. Someone else might have taken my bird's head off with a 9 iron.

Just one more thing to watch out for.

the month flies by

2008-09-23T20:14:00.000-07:00

with crows, crows, and more crows, and one jackrabbit. I'd gotten a late start and drove the entire 19 miles of The Route without seeing even a possible slip. The hawk was craning his neck so hard, you'd think he could yank crows down from the trees by willpower alone.

As it was getting dark we came to the end of the Route to see a pair of ravens on a light pole, calling with their soft alto warble, a sound sad yet hopeful. I turned north again and took a final pass through some of the streets I'd skipped in my rush.

Where I spotted a lone jackrabbit on a strip of lawn in front of an office, just starting its evening feeding. A sitter always attracts P, and he had caught one from the car earlier this summer. I whipped into the parking lot, P hopped to my outstretched fist, not even knowing what I'd seen but eager for a slip.

He raked it -- it dodged just in time -- and it ran, but shockingly slowly. P bounced up to snag it in the karate hold, and it wriggled into some dirt near the office door. I grabbed both feet then and shoved them down so P could transfer his locked foot.

At that point I saw it was a fairly gravid female, and felt tremendously guilty. I'd only brought tidbits and one small takeoff piece, far too small a reward for catching something of this magnitude. I hate it when this happens, having to make a choice like this.

The rabbit lost. One of these days I'll start breeding jackrabbits to make up for it.

partial albino crow

2008-09-01T21:33:00.000-07:00

It was a smallish one.

and the last day I hunted the sharpy, he caught a deer mushroom:

tomorrow is

2008-08-29T22:31:00.000-07:00

her birthday. The mate, the one I lost to cystic fibrosis last May.

Tomorrow: one year 4 months without her. It seems like much longer; so many things have happened. A new house, the first and possibly last I will own, a new girlfriend come and gone already, people entering and exiting my life: other CF patients, nursing staff, doctors (temporary friends, I suppose), new neighbors. Different places to hike and hawk, old furniture and clothes replaced. Twenty pounds I hope to never see again. New bird, come and gone too. A psychotherapist -- never felt I needed one before, but my friends told me I was a wreck after the breakup with the girlfriend, and I had to agree.

Yesterday, I happened across Querencia in the used bookstore (looking for Borges, found Bodio) and read it today. It begins at the end, with a restless loneliness and oppressive weather. I knew very little about Betsy, Bodio's partner, but within 25 pages I knew the book was about her. I skipped to the end, spotted the word 'pine,' and knew tragedy lay ahead.

This has been a year of suffocation, it seems. The mate, the sharpy, and now reading about Betsy. I'm not normally superstitious, but every one of her cigarettes Bodio mentioned got laid on the pile of warnings that I'm destined for the same fate if I don't stop bullshitting around with "trying" to quit and not actually quitting.

Maybe tomorrow is the day.

another 3 crow day

2008-08-24T17:31:00.001-07:00

It's always fun to go someplace where the crows don't know your car and do not expect Harris hawks to come barrelling at them. Their reaction speed was incredibly slow compared to the "trained" crows: they would see the hawk, freeze, maybe attempt to hunker down, look for an exit direction, and squawk their last. Four flushes, three catches, and the one he missed was at starlings.

this was good.

2008-08-21T18:12:00.000-07:00

a fat piece of ginger, about 2.5" x 1.25", sliced coarsely
2 stalks lemon grass, chopped into 1/2" pieces
4-5 cloves garlic
leaves from 5 stalks basil
about 1.5 oz light soy sauce
about 1/4 cup olive oil
4-5 T Thai curry paste (pick your favorite)
1 T salt

Whirl it all up in the food processor (as fine as possible unless you don't mind chewing lemongrass fibers) and marinate your chicken in a bag overnight. Barbecue.

If you can't find curry paste, that's okay. There's a lot of ways this can be varied with good results -- the essentials are the ginger, lemon grass, garlic, soy sauce and oil. Balsamic vinegar adds a different zip and lime juice would probably be good too.

rules for wait staff

2008-08-18T13:51:00.001-07:00

I don't usually encounter bad service in good restaurants, but I got some today. I waited tables for about a year. I'm generally forgiving of mistakes and allow for when the restaurant is busy. I normally give the standard 15% or a little more. However, when too many mistakes happen or I get disrespect as a paying customer, that tip starts trickling away at an exponential rate.

So listen up:

Even if I've ordered another drink, if I'm drinking the water, tend to my water glass.

Do not give me tons of singles in change. If I need them, I will tell you. If I tell you specifically I want a larger bill for change, give it to me without question. (I was actually asked, "You don't want to leave a tip?" -- a question that made me want to nix the tip entirely.)

Do not ask me if I want change when the change amounts to a significant percent of the bill. You took my order and handed me the bill; of course you know the total. As much as you'd like a 30% tip, it simply will not happen unless you've given outstanding service, great entertainment, and have offered me your daughter's virginity.

resetting

2008-08-17T21:38:00.000-07:00

Over the weekend I did all sorts of crap I'd been neglecting since my life was hijacked by flying a small accipiter. Along with cleaning his box for the last time and putting away the sparrow traps, I mowed the lawn, mopped floors, vaccuumed, all that nonsense. Cleaning is just something you do after someone dies. Part of it is getting yourself to a pre-hijack state, part of it is cleaning your memories along with the mess.

I should probably leave the sparrow traps out anyway, just as supplemental food for the Harris. Dessert, more or less; something different and always fresh.

I gave Mr P some vertical jumps yesterday (he didn't pant until 80, which told me he was still in surprisingly good shape after 2+ months of sitting and molting). Today we caught 2 crows. He was a little stubborn coming out of trees (glove hawking him occasionally would probably fix this), but otherwise he made it look insanely easy. As usual. I wouldn't say car hawking has lost its thrill, but sometimes you want to see the hawk having to work for the quarry.

buried

2008-08-15T18:40:00.000-07:00

under a bay laurel a few trees over from the nest tree. The grave is neither large nor deep, but he lies facing the east. It's quite possible some carrion eater will dig him up, but that doesn't bother me much: the body is only the vessel, it is the body that fails. The self, spirit or soul if you will, is unending.

it was asper

2008-08-14T18:48:00.000-07:00

This morning he was visibly worse, eyes sunken, gaping widely for breath, wanting to sleep at every opportunity. He was completely unfussy about anything. Even though I'd brought his weight up, his breast felt thinner. The vet found a small aspergilloma ball at the bottom of the trachea, too far down to remove with forceps, which would have helped his breathing for the time being. But asper being a fungus, it would just be a matter of time before it started growing again.

In order to live, he'd need to get tracheal injections twice a day for two weeks. He would have to stay at the hospital for the duration, which would basically ruin his training, both as an imprint and as a hunter. I'd go through a lot of expense only to have to release him. Not much of an option.

I chose euthanasia. The five sparrows and one towhee in my traps are now free.

Tomorrow I'll take him back to the nest site and bury him there.

Memory

not dead

2008-08-13T11:09:00.000-07:00

Since he's not dead, maybe it's not asper but just a cold. I kept his box slightly warm last night and, though he's still wheezing this morning, things might be a tiny bit better.

Eyes are still clear and alert, urates look good and copious, fecal also good but quite small. Overnight weight loss predictably more than usual.

More later.

8:30 pm.
Okay, I think he may have either aspirated something or have something stuck in his esophagus. He's been shaking his head a lot, and making motions similar to (but not exactly like) casting. He still looks energetic and alert. He took a bath, which is always a good thing. Even though he's up 5 grams, his behavior on the glove is calmer, which to me indicates he's under some stress.

I gave him a small chip of Spartrix as a prophylactic, and will be feeding him boneless meat until we see the vet tomorrow morning. Hopefully an Xray will show exactly what's going on, and if it's a bone, hopefully they can take it out.

now I'm worried

2008-08-12T21:28:00.000-07:00

He started wheezing today. I don't want to think he has asper but he's an accipiter -- he easily might.

On the weekend I'd joked to K1 that the bird had suddenly turned into the Godfather (Godfeather?): his scream was a tiny rasp about a quarter of the normal volume. After I took off his neck mount he sounded normal again, and I assumed that was the problem. And that may have been the problem -- I don't know what the early stages of asper look like.

Yesterday I noticed he was breathing a little harder than usual. There was also some spiky feathers under his mandible like they were wet. His behavior was normal as was his scream.

Today he was definitely breathing hard after chasing towhees. To my amusement he caught and killed a deer mushroom, and was very possessive about it. After I called him back we drove around a little more and I started noticing a different squeak -- the wheeze. I thought it was something else, but after we took another chase I definitely heard it was coming from him. I fed him his daily portion on the lure, took him home, weighed him, and fed him up on some fresh sparrow.

He's in his box for the night. I can hear his breathing even though he's at rest. I don't know if I'll find a dead bird in the morning. If not, I'll take him to a vet I know in Oakley.

It's possible he's got a bone stuck in his throat... could be something easy like that ... he flew pretty vigorously, ate with energy, his eyes look good, mutes too. We'll just have to wait it out and see. We'll take it easy for a day or three and either he'll make it or he won't.

towhee two

2008-08-11T20:17:00.000-07:00

Slowly but surely Curly seems to be getting more consistent. At this point, if I lost him, I'm sure he'd be fine taking care of himself. We hunted this one off the glove, and he was at 83.5 gm. The towee simply wouldn't leave the area -- wise, because the shrubbery had nothing but airspace around it. We chased that guy through three sets of bushes, getting four short but intense flights. Finally, getting to the end of the line, the towee tried to dive over and back in, but the sharpy nailed it.

I think this brings us to catch #10, not counting an unknown possible kill he may have done the time I lost him overnight. His first catch was 23 days ago. Two towhees, a robin, a killdeer, and the rest English sparrows. I'm not usually a counter -- I have no clue how many crows, and have forgotten how many CTs and jacks I've taken over the years -- but the sharpy is all my own creation, and thus a little bit special.

K1 calls this month the trial by fire, and so far I've gotten hot but not burnt. I'm trying to find other birds in hawkable situations. There are marshy areas where one can find blackbirds, but they've been directed into lengthy canals. As I'm sure I've said many times before, SF Bay mud is like quicksand, only a little slower -- you cross only in places that are clearly passable, or risk getting sucked down to your waist. But these crossings might be a mile apart or more, so if the sharpy catches a sparrow on the opposite bank, I'm going to lose him for sure, hopefully temporarily. The starlings seem scattered, though I think this time of year they should be flocking for ripening fruit. Maybe it's a little later on.

But I have no complaints if he's getting towhees and robins.

Illegalities aside, that is. Only the English sparrow/house sparrow is legal. This is the mire the microhawker faces constantly: small raptors don't consult the Audubon Guide to know what they're allowed to go after. If I heedlessly kept going after sparrows, permanent loss is just a matter of time because of his carrying. I need to go after a slightly larger bird. Doves, though they're ethereally beautiful and damn tasty, are just too big for him. Starlings are legal if depredating crops, but here we only grow industrial parks and shopping malls. So I'm stuck having to take songbirds.

naming conventions

2008-08-10T15:29:00.000-07:00

I've finally decided to name this bird. Sometimes he drives me crazy, and hawking between 8 and 11 times a week is wearing out me, my tires, and my wallet, but I think I like him enough to bother. It doesn't rule out the possibility of release or giving him to someone else. Nor does it rule out the use of other names, like "Dummy," "Slice Factory," and "My Finger is Not a Sparrow, So Please Stop Pumping Your Talons Into It."

While he was still a young thing I occasionally called him Gleep in honor of Bodio's description of the eyas screaming while eating ("Scream! Scream! Scream! Gleep! Scream! Scream! Gleep! Scream!"), which he did do on mercifully rare occasions. But that's just humor to dispel the extremes of ambivalence. You can't help but love watching him grow and learn his job, but at the meta level the process is nerve racking.

He has one odd feather on his back that curls a bit more than usual, so for the moment it's Curly. Which makes me either Moe or Larry.

It's boiling hot out here today, and the little guy was nearly at weight at 3pm. I gave him 1.5 gm, boneless, well seasoned with water, and hope he'll be ready again at 6:30 or so.

84 and snap

2008-08-09T20:44:00.000-07:00

It's looking like 84 is a good one for now. He's been a titch quieter and, though I still make mistakes with slips, he seems more forgiving. K1 says once we come to an understanding (lol) I'll be able to bring his weight up a little, but for now we need to create the pattern.

We did a mix of carhawking and foot today. I'm starting to see how the towhee operates: it heads for the nearest shrubbery, and doesn't usually sneak out the other side, so I can kick it out. Industrial parks have these long lines of boxwoods or whatever up against the side of the buildings, and you can walk down the line kicking until the quarry pops out the end. However, the next set of shrubbery is usually pretty close, and the sharpy wasn't able to catch up.

In the midst of hauling through some stuff I entered a cloud of skunk odor and backed out fast. There was no skunk, but one had recently sprayed the bushes I was walking through, so my pants ended up smelling like burning rubber, and not the fun kind of burning rubber...good thing hawks don't have a sense of smell.

We kept cruising (and stinking) and got a few more slips. I hold his jesses a bit more loosely now; I'm in the learning stage in terms of seeing quarry, and I've muffed slips because of it. I don't want him to feel discouraged, so I hold him tight only when we're between likely areas.

I've loosed him at robins before, and they're pretty nasty little guys. They're aggressive, and yesterday they stooped him hard in tag-team fashion even when he'd landed on the roof with his human just a foot or two away.

Today, he got revenge, and beautifully.

The robin was freezing on the grass about 40 feet away. He studied the situation a moment, and flew out rising to about 25 feet -- then did a vertical stoop worthy of any peregrine. Totally faked out the robin -- it didn't know what hit him. They fought, I plunged in there, broke its neck, pinned it down, and immediately stopped all motion.

The musket started plucking within 10 seconds, and I knew he must be getting to a good weight. As with Tuesday's towhee he was much more forgiving of my right hand and showed no glove aggression. We had a brief, displeased spin when I did something (forget what, but I know it was my fault), but he recovered quickly and resumed eating.

He got a very good gorge and right now he's looking highly content, eyes half closed and occasionally pushing stuff into his pannel.

And I'm hoping all that skunk spray will wash out. I think my runners are destined for the trash, though.

the fun just might be starting

2008-08-05T20:34:00.001-07:00

My microhawker friends have kept telling me the fun is just around the corner. They've been telling me this for weeks. So far it's been a lot of gasoline, a lot of bags, a hawk that alternates between fussy and staring, and pretty annoying amount of carrying. In exchange, I've seen gorgeous flights and gotten at least some game out of it, but the work/fun balance was definitely on the work side. And I'm completely sick of sparrows.

But today was (hopefully) the hint of good things to come.

Somehow this bird has managed to avoid ever being around 85.5. 86 yes, 84 yes, never 85.5. The 10-hour weight loss was 4 grams yesterday, today 9, and he was at 84.8 when I got home. Close enough. I tidbitted him more than usual, just in case.

He understands the carhawking thing much better now, which is great. And I'm learning to distinguish between all these little birds with a glance.This was the result of a good flight after a towhee. He chased it into a bush, popped out and headed it off at the pass as it was trying to get out the other side. And it was too big to carry, muahahahaha. When I got there I could see the carrying impulse battling with the control/kill impulse, until I eliminated all confusion by pinning it down long enough for him to get his balance, and picking up everyone. He was hungry enough to not go into hysterics over that untrustworthy right hand as it stripped the skin off the towhee's head and squished out some yummy, yummy brains.

He settled fairly quickly after that, so we're really close to the right weight. If we can do this a bunch more times, then he should get his head on straight and work with me. The towhee should grow his ego too. So I'm doing the happy dance now.

almost a kill a day

2008-08-04T22:25:00.000-07:00

The weekend has been (relatively) good. He's still carrying, but he's been catching and he caught one a day from Friday to Sunday -- that puts him up to 7 now. I'm nixing the sparrows for now -- I need to go after things that are too big for him to carry, and hopefully he'll need me to help him handle it. He snatched some feathers off a robin today, at 85.9 gm. It was pretty sweet: there were about 5 robins; 2 hunkered down, allowing him a second chance.

I was hoping to have him at 85.5 or 85-nought, but his weight loss patterns seem unstable. Usually when a hawk is fat, he'll lose more grams per hour than when he's lean, so it's a bit of a moving target, but it should be calculable. Weather is a minor factor because I keep him indoors at a steady temperature. So it seems to me his weight loss should be more predictable. Some days he'll lose 3 grams in the course of 10 hours, some days 8 gm. When half a gram matters, it seems hard to feed him the right amout in the morning so he'll be at a certain weight 10 hours later.

As for the very steady and stable Mr P, I flew him last weekend after 3 weeks of sitting around and eating. No muscle right now, but I guess I took the edge off his boredom. We had 3 slips and 3 catches, the last one in flight. The difficulties with the sharpy make me appreciate Mr P a lot.

up to #4 now

2008-08-01T20:31:00.000-07:00

He caught his 4th sparrow this morning, weighing 86 g exactly, but he also has a carrying problem. He flew away from me and I had a hard time finding him the first round, and in that time he ate about half the sparrow. So he'd taken the edge off his appetite and wanted to hide the rest from me.

He kept flying away a short distance, but the shrubs were tall enough to make me haul out the receiver each time. We did this about 15 times while I did various things to try to get close enough to snap him to the glove. None of it worked. Sadly, I don't have the patience to sit back and simply wait, motionless, for the hour or three it would take for him to settle down and start eating. I can wait 10 or 15 minutes at best. Then I would do something that caused him to take umbrage and fly off. Then I'd have to find him again. Repeat.

After talking with my sharpy expert friend K1, I simply went home. That's just a few miles away. Instead of getting frustrated under a noonday sun, I spent the next five hours leisurely trying out a Filipino lunch buffet (not bad), reading the paper, cleaning the sharpy's giant hood, hanging out with Mr P, transplanting a tomato, answering some emails and playing a couple Flash games.

At 5 pm I took my lure and telemetry and went out there. Found him within minutes less than a hundred yards from where I left him. He came straight to the lure like nothing exceptional had happened. Perhaps foolishly, I got the sense he missed me. Even though I'm his sibling out to steal his food (which is why he carries to begin with), I am also the constant in his life.

peachy!

2008-07-30T22:30:00.000-07:00

This house came with a pile of fruit trees: apricot, apple, cherry, peach, lemon, orange. These past few months I was just too busy fixing and furnishing to pay much attention to them apart from making sure the sprinklers were set. (I think I hate lawns. They drink more than I want to give them, so I can't say they're lushes.)

The apricot grew a few that were good, but most of them dropped before they got ripe. Around here, lemons are no big deal: they grow, you make lemonade. The apple has a fungus. The cherry and the orange are still babies and poorly pruned, so nothing there. So to my surprise, I noticed that despite my neglect those little walnut-sized green things I noted when I moved in had become huge, lush peaches, coming into their colors.

There are about a dozen, and by their colors it looks like I can have a peach every 2-3 days for a couple weeks. I've had two already. The honeyish flavor and juiciness of a tree-ripened, never-sprayed peach is amazing. It spoils me. I'm not sure I would buy a peach from a grocery store again.

A note to Stephen Bodio: thanks for your comment. I've long admired your writing; A Rage for Falcons is in my top 5 favorites.

first kill - yay

2008-07-19T19:05:00.001-07:00

He's done some incredible flying, talking WWII dogfight style with the loops and shit. The sparrow flight wasn't nearly as exciting but it did end in a kill, which is the main goal. There's a balance to be found between stylish flight (oooh loverly) and getting game (the gut-level yeah). Falconers should appreciate both.

And yeah, I'm not following McDermott on the eating on the ground thing. He bent a feather taking this one and I want to minimize the amount of sawing and stubbing that beautiful tail gets. If he gets glove possessive, that's just life.

Before this was comedy. A friend had told me carhawking isn't a bad way to get that first kill under your belt. So I was doing a bit of that this morning and afternoon. The flight before this one, he was on the glove and I started cruising slowly past a field full of blackbirds. He got so excited he kept trying to go out the windshield, wouldn't get back on the glove, so I just grabbed him bodily and tossed him out the driver's side window (Mavro would have approved.) That resulted in some intense aerobatics until he tuckered out. He landed on a clod of dirt and, in typical hawk wishful thinking, started footing it like crazy trying to kill it. "Yes, you've killed it," I said, and offered my glove with a tidbit.

I had nearly forgotten about a spot about a mile down the road, and decided to check it out. And that's where we got the sparrow.

blast blast blast

2008-07-18T16:42:00.000-07:00

Back when I had a gos, having her come to the fist was like catching a meteor. The sharpy is no different.

What amazes me is that he automatically comes right back to the glove for no tidbit (we call it free return). I guess this is an eyas imprint thing. He sits like a rock on the fist, then when he sees quarry, goes from rock to rocket. Comes back like a dream. Passage birds and chamber raised is constant bribery.

He's still a screaming pain in the ear, but he's pretty neat. His flights are simply amazing. After just a day or two of free flight, that there's just a pinch less screaming. It'll continue for another month, certainly, but he should know pretty soon that the screaming warns the quarry.

first real free flight - yay

2008-07-17T13:07:00.000-07:00

Tuesday night I lost him in my neighborhood. I thought I had a sensible setup: sparrow on a 15 foot string in my pocket, I let the hawk free-fly, toss out the sparrow, and he's on the easy kill. I didn't think I'd need the transmitter for a shoe-in like that.

It just didn't work that way.

The sparrow, once out of my pocket, flew across the street. I have no idea how she got untied, but she was loose and my musket blasting off after her. He followed her down a space between two houses, she went under the gate, a dog on the other side went crazy, he did a 180 and blasted (do muskets do anything besides blast?) up and over the front of the house, and skimmed back into another yard.

The people there were super cool and let me into their backyard. There were 5 backyards in easy view, but no sign or sound from the musket. For hours. I swung the lure and whistled three hours, till dark, and went home to sleep badly. At 5 am I was up to do it again (though no whistling until 6 something a.m.)

At 6:15 it was pretty bright out and I was across the street from the houses, on the lawn in front of the school where I'd had my Waterloo. Swinging the lure, I heard some crows calling, looked up and saw a bird with jesses fly into the redwood right over me. He was spooky as all hell. After considerable flirting with the lure, I was finally able to grab him and take him home.

That was Wednesday morning.

This morning he was back down to approximately the same weight (94.9) and I knew where I wanted to fly him. I was nervous as hell -- it's late morning, what if he finds a thermal, what if he freaks out at the semi-trucks, what if, what if. I almost did a U-turn to go home. Naturally, the transmitter went on this time.

It was beautiful. He went after a dove, was easily outflown and landed. I swung the lure, instant response. Except instead of coming to the lure, he hit me in the face. No big deal, and I picked him up and kept walking. He held steady on the glove, didn't flirt around at all like he'd done in our neighborhood walks, flying off just for the hecka. He was very focused, relatively speaking; he's certainly still too high, but I'm learning to sense him. He chased some blackbirds and landed on a fence. I put up the glove this time, and again, instant response and landed on the glove like he's supposed to. We walked around some more then approached the bag, which didn't do as directed, but just lay there like meat. The musket landed on it and I let him feed.

Surprisingly, he wanted to be on my glove to eat it. We slowly rose and walked slowly back to the car. Semi trucks drove by and the musket stopped briefly, then continued to feed. The more trucks went by, the less time he bothered to be jumpy about them. He was quiet. We got to the car, where I had stupidly left the water bottle. He got itchy about my right hand occasionally, but seemed very cooperative when I squirted his food (sharpies are prone to dehydration). I had changed from a pink squirt bottle to a clear plastic one, and I think that helped because it looks less like a human finger (appearing to be the invading right hand).

I let him eat pretty much what he wanted. At some point he seemed to lose interest in it and wanted to look around. He seemed quite calm, so I picked off a leg and swapped it for the bottom half. He finished it, picked at his toes, sneezed, picked his toes again, feaked, picked, sneezed, feaked again, then roused. Hawks, especially accipiters, have to do this end-of-meal routine, and they're not happy if you don't let them have the chance to go through it. It's like taking a crap without wiping.

He looked calm and happy on the drive home. His owner looks calm and happy, too.

somewhat unwelcome visitor

2008-07-17T10:14:00.000-07:00

The sparrows started going crazy this morning and I went outside to have a look. Perched on one of the phone poles about half a block away, a mature female Coopers barely glanced at me but she seemed too uninterested and distant to make the sparrows yammer. Then I took a look at the traps and saw the real cause of panic.

Mom was taking the kid to McD's Playplace. Baby buzzed the traps several times.

She was too young to be very afraid, and let me get within 15 feet of her.

She looked enormous and terribly slow in comparison to the sharpy. I took the traps inside and eventually she left. Part of me would have loved to give her a snack, but that will only make her come back. I want a safe place to trap my sparrows and leave the sharpy out for sun.

difficult again

2008-07-13T20:03:00.000-07:00

He's getting hungrier but also hasn't gotten less nervous. He just can't settle down and eat, instead clutching and screaming. Argh.

Good news is that the ants are mostly defeated for now. The stakes actually seem to have worked. I still see some on a trail next to the door, but they're relatively few. I get a few in the house, but I've gotten much more careful about a) immediately putting the game shears in a glass of water and b) making sure the glove and perch are completely free of tidbits. Also, I'm mopping the floor every couple days to get rid of their scent trail.

whew.

2008-07-11T17:36:00.000-07:00

I think I'm getting to the end of the bad part. He responded reasonably well around 101 gm today. We did about 10 flights to the glove, a couple to the lure, and had 2 decent bags today. That weight will step down as he gets used to being lower, until he becomes a good hunter. I may be able to take him off the creance in a day or three.

I just did a quick cope job on the Harris's meat hooks, and he did have meat hooks. All this quail makes not just rapid feather growth but talon growth as well. An awkward business, coping. He won't let me do it when he's standing on the perch, so I do it one-handed with him on the glove, using a carpet knife. I pare the sides thinner, and his moving around on the perch will take care of the length. I haven't done it in a while and it's unsafe to do too much at once: there's blood inside them. Once the talons are shorter, it recedes, and in a week or two I will do it again and get them back to a decent length.

hawkicide hour

2008-07-10T23:52:00.000-07:00

He's been there the last few days. Spooked by all sorts of things he wasn't before. Acts like he wants to kill something, but once it's in his fist he gets all nervous and doesn't want to eat. Doesn't want to come to the glove. Hates the right hand. Screams at me because I haven't been able to strongly reinforce that the prey is out there, not with me.

It's actually gotten a little bit better today. Tomorrow he should be right around 99 and should be hungry enough to kill and eat without fuss. My friend R says at theis time, their heads just aren't on straight, but they'll get there and take it easy.

When I was an apprentice and worried that my passage RT would starve itself rather than take food from me, my friend R would say, "Don't worry, she'll come around." And he was right. And R is right too.

in related news

2008-07-06T21:59:00.001-07:00

I have a mild ant problem. I don't mind ants poking around the periphery -- if an insect has to invade your house, ants aren't a bad choice. But when they get deeper into my house and make it impossible to leave hawk food on the counter for more than an hour, I get annoyed. The sharpy's perch was by the front window, and it would get covered in ants going for a few microparticles of meat (about 3 ants worth, say). Needless to say, the sharpy didn't really like standing there. I'm sure some bit him, and he bit a few himself.

Okay, back to my original question. Ant stakes come in unsealed packages. And the stakes themselves are not sealed up either. The thing I don't understand is, if the bait is as attractive to ants as the package claims, why aren't ants trying to get into the packages on the store shelf? Huh?

Can you tell I haven't had good success with ant stakes?

better, much better

2008-07-04T18:11:00.000-07:00

After those initial awkward days (I need to be absolutely sure he can find the food I leave for him) things have gotten a lot better. He's still occasionally bitey and defensive, but it's more like one out of four to five times now. Carrying is similar.

He's getting close to the end of his tail growth -- one more band to go. At some point soon he will get very difficult, while he's hard penning. This is when the blood is getting absorbed out of the growing feather and back into the body. It's like a transfusion when you don't need one: you have tons more energy, you don't feel hunger. In the hawk there is no interest in doing what the falconer wants.

Fortunately, this only goes on a few days. Hawkicide will be wanted, but hopefully I'll avoid that.

and we have the third one

2008-07-01T22:00:00.000-07:00

He bounced off my face this afternoon. But I think it was mostly accidental as well as a good bit of temper. He'd been alone in my office all day and, although I left half a sparrow for him on the rug, apparently he didn't find it. Consequently he was very low when I came home and very agitated. We went outside and he chased a sparrow standing on the fence, but between creance and low flight skill, he didn't get it. He turned around and came back and smacked me. I'm not sure what his motivation was.

He got the half sparrow to cool him down. I waited a couple hours, set up a live bag, and took him for a neighborhood walk which ended in the bag. That one went beautifully.

backward, forward, something

2008-06-27T19:02:00.000-07:00

Let me start with the fact that I have no experience with imprints. Every falconer knows the worst habits of them: screaming, carrying prey, bouncing off (in Bodio's priceless phrasing) the highest annoying object, which happens to be your face.

I've always said that asking 3 falconers a question is like asking 6 rabbis. You'll get twenty different answers. And when you don't know what you're doing, choosing the right advice is impossible, to put it mildly.

So my 3 falconer friends have given me quite a lot of advice, some of which was to not listen to one of the others.

I was in a good deal of frustration because out of the three worst habits the sharpie was starting to develop two of them: screaming and carrying. Both resulted from a botched live bag yesterday. It would have been fine if I'd killed it as soon as he caught it, but instead the sparrow fought back and basically kicked my sharpy's ass. He ended up pancaked at the end of his string with the screaming sparrow in his foot. This morning he seemed very shy of even going for a dead sparrow, and almost tried to carry it.

Apparently this needs to be done at 111 grams, not 113. The next two tries today were complete magic. Everything went perfectly. He was still screaming a bit at the last one, but I just put him on the fist and kicked back on the lawn chair until he a) settled down and b) shut up. Then we got up and walked over to the sparrow and, though he took a few moments, jumped down onto it. He ate like the thing was nailed to the floor. When he was just about done I slipped a sparrow leg underneath him and he stepped onto the fist like perfection.

The cause of screaming is that the bird looks to you as the provider: you are mommy. The cure is to take that focus away from you and onto the prey. This is done by not letting the bird see you handling the food in any way before it "catches" and eats. And it needs to do the catching itself. However simplistic and lame dropping from the glove onto a dead sparrow may sound, that will eventually translate into flying from your glove onto quarry. That aggression gets directed toward the real food.

If I can get him to do this every time tomorrow, I'm golden.

first not-kill

2008-06-25T21:37:00.000-07:00

Well, she's gotten the live sparrow that my friend K was bugging me to give her (actually I have two hawking buddies who start with a K, so this is K0). We'd all gone out crow hawking and begging for a starling slip, and ended up with just one crow in the bag. When we got back s/he seemed hungry and anxious, so I checked the trap and it had 1 new sparrow in it. Perfect. I tied up the sparrow and put it on the kitchen table, brought the sharpie in.

The sparrow had vanished.

Okay, so I was never a boy scout. I know I tied it with a proper square knot, but in the wrong place. I took the opportunity to weigh her (113 gm), searched for the sparrow, but not too hard. It would keep, and there were 2 more sparrows in the trap.

I pulled one of them, tied it up properly, and put it on the kitchen floor out of the sharpy's line of sight. Picked up the little hawk and walked over to the sparrow. It took her a few moments of staring at the crazily fluttering thing, but she went right off the glove and snagged it. It was by no means beautiful. She simply started plucking it. However horrible, this is normal in the hawk world.

Once in a while it would struggle and her footwork sucked. It was half plucked and bitten several times, and I felt so sorry for it I took a sparrow defrosted earlier today, cut off the top half, and slipped her onto that. It was pretty much in a coma when I broke its neck. She was quite happy with the half-a-sparrow and ate most of the easier meat, leaving the head, spine, and the bony part of the wings. Picked her up onto the lure and a sparrow leg, which she wasn't that interested in.

I was in a quandry here. McDermott says to a) never pick up an imprint on a kill, since it encourages carrying, and b) never let the bird eat a kill on your glove. I have exactly the opposite pattern with the Harris, and I knew I had to eventually get the bird on the glove, so I kind of did a little of both and held her, the lure, and the half-a-sparrow, and stayed right in the same spot. Hopefully that won't screw her up.

I grabbed the flashlight and walked around the living room and eventually found sparrow #1. He goes back in the trap. Unfortunately, the sparrow supply is enough of a trickle that no one gets freedom whether or not they earn it.

After the meal she was 117 grams. Five grams constitues a decent meal for a sharpy.

looking like a falconry bird now

2008-06-23T22:26:00.000-07:00

separated at birth?

Around midafternoon she'll sack out for a few hours, especially at work where things are boring, and sleeps in the nest. Other than that, she stands the rest of the time. Today she's been learning to ride on the glove. It took absolutely nothing to get her to jump to the glove for a tidbit. With passage birds and even chamber raised eyases, this takes some doing. You have to admit, imprints simply love you.

hot day today.

2008-06-20T21:54:00.000-07:00

Yes, I almost look like a hawk.

A couple of days ago she started footing things, just playfully. She was biting at a stick and then this long foot shot out and grabbed, and snapped back.

The last couple days have been a bit more relaxed. The weather's been horrendous and it's hard to take her out to see things. Everyone wants to just flop flat and lie as still as possible. Up till now every day has brought something new. Overall she was standing a lot more, running and jumping on things, but that has just held steady.

Right now she needs to finish growing her feathers and get more leg strength. She still has trouble standing on one foot while scratching her head with the other.

The other day I found a great field that I will probably be making good use of when she's ready.

feathers feathers everywhere

2008-06-16T20:58:00.000-07:00

Everywhere we go, we leave a trail of fine downy bits. They're not really noticeable until you take the nest box outside and all the stuff blows out. And there's tons of feather sheath particles that fall to the bottom of the box.

I love her to death but eyas raising is an incredibly messy business. Hunting involves a certain amount of blech, but what I'm doing goes way beyond. Mincing starlings and sparrows (the cuisinart doesn't work that great, it's better with a cleaver), scissoring small bones into particle-sized bits, and plopping that goop 6 times a day onto a lure or a dead bird means permanent meat stains under your fingernails. The kitchen floor is permanently littered with sparrow feathers.

On a more positive note, I took a visit to the nest site yesterday. I counted 3 eyases for sure, and possibly four. It's also possible that the egg never hatched. They looked fine, active and healthy, and at the same stage of development as my girl. The nest is pretty crowded now, mom mostly on the side. Must be weird to lie down on top of all these bumpy, shifting baby birds.

a bit of fun

2008-06-13T20:07:00.000-07:00

For a fraction of a second she stood without wing support, and did it several times today. She doesn't really need the heating pad during the day anymore. She eats readily from the lure and has been able to pull some meat from a heavily-scored bird. Sometimes she uses her feet to hold food, and I can see she's gripping things more. So far she's seen horses, trucks, and dogs. I still need to expose her to trains and cows.

This evening I had a little fun at her expense. I know, the camera work is poor, and I'm sure the sound quality is terrible, but it's overall cute and the lyrics are quite suitable.

This works because hawks naturally track moving objects. All I had to do was move my hand up and down in time with the music. (Doing this while recording on a slight buzz explains the shaky camera.) It works for most hawks, both young and old.