Sumi . . . ??

What in the world is going on with Sumi?

Well, she molted out to be a Western morph red tail.  In other words, Buteo jamaicensis Calurus.

 
However, she did take her sweet time finishing up the molt, and in fact failed to drop her first three to four primaries on each wing.  She would also, very recently, decide to yank out one of her deck feathers that I had attached a transmitter connector to.

I have also been a bit slow myself getting her on the wing.  We have a lot of weight to drop.  I am making progress now, and hopefully will find out whether or not she will be a falconry bird.  Last year we ran out of time to discover the answer.

She's a beautiful girl!  Here is a close-up that I played with a little in photo edit for fun.

Nova - Almost There!

Nova is making good progress.  Very soon we will be able to call her a Falconry Bird.  The picture above was on her first free flight hunt.  She got to see a few bunnies kicked out for her, and did catch a meadow vole, which was quickly put into her crop.

When she was flown at my "Honey Hole" ee must have kicked out 10 or 12 bunnies for her.  She got many good chases, but still has not sealed the deal.

On another day, no picture taken, we took her flying in a park that is well known for squirrels.  She showed that she will chase those tree rats, but we did not have many volunteers that day willing to come out to play.  Anna flew her with her dad over the last weekend at a golf course where she did get the chance to see a pheasant.

On the Winter Solstice she did finally put her foot on a bunny, but had grabbed it in some thick brush, and before Anna made it to her the bunny ripped free from her grasp around some branches and escaped.

Very very soon this team will pull it all together!

Some Action with Wyvern, and soon Nova too!

First tiny bunny for Wyvern this winter.  Oh, and on this day she would go on to lose her transmitter in that thick brush, and Rich and I would go back later in the dark and find it.

Bunny #2 for Wyvern when out with Anna.

Bunny #3 with Rich at one of our favorite farm yards.

Nova is doing long creance flights and will be flying free soon.

New Apprentice - New Bird

Some time in September, I think it was, I was contacted by our Falconry Coordinator for the State of Minnesota inquiring if I might be interested in taking over the apprenticeship of a young lady in Rochester.  Her name is Anna (last name withheld by design).  She has already passed all the initial hurdles to get into falconry, having been a Junior Apprentice with her father, and having previously had a bird.  Through circumstances which I will not document here, she was needing a new sponsor. I met up with her and was impressed with her drive and commitment to the sport.  I agreed to take her on.  We then spent a good number of days in September and October looking for a bird for her.  It was a long hunt, and few birds were spotted in the Rochester area, but finally, on October 10 we found this girl outside of Austin, Minnesota.  She came to the trap very quickly and was taken home triumphantly.  She weighed in at 1325 grams, a solid female.

Anna has named her Nova

Progress has been a little slow, but finally this girl is starting to understand what is being asked of her.  Last night I had Anna calling her across the garage.  Soon, she will be tested outside for longer creance flight.

Falconry Education Talk (in 5 parts)

In October I was asked to give an education talk about Falconry to one of the local small schools during their camping week.  I was joined by Foxfeather and my new apprentice Anna.  The kids asked great questions . . . and my hawking posse friends did great too sharing their own birds with the group.

Sev Grown Up

On a recent visit to Foxfeather's home, I got to visit with Severus, my "godson" of a vulture.  He's almost all grown up and has all his feathers, with just a little remaining down, and is now very mobile in the house.  In fact, when not monitored he is kept in the sun room, until his mew is all completed.  He has his wings and is learning to use them.  He is wicked smart, and none too afraid of people anymore.  In fact, sometimes he is just a little too full of himself, which he was this night.

2019-2020 Falconry Season

The seasons turn, and Autumn approaches.  A new falconry season is upon us.  On Friday, September 13 I spotted the first juvenile red tail this season.  I know it is hard to see in this picture, but trust me, that is a passage bird.  I tried to get closer for a better picture, but then bumped this bird who flew across the road and out of view.  She was actively hunting.  If I had a trap, and a desire to catch her, I probably would have been able to, easy.

That same night I slipped into Wyvern's chamber, after dark, and using a strobe light blinded her so I could catch her up.  I have not had any hand on her since last March or April, when I set her up for the molt.  She is looking sleek and beautiful in her fresh new wardrobe of feathers, but she is a fatty and we have a lot of work to bring her down and get her fit for the season. 

Let the work begin!

Something Different

Over the weekend I accepted an invitation from Foxfeather and her husband Roman and came up to Minneapolis to attend the Furry Migration. This was a gathering of mostly Minnesotan "Furries", which despite some bad press and misunderstanding in the boring mainstream community, are mostly creative, artistic people who love animals, and celebrate the idea of anthropomorphic animals (animals with human characteristics like walking on two legs, talking and dressing).

A convention allows furries to gather, and for those who have gone all out to create costumes of their "fursona", or furry persona, to walk around in costume, play games, and generally have fun together.  It is also an opportunity to peruse through the Dealers Den and Artist's Gallery for anthropomorphic art, or just plain animal art.  Foxfeather has been participating in this fashion for more years than she can count.  It is where she makes some of her most sales every year.  BTW, you can visit her web presence here:  Foxloft

Most, probably all conventions, also select a local animal charity and help to fund raise for that charity.  It is putting a love of animals into action to actually help animals.  At this convention the charity was the Minnesota Pitbull Rescue. I made a donation by buying a shirt.

For myself, I think I have found my lost tribe!  I used to participate in art, mostly sketching, and some experimentation in other medias waaaaaaay back in High School, and then I had a small scholarship for the one year I attended University in 1985.  I quickly determined that I was not good enough to really make a living on it, so went on to do other things.  However, over time I have allowed myself to get out of touch with art altogether.  This is something I should change, RIGHT NOW.

I took a sketch pad with me, and then sketched from pictures I took at the Convention.  Furry costumes are absolutely the best for quick sketches, as many of them are what is called "toony", looking somewhat cartoonish, which makes them very easy to render into quick drawings.

Please note, these are all really quick sketches.  The point was not to go for realism, but to just dust off my skills of rendering onto paper what my eye sees, quickly.  Most of these were done in quick minutes.

On a few I added color.  After all, I lugged my bag with colored pencils to the Con, having to park like a half mile away and walk (OK, maybe not that far, but it felt like it).

I had such fun that I am already making plans to go to the Convention in Chicago, Midwest Furfest.  That is, one day of it.  I have already checked in with my girlfriend, Darla, and found out that she does not have plans for that weekend.  So I will visit her, and we will attend the Saturday.  I can take more pictures, and do more sketches.

Who knows, I even have a fursona in mind for myself, but that would be a whole other level of creativity, and would not be ready by the first weekend of December.  We'll see how far this new zest for my art takes me.

I am Godmother to a Vulture

A short time ago, my former apprentice, Foxfeather (I just advanced her to General this last Spring) achieved a life-long dream, that of acquiring a vulture.  She is an advocate for all things vulture and has wanted to acquire one to begin being able to educate people about the value of these very misunderstood birds.

In mid July she was informed by a person who breeds these birds, Lesser Yellow-Headed Vulture, a species found in South America, that a chick was available if she wanted it.  She has been on the waiting list for a long time.  She jumped into her car and drove to Alabama to bring home her new bundle of fluff.

Because this bird is destined to be an education ambassador, it is very important that it becomes human imprinted, as well as very comfortable being around human environments.  Fox is raising him loose in her livingroom (vultures do not have strong legs so cannot be tethered like raptors), and is taking him to many education opportunities already for him to get used to what his life is going to look like.

I say "him" because she has now gotten a DNA test to determine his sex.  He's a boy!  She has named him Sev (short for Severus from Harry Potter).

I try to get over to her home and interact with the baby so he is familiar with me.  He is still fairly shy, as most vultures are, and sometimes runs away when I come in and lay down on the floor and talk to him.  Sometimes I bring tasty vulture snax (live mouse or rat pinkies or fuzzies), at which point he's my buddy.  Like any good Godmother, I don't have to really do anything to take care of the baby, just come and dote on him some, spoil him, although his mamma does a very good job at that.

Sev will most likely learn some tricks to add in his appeal as an education ambassador.  Vultures are rather intelligent, curious and social animals.  They just have a bad rap because of what they do . . . which is to provide a valuable service in the wild.  Where would we all be without the garbage man?

Fox has established the Vulture Conservancy.  With time she hopes / plans to acquire other vultures, but Sev is going to be the first.  Her site will become more active with time.  You can link to her to read up more about this endeavor, or even schedule her to come and give a presentation.  She can also be found on Patreon if you would like to support her work and get access to more backstories.

Vulture Conservancy

Patreon - Foxfeather

More Goat Babies

Spring 2019 has come and gone.  I posted many pictures of goat babies but didn't put any text to them.  I will correct that now.  Total births this year were 19 kids.  Just about all of them came in variations on a theme of white with black spots, as that is the color mostly represented by my herd.  However there is some brown in there, and Cashew gave me two completely adorable doelings. She would go on and also give me some milk.  Fuzzy was also brought to the stand and contributed milk.



Between these two descendants of my oldest goat Macaroon and the contributions of my two new Nigerian Dwarf Goats, Poppy and Marigold, I was getting a goodly amount of milk for awhile.  However, milking every morning was quite the task.  I did buy myself a milking machine, however later into June and the start of July I slacked off on my milking, and with the kids not taking as much either, my mamma goats are drying off.  We did get some nice cheese while it lasted.

These three are Macaroons triplets this year.  We would go on to bottle feed the smallest one, a little buckling we ended up naming Tiny Tim, as he needed a little help, his mamma not having a lot of milk, and his two bigger sisters drinking it all.

Rich is holding Biscotti's triplets.  Some several weeks later we did lose the youngest doeling of this set.  Something was not right with her, and in the terrible heat we had at the middle of July she succumbed to her weakness.  Otherwise, all the others appear to be doing fine.

Spring Begins

This is the first year that I have pure bred Nigerian Dwarf Goats on our farmette.  Marigold gave us a set of triplets, and a very colorful set at that.  Below they are in their isolation nursery.  I always try to separate mommas from the herd when they first have their kids, and especially if they are first-time mommas, as these two were.

Poppy gave us a set of twins.

The new family bonds by themselves.

After having two weeks all to themselves, I would start penning up the kids during the evening in a large kennel, all kids together (all five) inside where their mothers were housed.  They could see and smell and hear their babies, they just couldn't nurse them.  I would then begin to take the morning milk and reunite everyone so the kids could nurse all day.  This is how you start getting milk from a milk goat.

On the hawk front, Wyvern has been successfully influenced by the lighting in her mew and started her molt.  Hopefully she will be done and I can whip her into shape for the start of the small game season in mid September.  Flint has taken up residence in my living room.  Ya, really!  That is an old rug that he can poop on and it doesn't matter.  I find this keeps him more calm, and manned.  I had hoped to hold off his molt and maybe try to fly him a little this summer, but he quickly joined into the feather dropping fun, so scratch that plan!

Waiting for Spring

In mid to late March I usually get very tired of the long winters that sometimes happen here in Minnesota.  It is then time to make a trip up to the Cities to the Como Park Conservatory and enjoy the Spring flowers in the Sunken Garden.  This year I was going to share this with our friends Foxfeather and Roman when we were in the Cities attending a museum attraction (see later in this posting), but we failed to notice the times the park is open in the winter, and were too late after our lunch.  Well, I made up for that mistake and returned the following weekend, catching up with my niece and her boyfriend.

Como Park's Spring Show can always cheer me up, even if there were a whole hoard of people there getting their early flower fix on.  I was not the only one tired of Winter.  My niece Sarah and her boyfriend Sam joined me, having shown them my favorite Mexican Food restaurant there.

On March 23rd Rich and I joined Foxfeather and Roman to attend an exhibit at the Minneapolis Institute of Art (MIA), called Sunken Cities, Egypt's Lost Worlds.

It is a collection of sculptures and ritual objects excavated from Thonis-Heracleion to Canopus, an area just off the coast of the Egyptian Delta, east of Alexandria.  Quoting from the book we purchased, this exhibit is of objects that: "Unveiled the secret paths of the Osiris Mysteries and the rituals celebrating the god's return to life and the cycle of the seasons, which protected the unity and prosperity of the country as well as the dynastic continuity of the Pharaohs."

There were also many other items which I know did not come from this site but were most likely lent to the exhibit to flesh it out.  This included a full-sized Apis Bull.

Most of the items which come from this particular site, and were excavated from underwater, were stone tablets detailing the rituals practiced, or ritual objects like "simpula, situla, votive barques, sistra, and bowl fragments of incense burners."  There were many statues that have been softened by their time underwater, as this entire region was cast into the water over the centuries by seismic action in the region.  There were also multiple offerings, tiny intricate golden rings and amulets.

I only included a few of the items I photographed that were particularly impressive to me.  I have always been fascinated by Egypt, and would so love to travel to see this country for myself, but I think this is a dream that I will now never realize as the trip would be very expensive, and the country itself is not so safe for tourists anymore.  A pity really, as it houses some of the most spectacular sculpture and intriguing religious history.  I have felt a deep affinity for their art and would enjoy seeing more of it. 

On a different note, as were were at the MIA and our ticket into the exhibit also allowed us to see the rest of the collection, I found this marble statue to be absolutely gorgeous.  Look at the detail of these carved wings.  Such skill by the artist!

Returning to Falconry . . .

Of special note I am going to conduct a little experiment.  Every year I seem to get a late start on the fall hunting because my Harris Hawk is just not done with her molt.  Her window to hunt is limited as she can no longer be safely flown once it gets below freezing.  Well, because our season ends at the last days of February, I set up her mew's lights to come on for 14+ hour days, and this year added a "happy light", a full spectrum lamp to simulate the Summer sunshine.  Let's see if all this extra light will kick off her molt early so she will be done in August for conditioning to start the hunt when the small game season opens.

I don't plan to weather Wyvern outside as she is just wild crazy in her mew when her weight is normal, never mind when it is high.  It is just easier to bring the light to her, than to take her outside to the light.  Hopefully this will work.