Category Archives: Wanderings

Birds, Half-finished ramblings, Snapshots, Wanderings

Fishing the sky

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“What a needy, desperate thing to claim what’s wild for oneself…”

 

Can a kept hawk ever be a *happy* hawk, I wonder?

 

 

Falconers will say their birds are well-loved and are cared for properly. I don’t doubt that.

Educators who work with non-releasable birds will say that many people who otherwise wouldn’t have the chance to interact with a wild thing are touched by the lives of these captive birds. I don’t doubt that, either.

But keeping wild-caught birds for falconry? Purposely fishing the sky for a healthy hawk to catch and keep as one’s personal hunting partner?

How is that right?

Are captive-bred birds somehow less desirable for falconry?

Anyone know?

I’m as guilty as the next person of enjoying the “horse and pony show” offered by the opportunity to be up close with a wild bird of prey, but I can’t help wondering that their souls aren’t somehow diminished by the contact; by being kept.

Non-releasable birds have to be thought of in a different context, I guess, because of their potential as champions and ambassadors of a species; were it not for them most people would never have the chance to see a Bald Eagle or a Screech Owl at arm’s length. Or to understand the impact we humans have on them.

But falconers and their healthy wild-caught birds?

I’m not so sure how I feel about that.

My issue is not with falconers, exactly. Falconry sounds like a very cool thing to do… there was a period of time where I read everything about falconry that I could get my hands on. Dan O’Brien’s books were particularly alluring to me… his stories of hunting grouse and ducks on the prairies of South Dakota with a dog and the constant sky…

Falconers are due credit, I believe, for the role they played in saving the Peregrine Falcon, among other species. The individual falconer with a couple birds that he flies on weekends as part of a greater lifestyle does not trouble me.

My issue is with those who turn to *education* to support a habit of acquiring birds. Maybe they need an educational component on their license to increase the number of birds they’re permitted to keep. I have no idea, really, but I’ve seen a number over the years who just don’t seem to be doing the right thing by the birds in their care.

Maybe I’m just being overly sentimental.

“… to be wild means nothing you do or have done needs to be explained.”

Photos: Harris’ Hawk at an upstate NY *raptor center*
Quotes from “Hawk” by Stephen Dunn

Crazy things i do to amuse myself, Snapshots, Wanderings

A Picturesque view of Olana

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This photo is mostly about the clouds for me…

(god, I love a wide-angle lens!)

But there’s the whole Persian mansion thing at Olana and finding a more complete view of it was very difficult. Frederic Church designed it that way; he wanted the landscape to be experienced in *glimpses* or a particular, planned sequence of views…

The other photographers at Camp that weekend approached their work very seriously and with tripods, lining up to take (presumably) the same photo as the person before and behind.

(blech!)

I wandered around and in Gorilla-photographer mode ran down this hill with arms extended… briefly considered a child-like roll, even…

(but for the camera equipment and the embarrassment of being caught in the act!)

I turned around and found the mansion perched beside a maple tree afire…

: )

A Ming vase can be well-designed and well-made and is beautiful for that reason alone. I don’t think this can be true for photography. Unless there is something a little incomplete and a little strange, it will simply look like a copy of something pretty. ~John Loengard, “Pictures Under Discussion”

Seasons, Snapshots, Wanderings

Daybreak

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There is truth in a tree, yet it’s of a different kind, now. It’s not the verity born of strength and affirmation, but the peaceful quiet of fulfillment and endings.

The passing of summer is the passing of beauty; first the chicory is gone and now the goldenrod has faded. I feel winter rushing towards me in the painful blue of sky. The maples are busy making their own light; the long deep breath of Autumn has begun. 
Birds, Small truths, Wanderings

The happiness that comes to us

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Disgruntled beginning birders were the theme at Sandy Hook Bird Observatory today; my first volunteer day since, oh… June, I guess.

Sitting behind the desk in that drafty building on the bay, on any given Sunday, promises a variety of experiences. Many days we see no one, but oftentimes we have a mix of visitors, full of questions, but hesitant to spend any money to validate our presence there.

Today, Donna and I managed to sell exactly one “Butterflies of Sandy Hook” checklist.

(Exactly sixty-four cents with tax.)

A banner sales day!

; )

Donna, who’s a librarian by day, is used to this sort of trading of information for the sake of visitorship. She recognizes our purpose there more readily than me, probably.

Me… I feel like I haven’t earned my keep as a volunteer if I haven’t sold at least one copy of the Sibley’s guide…

The folks who came in today or called to complain… about the birds not being Here now… or the birds not being There yesterday, were expressing a frustration that I imagine many of us feel…

We want what we want from the natural world, when we want it.

If we show up… we expect Nature will be there waiting for us, with bells on.

Right?

I’ve spent the last couple weekends at Cape May or at the hawkwatch in Montclair… looking for hawks, waiting for them to show…

They never did, really, not in any spectacular way that I’ve come to expect. Instead there was a huge passing of Monarch butterflies at Cape May and Buckeyes in the hundreds of thousands…

And a Ruby-throated Hummingbird that amused me for hours while waiting for Broadwings to pass, near invisible, overhead…

Opportunities fly by while we sit regretting the chances we have lost, and the happiness that comes to us we heed not, because of the happiness that is gone.

~Jerome K. Jerome, The Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow, 1889