Thursday, July 02, 2009
Flat Hawk Down
Plans to moult Mabel out in an aviary fell through this year -- if anyone has a spare pen, pleeeease get in touch -- but so far, she seems to be quite happy to renew her feathers on her bow. It's been bitterly hot the last few days, so rather than put her on the lawn, she's been loafing inside, with a bath to keep her company. And every morning, as the sun hits the floor, she engages in a spot of luxuriant sunbathing. Bless.
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Inspector Calls
I’ve a territorial, defensive soul. There’s nothing like a visit from the landlord to put me on the back foot and then some. 8am came, finally, and I was spilling with contagious rage. I'd seriously considered burning the bastard house to the ground. It seemed a logical means of preventing any complaints about coffee rings on the Ercol table.
I put Mabel back in her transformed, super-clean room. She jumped onto her perch, and then looked and was like whaaat? Blue masking tape? Aaaaargh! and bated. Onto the lining paper, and her talons punched through the paper, and she stared down and was like whaaaaaaat? What is THIS? Where is my carpet? Bate bate bate bate. Meanwhile upstairs The Birdoole is making his special noise over and over again, half starling churr, half white noise, which is the most annoying noise he can make and well he knows it.
It is at this point I wish – and I swear, fretmarketeers, that I have never thought this before, which may seem strange, but there you are – in the midst of this crescendo of hawk bells and paper tearing and beating remiges and yelling parrot – I wish for a VERY LARGE DRINK. Gin-based. Or gin, solely.
By eleven, things are calmer. I’m upstairs marking essays at my desk, though fractiously. It’s soothing air; the window opens onto cool grey. A red Ford draws up. A man and woman get out.
The prospective tenants have a son, and he is autistic. I know this from my landlord. He must be, what, eight? No sign of him. But these are parents; they’re moving with the imperceptible restraint of manner that is born of care so he must be in the back of the car. Yes. And as he climbs out of the car, my heart folds and falls because he is wearing a stripy red and orange jumper and is grasping in each hand a model sea-lion.
Downstairs the grown-ups are talking, and the boy is bouncing about in the semi-darkness of the hall. He is totally bored. I look down at his hands. Each of the sea-lions has chips of missing paint about its nose where it has interacted with the other, or with something hard, and I ask him if he wants to see the parrot. His eyebrows rise and he waits. A brief, wordless ok from his parents, and we ascend the stairs. He counts each step out loud. And we stop in front of the cage. The bird and the boy stare at each other.
They love each other. The bird loves the boy because he is entirely full of joyous, manifest amazement at the bird. The boy just loves the bird because he is a bird. And the birdoole does that chops-fluffed-little-flirting twitch of the head, and the boy does it back. And soon the bird and the boy are both swaying sideways backwards and forwards dancing at each other, although the boy has to shift his grip on the plastic sea lions to cover both ears with his palms, because the bird is so delighted he’s screeching at the top of his lungs.
It is loud says the boy,
That’s because he's happy – he likes dancing with you I say.
And then, after a few moments, I tell him that I like his sea lions very much.
He frowns as if he’s assuming upon himself the responsibility of my being one of the elect, and says, ‘lots of people think they are…’ he pauses contemptuously ‘…seals’.
But of course they are sea lions! I say.
Yes, he says.
We glory in the importance of accurate classification.
**
His parents are here in the room. One look at my tiny lawn was enough; far too small for their son. So much for my week of cleaning purgatory.
His mother looks anxious. Come on Tomas! We are going now.
There is, suddenly, one of the most beautiful moments of human-animal interaction I have ever seen. Tomas nods his head gravely at the birdoole, and the birdoole does a deep, courteous bow in return.
A minute later I hear the front door open, and just before they cross the threshold, I can hear clicking that I suspect might be the collision of sea lion’s noses, and then Tomas makes an announcement. “I am going to sleep in the room with the parrot, when we live here’, he says. Such hard words to hear, uttered with such certainty, in the hall.
I put Mabel back in her transformed, super-clean room. She jumped onto her perch, and then looked and was like whaaat? Blue masking tape? Aaaaargh! and bated. Onto the lining paper, and her talons punched through the paper, and she stared down and was like whaaaaaaat? What is THIS? Where is my carpet? Bate bate bate bate. Meanwhile upstairs The Birdoole is making his special noise over and over again, half starling churr, half white noise, which is the most annoying noise he can make and well he knows it.
It is at this point I wish – and I swear, fretmarketeers, that I have never thought this before, which may seem strange, but there you are – in the midst of this crescendo of hawk bells and paper tearing and beating remiges and yelling parrot – I wish for a VERY LARGE DRINK. Gin-based. Or gin, solely.
By eleven, things are calmer. I’m upstairs marking essays at my desk, though fractiously. It’s soothing air; the window opens onto cool grey. A red Ford draws up. A man and woman get out.
The prospective tenants have a son, and he is autistic. I know this from my landlord. He must be, what, eight? No sign of him. But these are parents; they’re moving with the imperceptible restraint of manner that is born of care so he must be in the back of the car. Yes. And as he climbs out of the car, my heart folds and falls because he is wearing a stripy red and orange jumper and is grasping in each hand a model sea-lion.
Downstairs the grown-ups are talking, and the boy is bouncing about in the semi-darkness of the hall. He is totally bored. I look down at his hands. Each of the sea-lions has chips of missing paint about its nose where it has interacted with the other, or with something hard, and I ask him if he wants to see the parrot. His eyebrows rise and he waits. A brief, wordless ok from his parents, and we ascend the stairs. He counts each step out loud. And we stop in front of the cage. The bird and the boy stare at each other.
They love each other. The bird loves the boy because he is entirely full of joyous, manifest amazement at the bird. The boy just loves the bird because he is a bird. And the birdoole does that chops-fluffed-little-flirting twitch of the head, and the boy does it back. And soon the bird and the boy are both swaying sideways backwards and forwards dancing at each other, although the boy has to shift his grip on the plastic sea lions to cover both ears with his palms, because the bird is so delighted he’s screeching at the top of his lungs.
It is loud says the boy,
That’s because he's happy – he likes dancing with you I say.
And then, after a few moments, I tell him that I like his sea lions very much.
He frowns as if he’s assuming upon himself the responsibility of my being one of the elect, and says, ‘lots of people think they are…’ he pauses contemptuously ‘…seals’.
But of course they are sea lions! I say.
Yes, he says.
We glory in the importance of accurate classification.
**
His parents are here in the room. One look at my tiny lawn was enough; far too small for their son. So much for my week of cleaning purgatory.
His mother looks anxious. Come on Tomas! We are going now.
There is, suddenly, one of the most beautiful moments of human-animal interaction I have ever seen. Tomas nods his head gravely at the birdoole, and the birdoole does a deep, courteous bow in return.
A minute later I hear the front door open, and just before they cross the threshold, I can hear clicking that I suspect might be the collision of sea lion’s noses, and then Tomas makes an announcement. “I am going to sleep in the room with the parrot, when we live here’, he says. Such hard words to hear, uttered with such certainty, in the hall.
Saturday, May 16, 2009
Friday, May 15, 2009
Advertising Fail
Whenever life gets you down, just turn to the internet. Today's offering is a British site offering free adverts for people who wish to buy and sell birds. And what a rich pageant of life is evidenced there.
Today's pick ranges from the astonishingly vague and succinct:
I want to buy a hawk, about half year age.
to the simply baffling:
I am looking for a pair of inprinted Very young Barn Owls in the wales area if possible
Why? Seriously. I'm tempted to ring the premium rate number to tell him that barn owls are less fun than anything else in the world. You know me, folks; I'm here to teach.
There are adverts from the hopeful:
hi there my name is kevin i rescue peregrins & harris hawks off people that buy them and dont realize the dedication involved in keeping them if this is you and you find yourself unable to care for your raptor then get in touch with me and i will pick the bird up from you we do not buy birds all birds must be free to us where a good home is waiting for them over 20 years experience with raptors
To the increasingly desperate:
right I'll be honest - I'm going 2 prison on 25th so everything needs 2 go. 2 male finish gossis 08 bird 650 1999 bird 500 bonded pair harris 500 male gyr pere and block and hoodtelemetry marshall trx 2 transmitters 600. if someone takes the lot 2000 they have the aviaries free charge.
Anyway – moving on – I dreadfully misinterpreted an advert, just now. This one:
I have an Alutek aviary for sale. It measures 6ft long, 6 ft high and 3ft wide with a door to the front. The mesh is 14 guage, 1 mesh. It is entirely made from aluminium. It has been disassembled for ease of transportation and consists of 7 panels.
The aviary is only six months old and housed two POWs for a couple of months.
£100 ovno
POWs?
I stopped reading like I'd hit a brick wall with my face.
Read it again, Helen.
TWO of them?
It's very Guantanamo. Is this some guy's private prison for ... but no, what? what the....backgarden prisoner of war camp? what? wtf?
But it was fine. All was fine. I had forgotten that acronyms may mean more than one thing.
I also have a male Princess of Wales cock bird in lovely condition and ready to breed. £35 ono
Relieved.
Today's pick ranges from the astonishingly vague and succinct:
I want to buy a hawk, about half year age.
to the simply baffling:
I am looking for a pair of inprinted Very young Barn Owls in the wales area if possible
Why? Seriously. I'm tempted to ring the premium rate number to tell him that barn owls are less fun than anything else in the world. You know me, folks; I'm here to teach.
There are adverts from the hopeful:
hi there my name is kevin i rescue peregrins & harris hawks off people that buy them and dont realize the dedication involved in keeping them if this is you and you find yourself unable to care for your raptor then get in touch with me and i will pick the bird up from you we do not buy birds all birds must be free to us where a good home is waiting for them over 20 years experience with raptors
To the increasingly desperate:
right I'll be honest - I'm going 2 prison on 25th so everything needs 2 go. 2 male finish gossis 08 bird 650 1999 bird 500 bonded pair harris 500 male gyr pere and block and hoodtelemetry marshall trx 2 transmitters 600. if someone takes the lot 2000 they have the aviaries free charge.
Anyway – moving on – I dreadfully misinterpreted an advert, just now. This one:
I have an Alutek aviary for sale. It measures 6ft long, 6 ft high and 3ft wide with a door to the front. The mesh is 14 guage, 1 mesh. It is entirely made from aluminium. It has been disassembled for ease of transportation and consists of 7 panels.
The aviary is only six months old and housed two POWs for a couple of months.
£100 ovno
POWs?
I stopped reading like I'd hit a brick wall with my face.
Read it again, Helen.
TWO of them?
It's very Guantanamo. Is this some guy's private prison for ... but no, what? what the....backgarden prisoner of war camp? what? wtf?
But it was fine. All was fine. I had forgotten that acronyms may mean more than one thing.
I also have a male Princess of Wales cock bird in lovely condition and ready to breed. £35 ono
Relieved.
Wynges, fete, and tethe
I expect there’s no-one out there any more, but hello anyway. I’ve been in a state of clear and present danger of late – my landlord is bringing some prospective tenants to look at my house tomorrow. I can’t afford to keep this house on, and am looking for somewhere smaller, and possible more remote. In the sense of being outside town. Anyway, thus: the last week has been purgatory. Clean, sweep, wipe, clean. Goshawk mutes off carpet (how?) (repaint walls) (where on earth did this come from, what is it, and where should I put it?) shit, look at the stains on this curtain. What on earth even are they? Etc.
Nature abhors a vacuum, and so do I. and it’s not been making my teaching particularly inspired. Retaining the house-cleaning mindset in a practical criticism supervision is alarming. That’s what the faces of my students appeared to suggest.
So I’ve papered the floor of Mabel’s room with extravagant swags of lining paper and I’ve masking-taped them to the skirting boards. I’m going to stuff her with food, and hood her, and wait for the inevitable bate as the tenants are shown ‘her’ room, and that mix of worry, bewilderment, and rising anger in the landlord and his mother that having her in the house will surely provoke.
Enough of my polished panic. I wanted to tell you this: found a book the other day on EEBO (Early English books online, that is) which is already embroidered on my heart. It’s a book called:
The noble lyfe and natures of man of bestes serpentys fowles and fishes that be moste knoweu.
The writer is Laurence Andrew, who sounds very like a languid painter and ne’er do well in a village murder mystery, but no. this Laurence Andrew published hisbook in 1527, and it is glorious.
It does, as they say, what it says on the tin. The title is accurate; after every species, Andrew gives the ‘operacion’, or uses of the beste or serpent or fowle or fish in question; medical, epicural, spiritual.
So as I go off to hide the last few goshawk mute stains under judiciously-placed rugs, here are a few selections. I’ve done the most minor of tinkerings to them; expanding the contractions in the original and leaving out the operacions. I am preaching to the converted I expect but if one comes up against a particularly baffling spelling, try reading the offending word/s out loud. ‘Moche’ for much, or ‘fete and tethe’ as feet and teeth.
Reading too many books like this palys merry hell with your normal spellinges, btw.
Wild dog
CHama is lyke a wolfe / But it is full of whyte spottes ouer all his body / & it is in Ethyope / he is vnderstanded moche lyke a dogge / & lyke a dogge may be lerned to all maner of games.
Hedgehog
CIrogrillus & erinatius is all one & it is a lytelle beste lyke a pigge & his skynne is rownde aboute full of sharpe pinnes saue only onder his bely that no man may come nygh hym & it is moche lyke an vrchen / but whan it is layde in luke warme water than it is so glad that it stretcheth hym selfe a brode
Ant
ANtees or pismers be very lytell wormes and they be very wyse / they make their holes in the grounde ande bere the erth out / and they make a narowe entre into their hole & make grete prouision to leue vpon all ye yere after / the ante deuideth euery corne or or grayn that he geteth in thre partis that he caryeth into his hole / because it sholde nat shote and waxe grene in his hole or demesne / these antes cary eche other out of their holes whan they be dede / and bury them.
Hare
THe hare is a beste that is swift in ronnynge & alwaye full of feare & drede & exchewinge / it hathe longe eares / & his hinder legges be longer than his fore legges / & it hath bothe membres for as now it is the male and as than it is the female / & alwayes the lippes be waggynge vp and downe.
Mouse
A Lytelle beste is the Mows and eteth gladly bred or othere thynges made of corne or such as man eteth and it is veri diligent to gete his levinge wherfore it biteth many an harde thing asonder to passe through to gete his mete / and it is veri moyste of nature / therfore yf it drinke moche it dyeth therof. In Orient be myse as great as foxes / and they be of that nature that they will kyll a man In Arabia be great myse also / & theyr fore fete be as brode as the palme of a mannes hande and theyr hinder fete be as smale as a finger ende·
Goshawk and sparrowhawk
ANcipiter is a goshawke / and he is of foure maners. The first is this / great of body and wyll be sone tamed / and hathe a lusty countenauce wt great fete and longe talentis / and it fereth nat to set agaynst no byrde. The seconde is smaller & hathe great iyen & shorte talentis / & is nat lightely tamed / the fyrst & seconde yere he is but lytell worth / but the thirde yere he is gode & dothe very well and is named Alietum. or in Englysshe a Tassell goshawke. The third is named nisus or a sparow hawke & is yet smaller / it is swift and sone tamed & made to the game. The fourth is the smalest of them & is named a musket / and they be all lyke. The goshawke is of that property yt yf he take a birde ouer night whan he brauncheth himselfe to rest / that kepeth he in his talentis all the night / & on the morning he letteth it fle agayn / and though he met wt the same birde agayn himselfe hauinge gret hunger yet of all yt daye he wyl nat touche him / & of all ye birdes that he taketh he covyteth the harte.
Goose
THe Goose is a birde as great as an egle & the wilde gese flee lyke as the cranes dothe all in ordre / and like as the wynde bloweth so they flee eastwaerde. and they rest very selden excepte it be whan they do eat / & they reioyce so sore in their fleynge yt they slepe but seldem. And contrary that nature be the tame gese for thei be heuy in fleinge gredi at their mete & diligent to theyr rest / & they crye the houres of yt night & therwith they fere ye thieues In the hillis of alpis be gese as great nere hande as an ostriche they be so heuy of body that they can nat flee & some take them with theyr hande
Bee
THe Bee is a lytell byrde yt hathe bothe wynges fete and tethe / bothe and they be gladly in swete ayres. and they be very diligent in theyr operacions. and amonge them all they chose a kinge / but nat to be subiect to him / but they dare nat flee tyll yt theyr kyng flee before theim as a leder or a gouernour And the bees haue eche a different operacion / and theyr operacion hathe no certentye / some souke the flores / some gader the dewe / of this they make hony and waxe wherewith is serued both god & man / & they be euer redy to worke in season of the yere whan it is fayre weder
Raven
THe Rauen is a cryenge byrde yt maketh moche noyse but he can crye no thynge but crascras. The female bredeth out the egges alone and he fetchet her mete & the yonges be vij. dayes olde or they ete and vpon the seuenth day begine they to be black The [...] in the [...] partyes yt feghteth against the asses & whan they put out the iyen of ye bestes to thentente that the people sholde fleye them for the skynne / & that they sholde haue the carkas and flesshe / and often tymes so geteth he his mete / and he bildeth moche about toures and steples. and he warneth of […] comyng weder bothe fayre and fowle & eche in a different maner wt his crye and he lerneth very gladly for to stele.
Pheasant
FAscian{us} is a wyld cocke or a fesant cocke that byde in the forestes & it is a fayre byrde with goodly feders. but he hath no combe as other cockes haue / and they be alway alone except whane they wylle be by the henne. and they that will take this bird / and in many places the byrders doth thus they paynte the figure of this fayre byrde in a cloth & holdeth it before hym / & whan this birde seeth so fayr a figure of hym selfe / he goeth nother forward nor bacwarde / but he standeth still staringe vpon his figure / & sodenly commeth another and casteth a nette ouer his hede and taketh hym Thys byrde morneth sore in fowle weder & hideth hym from the rayne vnder ye busshes Towarde ye morninge and towardes night than co~meth he out of the busshe and is oftentimes so taken / & he putteth his hede in the ground & he weneth that all his bddy is hyden / and his flessh is very light and good to disiest
Gyrfalcon
THe birde Gyrfalco commeth ouer the see in company of many wilde geese. and at the nyght he taketh one in his talantys to thentent yt she shold kepe hym warm / & in ye mornyng he letteth her flee agayn wtoute any harme & in the daye he taketh one fore his repast
Bat
VEspertilio / a backe is a birde wt foure fete / and hathe a mouth & tethe lyke a mowse and no tayle / and it hath no feders / but it hath .ij. winges on the which be no feders / but thin skinnes facioned lyke a dragons winge / & therwt they flee / and it geteth his mete by night like the owle. and it bringeth forth her yonges lyke a beste with iiij. fete and it layth none egges· The blode of it is good to be enoyted vpon maydens brestes for than they shall nat waxe very grete. The braynes tempered wt hony helpeth the iyen of the water yt descendeth into them Ther be in Ynde some as moche as doues and they flye by euyn tide. they haue tethe like a man. and these be so bolde whan thei fle that they festen in the face of a man and byte the nose or eres of and shend a mannes visage.
Wasp
AWaspe seketh her mete of stikin gecarion / they haue stinges like the scorpion withinforth / and the fetche theyr mete also frome the floures and frutes of the trees / they take flies and byte of their hedes and than carie them to their holes in therthe / but the moste parte of them leue by caryon flesshe.
Hoopoe
VPapa is a birde that cryeth hop hop. & it hath a crowne of feders on his hede / but he is very onclenly. he is moche be the ordure or fylth of man and he eteth stinkinge erth. he that is enoynted with his blode and than gothe to slepe he shal thinke that the deuyll woryeth him. Phisiologus sayth that whan the hoppes be foolde yt they can fle nomore / than the yonge ones be so kynde to theyr dames that they let them laye in their neste for than their sight fayleth them also / and they plucke of their syres & dammes feders & they ouerstryke their iyen wt an herbe that they fynde be nature wherwith they se agayn / & than they sit ouer them & kepe them warme & fede them tyll yt they be fully flgged & can flye at their wyll.
Dolphin
DElphin{us} is a monster of the see & it hath no voyce but it singheth lyke a man / and towarde a tempest it playeth vpon the water Some say whan they be taken that they wepe The delphin hath none eares for to here / nor no nose for to smelle / yet it smelleth very well & sharpe. and it slepeth vpon the water very hartely that thei be hard ronke a farre of / and thei leue C.xl. yere. & they here gladly playnge on instrumentes as lutes / harpes / ta / bours / and pypes They loue their yonges very well and they fede them longe with the mylke of their pappes / & they haue many yonges & amonge them all be .ij. olde ones that yf it fortuned one of ye yonges to dye than these olde ones wyll burye them depe in the gorwnd of the see / because othere fisshes sholde nat ete thys dede delphyn so well they loue theyr yonges. There was ones a kinge yt had taken a delphin / whyche he caused to be bounde wt chaynes fast at a hauen where as the shippes come in at / & there was alway the pyteoust wepynge / and lamentynge that the kynge coude nat for pyte / but let hym go agayne
Sea lion
LEo marin{us} / the see lyon is lyke the lyon of the londe / but the lyon on the londe is full of pryde / & the lyon of the see is very meke / & ellis they be lyke of all condicyons and strengthe / wherfore I wryte nomore of him.
Monday, March 23, 2009
Sunday, March 15, 2009
Beach Trapping, LIFE style
Way back when, on Assateague....boy, I am so delighted to see these again. They are photos of the early days of tundrius peregrine trapping on barrier beach flats, and show a world disappeared. I love them.
I wrote a paper on beach-trapping years ago, a history of science paper. Never published it: that winning combination (for winning, read losing) of insecurity and laziness conspired. Also, it's dry as hell, except the fantastic quotes from folks like Al Nye. I'm excerpting a passage below, though, if you're interested in why grown men buried themselves in sand with a box on their head, holding live pigeons...
***
In the late 1930s Assateague ran horizontally along the coast of Maryland and Virginia for approximately 37 miles. Attempts to colonise the island had been foiled by hurricanes; it was littered with the detritus of civilization; abandoned beach houses and wrecked hotels. Only three miles wide at its widest point, its broad expanses of open beach led back to rolling dunes with vast wash flats of sand on their lee sides, the largest of which, Fox Hill Levels, was astonishingly featureless; at least a mile wide and six or seven miles long, on a bright sunny day you could stand at one end and hardly see the other.
In late September 1938 falconers Al Nye and Bill Turner were treated to an extraordinary discovery account. Turner’s father and his friend Roddy Gascoyne had returned from a poor day’s surf-fishing on Fox Hill Levels and to relieve their boredom they had cruised up and down the flats with a .22 Hornet shooting the ‘great number of duck hawks’ that were sitting around on pieces of driftwood and on the sand itself. Nye was incredulous:
We, naturally, didn’t believe them at first and thought that they must be confusing these hawks with some other kind. Who had ever heard of seeing 40-50 Duck Hawks on the sand on an island! But they persisted in claiming that they were actually Duck Hawks, in light of the fact that they had seen several tame falcons of Bills, and had actually killed several on the island. So Bill and I finally made up our minds to visit the island to see just what was there.
They did, and were astonished. These birds utterly failed to meet previous conceptions of the species; these peregrines were far from the solitary inhabitants of sites of natural sublimity that Nye’s diary entry describes:
The habits of the Duck hawk on Assateague are amazing! Duck hawks in my mind have always been associated with high cliffs, either in mountainous areas or on high, rocky promontories overlooking river valleys. Then, too, I have seen them sailing majestically over Hawk Mountain, and also at Cape May. […] But at Assateague, they forsake all elevated perches, and really prefer to sit on bits of driftwood right on the sand. They actually look like terns or gulls in this respect. As a result, it is quite a shock to see the lordly Peregrine of inland lofty cliffs sitting like a gull on the sand next to the ocean .
They were shockingly anomalous. Almost every attribution previously accorded the peregrine was reversed. While the ‘rock’ peregrines were large and dark, these ‘beach’ or ‘blond’ birds, as they were quickly termed, were small and usually pale. While rock birds were found inland, and were largely sedentary, solitary and very territorial, fiercely defending the cliff sites that were their home, these blond birds were coastal, found in groups of up to 80 birds and transitory, appearing in unpredictable numbers sitting on the beaches and wash flats for a couple of weeks each fall. Whereas ‘rock’ birds were shy and unapproachable, blond birds were sometimes so tame that they allowed falconers to walk up and touch them. They looked like, and flew like, peregrines. But they were behaving in utterly alien ways, resisting previous readings and significations.
Nye and his friends immediately set about trying to trap these birds. They were initially unsuccessful, for their first attempts used technologies designed to secure sedentary birds in predictable spaces. Sitting in a blind watching a pigeon-baited net was frustrating because the peregrines on Assateague were unpredictably distributed across a vast area of relatively homogenous space. Instead, falconers actively searched for falcons along nearly 40 miles of beach from vehicles transported over by barge, their tyres let down for driving on sand. A trapping method was required that took cognizance of the free-floating relationship between falcons and place on Assateague. The trapper had to be as mobile as the falcon—traversing space, locating targets and then setting about securing them. Nye hit upon the ‘dig-in’ or ‘headset’ method on his second visit. On sighting a falcon, he buried himself in a shallow trench in the sand with only his head exposed, his half-buried hands holding a live pigeon as bait. A headset of loosely woven grass, or an up-ended crate, completed the disguise.
The results were immediate and astonishingly rewarding to the trapper. Nye’s account of the first peregrine he trapped using this method demonstrates both the emotional charge of the event and makes plain that the competitiveness of east-coast falconry culture was as highly-charged on Assateague as on the river cliffs of the Susquehanna. With one flutter of the pigeon, Nye wrote:
that peregrine took off and headed right straight in like a homesick angel and (snap) just like that. Came right straight to the pigeon. No dilly-dallying, no stooping, right straight to the pigeon. Here I was with very close to a heart-attack, looking through this grass. We had a peregrine, a wild peregrine sitting on my fist two feet away. And I want you to know in all sincerity my heart was pumping like I have never had it pumped before. […] I slipped my hand under until I felt the leg of the hawk. Boy, at that point, it’s a wonder I didn’t squeeze it in half. I held on so tight. But I grabbed that leg and then I reached with my fingers over and I got the other leg. Then I took the headset up and came up out of the sand. And…there I was with an immature falcon caught in less than ten minutes after I left Turner and his bow net down the beach. My god. Here I was with this beautiful thing, you know […] Then I made my first big mistake. What’s that? I turned around and went back down the beach and told Turner and his buddies about it. Oh Lord.
The ‘dig-in’ method was later mostly replaced by the ‘noose pigeon’, a pigeon wearing a leather ‘jacket’ covered with nooses attached to a long string that was tossed out toward falcons. The suspense, excitement and strategic planning of falcon trapping was addictive: ‘Trapping in itself became a very important and intricate part of my falconry activities’ recalls Brian McDonald, who trapped for a week every year on Assateague between 1945 and 1969. ‘I enjoyed the going to the beach and the trapping almost as much as I did having the birds and flying them at that particular time’ A code of tacit trapping ethics developed throughout the 1940s and 1950s concerned directly with the ownership of birds. S. Kent Carnie recalls:
if you’re driving along, and here’s a guy up in front of you, and he’s got a peregrine down on a pigeon, and he’s working it, the deal was that he would turn on the four-way flashers on the car, so that the lights were flashing, and the unspoken rule was you did not go anywhere near it. That was sacrosanct. That was his bird. You didn’t try and get that bird off of him; uh, I do know of […] some guy was down there who was not at all accepted by the group. And the guy had barged in and tried to trap somebody else’s bird and they, they simply roared in, bumped it off the pigeon and ran him off the beach, whatever […] So, there was, as I say, there was an ethical standard there; you didn’t mess with another guy’s bird…the birds were in the boathouse at the old coastguard’s station, or in the old hotel before it burned down, and they were commonly kept in sort of a big, common mews, and that was the guy’s bird and the bird was in there, that was his, and you know…mostly you didn’t mess with it.
Nye and three or four other falconers began trapping in earnest in 1939, when 22 falcons were secured . Despite the predictable secrecy surrounding the discovery of a source of falcons, the word spread among east coast falconers. Heinz Meng recalls how George Goodwin, falconer and curator of mammology at the New York Museum of Natural History kept ‘the island’ secret from him. In 1942-3, Steve Gatti and Brian McDonald, unofficial falconry apprentices of Nye, heard of ‘an island’ where falcons could be caught and asked Nye about it. He refused to discuss it. McDonald recalls ‘he even made phone calls to all the then DC falconry group telling them to avoid Steve and I because we were trying to find out about the island and he did not want us to go there and trap’. Nye’s anxieties were prescient: Assateague rapidly became the source of most peregrines flown in the eastern US.
From the 1940s onwards, Assateague became a yearly pilgrimage for six to eight groups of falconers, mostly from the Philadelphia area, some from the Washington DC area. They met on Assateague, driving cars or ex-military jeeps over the beaches and wash flats, some staying for a day or two or over a weekend, others, such as Jim Rice, Halter Cunningham and Brian McDonald, staying for a week or more. Throughout these years, numbers of beach birds showed no obvious decline, although numbers fluctuated greatly in relation to weather conditions during their migration. The sedentary rock birds, however, whose local prey-base was heavily contaminated by pesticides, began dying off in the 1940s—just as falconers turned their attention almost entirely to beach birds. Early trappers required no licenses, as peregrines were unprotected in Maryland and Virginia; later, falconry legislation allowed the taking of birds by registered falconry permit. Increasing property development on Assateague led to decreases in the areas on which falconers could trap, and in the late 1960s licenses to trap for falconry were revoked as a result of territorial conflicts with the National Park Service warden and the Chincoteague Wildlife Refuge manager over perceived over-trapping of an threatened species on what had become a National Seashore. By 1969, when the DDT-induced extinction of the inland race of the peregrine placed both beach (tundrius) and rock (anatum) subspecies on the Endangered Species List, trapping of peregrines for any reason other than scientific investigation was forbidden.
(With great thanks to Kent Carnie for his help and hospitality during my stint researching at the Archives of Falconry in Boise)
Sunday, March 01, 2009
Writing, chernobyl-style
What's four months in the world of blogging, eh? Well, I'm not entirely back. I'm finishing off a load of radio talks for recording at the BBC in Bristol this Tuesday. That's "finishing off" in a rather broad sense, yanow.
I can't believe it's come to this. I've had over a year to write them. Maybe I just enjoy the fear. Others get it from base jumping. I get it from staring down deadlines.
Ah well, they'll come good. Right now I'm wired on coffee, chocolate and cigarettes and my fingers ache from typing. In the meantime, here's who I've been sharing my bedroom with for a while. Matilda the merlin. She's destined for an aviary that's not quite finished, so I'm looking after her on behalf of my boy. She's a feisty little sod. Living with an imprint parrot and a mellow goshawk makes you forget some rather important things about merlins. Like, they bite. Try cleaning this one's beak after she's eaten and you remember it. Noli me tangere, dude!
Here she is having a good old preen and oil. She prefers the bow, before you ask. And before you even think of asking, those bags are full of old clothes destined for a charity shop. I don't keep the rubbish in my room.
I can't believe it's come to this. I've had over a year to write them. Maybe I just enjoy the fear. Others get it from base jumping. I get it from staring down deadlines.
Ah well, they'll come good. Right now I'm wired on coffee, chocolate and cigarettes and my fingers ache from typing. In the meantime, here's who I've been sharing my bedroom with for a while. Matilda the merlin. She's destined for an aviary that's not quite finished, so I'm looking after her on behalf of my boy. She's a feisty little sod. Living with an imprint parrot and a mellow goshawk makes you forget some rather important things about merlins. Like, they bite. Try cleaning this one's beak after she's eaten and you remember it. Noli me tangere, dude!
Here she is having a good old preen and oil. She prefers the bow, before you ask. And before you even think of asking, those bags are full of old clothes destined for a charity shop. I don't keep the rubbish in my room.
Thursday, October 23, 2008
The Birdoole
Yes, it's time to redress the Mabelcentric blog!
The Birdoole is a parrot. That’s what I tell people, though in fact he’s a cinnamon green-cheeked conure, a colour variant of a spry little South American species the colour of a child’s paintbox. Bright green, with blue wings and a blood-red tail, and just the right size to enjoy lying upside down in my palm to have his tummy tickled, little nubby tongue waggling and eyes blinking in pleasure.
It took me a long while to realise that parrots like to cuddle, to be groomed. Little, clambering avian monkeys. We have a routine. In the morning he’ll whistle and puff softly, and I’ll get out of bed and let him out. He stretches his wings, flies down onto my bed and then sidles up, crabwise, with his little pinkish feet, to nestle right under my chin. He’ll murmur away in parrot Esperanto; exactly the same chunter of half-formed syllables and tones of a year-old child, then purr softly, preening my chin and neck with very soft nibbles that still make me grit my teeth; he can’t help it. Birds have feathers, humans have skin. Skin has more nerve-endings. Ow, yes, birdoole, I say. I love you too.
The birdoole was an impulse buy: I’m embarrassed to admit it, but he’s come to stand for the kind of unexpected event that seems small at the time but becomes lifechanging in retrospect I wa sitting down in the bowels of Starbucks six years ago with Xtin, who then shared my house, and considering. “You know, I think I’m going to get a bird” I said. “I really need a bird around the house. A couple of canaries, or something. Want to come and buy one?” Half an hour later, I’ve checked the yellow pages and Xtin and I are driving out into the lawless fenland countryside. We find the sign; it’s a numberplate-style affair, half-buried in nettles by the side of an endless, thin road that sinks and rises across dark arable fields. We turn down it, and pass burned out cars and anonymous farms. There is no-one. The road narrows, and turns, and we find ourself driving deep through a tunnel of six-foot high nettles, over a humpback-bridge so tiny and steep I’m worried the car will be grounded, and finally turn into a paddock full of portakabins, aviaries, and livestock. A couple of Dobermans; a sheep. A goat. Ducks. Wire on the windows of the cabins, and cabins full of birds. Big poffy canaries that look like they’re made of yellow foam and polystyrene. Tiny zebra finches, bouncing from perch to perch like hyperactive insects. Others. Bengalese finches, java sparrows. Christina considers them. “Can you … connect with these things? I mean, have a relationship with them?” I’m not sure what she means. They’re birds.
We wander about a bit more, and fate is set when we walk into the hand-reared parrot room. It’s got an airlock door, and faded posters of parrots on the walls, and there are a couple already in there, trying to interact with a beautiful sun conure who is not too friendly. And there’s a glorious green ecletctus parrot, and we stroll about. Right at the back of the room is a twilweld mesh door, and hanging onto it is a tiny, scruffy, bird. Both his feet grip the mesh and his tail is spread against it for balance. He is the smallest and ugliest parrot imaginable. And we walk in, and he flies to us immediately. He sits on my hand and nibbles and bites my fingers; not from ire, but because he’s bored, and he’s a baby, and I can see his little bright green cycling shorts and the irrepressible confidence of the thing. Christina has never held a bird, so we get the bird onto her hand, and it nibbles her too. Ow, she says, but her face is bright with amazement. I have a bird on my hand, she says.
And about twenty minutes later, we’re driving back to Cambridge with a cage and a bird in it. He's hanging onto the wire, bug-eyed and amazed by it all. "Widget!" he says. "Widget! Widget!" and makes little prrrrp! noises at things of interest: clouds, houses, other cars. And that's how the Birdoole arrived.
Birdoole has a very small English vocabulary. He can say "hewo" and "whatchadoing?" and "Birdle!" but his overall vocabulary is as rich as a sixteenth-century playwright. There're noises that mean everything from 'hello!' (a double whistle) to 'black-headed gull!' (admiring purr) to 'sparrowhawk' (eeeeeeep!). There are bath noises and happy eating noises. There are I'm sleepy noises, and noises that mean: I'm enjoying this piece of crumpled paper. Apple noises. Raisin noises. A double-kritch noise that means "running water!". The static burr hzzzzz! that means 'bugger off!' And of course, the high-pitched trill that means 'good night'.
Xtin and I joke (but only just, because it's true) that we've learned far more parrot from The Birdoole than he's learned English. There's a moral to that somewhere. Possibly.
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Friday, October 17, 2008
Thursday, October 16, 2008
Best birthday card ever. Ever.
Click for big. Aimee's drawing looks more like Mabel than Mabel does. Thank you Aimee!
Monday, October 13, 2008
Water monster
I've told you all about collecting the goshawk last year. The endless, endless drive. The terrifying hotel. The appalling fried breakfast. The peat-coloured bathwater. The long wait on the quayside, fending off teenage heroin addicts and watching gulls pick bits of marine matter from the water. I forgot to tell you about the strange occurrence on our way back.
Nothing had changed in the car. Yes, I was poorer to the tune of several hundred pounds than the day before. The car had hundreds more miles on the clock. The weather was slightly different. It was morning. And in a box on the back seat was a goshawk.
There is a scene in that great Russian schlock-fantasy novel Nightwatch in which a group of otherworldly policemen, bored in a car, start changing the weather conditions. So rather than freezing on a winter night drive, they can conjure the experience of a night in more southerly climes, smell the breeze and the soft warmth of a different night, a different place.
Something like that happened in the car. Something thin and initially hardly there at all leaked from the box, from the goshawk. It was an intangible disposition of the air. It was the feeling of water. Water and some of those aromatic terpenes that you smell when you crush pine needles. A deep, watery sense. It wasn’t a smell. No: the car smelt of upholstery and hawk mutes and a whiff of red bull from the can on the floor. It was a feeling, not a smell. Aquaria and woodland ponds and liminology. Dripping conifers and stones and crushed wet woods.
I was driving south along the A1 on a hot August day, and my mind was full of water. I remember thinking, for no good reason, of Chinese zodiacal animals. Water pig. Metal dog. Fire horse. Elemental natural history.
Then I realised why. The atmosphere in the car had gone to water. And it was most definitely coming from the soft-plumaged, wobbly goshawk in the box on the back seat. Which (in one of those leaps of intuition found in dreams, made me remember how sparhawks and goshawks were described as being moist, of having moist humours, in sixteenth and seventeenth century falconry books. How you should avoid overdrying foods; how you should order their diet to suit their moist nature).
And then I thought, decidedly, yes. Goshawks are water. Falcons are air and hot stone. Goshawks are water and wood.
The feeling got more and more pervasive. Finally, intrigued, I swallowed the worry that I was going mad, and turned to Xtin, loafing in the passenger seat.
“Hmm" I said. "You know, this goshawk is making the car atmosphere strange”
“Oh yes” she said. “I know”.
“It’s like water and…”
“Pine needles and water” she said. With a voice that was as sure of the fact as if she'd pointed out a passing car.
We sat for a while, staring fixedly at the road.
“Strange, isn’t it?”
“Uh huh”
Nothing had changed in the car. Yes, I was poorer to the tune of several hundred pounds than the day before. The car had hundreds more miles on the clock. The weather was slightly different. It was morning. And in a box on the back seat was a goshawk.
There is a scene in that great Russian schlock-fantasy novel Nightwatch in which a group of otherworldly policemen, bored in a car, start changing the weather conditions. So rather than freezing on a winter night drive, they can conjure the experience of a night in more southerly climes, smell the breeze and the soft warmth of a different night, a different place.
Something like that happened in the car. Something thin and initially hardly there at all leaked from the box, from the goshawk. It was an intangible disposition of the air. It was the feeling of water. Water and some of those aromatic terpenes that you smell when you crush pine needles. A deep, watery sense. It wasn’t a smell. No: the car smelt of upholstery and hawk mutes and a whiff of red bull from the can on the floor. It was a feeling, not a smell. Aquaria and woodland ponds and liminology. Dripping conifers and stones and crushed wet woods.
I was driving south along the A1 on a hot August day, and my mind was full of water. I remember thinking, for no good reason, of Chinese zodiacal animals. Water pig. Metal dog. Fire horse. Elemental natural history.
Then I realised why. The atmosphere in the car had gone to water. And it was most definitely coming from the soft-plumaged, wobbly goshawk in the box on the back seat. Which (in one of those leaps of intuition found in dreams, made me remember how sparhawks and goshawks were described as being moist, of having moist humours, in sixteenth and seventeenth century falconry books. How you should avoid overdrying foods; how you should order their diet to suit their moist nature).
And then I thought, decidedly, yes. Goshawks are water. Falcons are air and hot stone. Goshawks are water and wood.
The feeling got more and more pervasive. Finally, intrigued, I swallowed the worry that I was going mad, and turned to Xtin, loafing in the passenger seat.
“Hmm" I said. "You know, this goshawk is making the car atmosphere strange”
“Oh yes” she said. “I know”.
“It’s like water and…”
“Pine needles and water” she said. With a voice that was as sure of the fact as if she'd pointed out a passing car.
We sat for a while, staring fixedly at the road.
“Strange, isn’t it?”
“Uh huh”
Sunday, October 12, 2008
Dinos!
Jake and Dinos Chapman? I love them so much. And now I love them even more. Driving down towards the Jesus College carpark with Xtin the other day, under the crisping horse chestnuts, I came across...
I laughed out loud. With real, real, deep delight.
They are here, on loan, for six months. And the installation is called:
The Meek Shall Inherit The Earth (But Not The Mineral Rights)
Raaaah!
Frankly, they are the best reason for anyone to visit Cambridge.
I laughed out loud. With real, real, deep delight.
They are here, on loan, for six months. And the installation is called:
The Meek Shall Inherit The Earth (But Not The Mineral Rights)
Raaaah!
Frankly, they are the best reason for anyone to visit Cambridge.
Monday, October 06, 2008
Back I Am
Mabel's downstairs, in the dark. Her tail bell rings every time she rouses, and the sound comes sweetly up the stairs.
She's hungry. I can feel the hunger in her bones. I can feel it also in mine. Hungry and bored and frustrated, she bounced off my upper arm yesterday leaving two puncture-marks and a half-bracelet of bruise that aches and aches. It's the weather. It's been ghastly. Rain and wind, and she's been ready to fly free for a week. I've been keeping her weight screwed down, and every fibre of my being wants to feed her a huge, bloody crop of quail or pigeon. And also is praying that tomorrow the weather will clear, and we can go kill something.
The forecast is, of course, for showers or possibly heavy rain. A friend has told me I should be jumping her up to the fist over and over again to condition her and keep her from being bored, and I know he is right, but ... maybe it won't rain tomorrow...
She looks wonderful, of course. She's all grown up. And as calm and lovely as ever. This is her the evening she came out of a moulting pen. She'd not seen a soul for six months. Can you tell?
And here she is, special guest appearance at my niece's fifth birthday party, three days later...
Aimee loves birds. She loves, particularly, my parrot, The Birdoole. And she was keen to see Mabel. But faced with Mabel, all milk-glass chest and sinew, and burning eye and wicked claws, she cows at the last minute and hides behind her aunt. I don't blame her. Mabel's much....scarier this year. She's more solid somehow. Self-possessed. No shit. No messing about. Steadier in the face of the world.
Me too, methinks?
Oh, also: this was fun:
Ah, the best way to get around the hunting with dogs ban. "But officer....it's a CAT".
Sorry I've been away so long. No particular reason. Back I am.
Friday, August 08, 2008
Svalbard!
As yet they're all pretty much untitled, but they're up anyway. Here.
More later, but for now, let it just be said that WALRUSES ARE NOW MY FAVOURITE MAMMAL!
More later, but for now, let it just be said that WALRUSES ARE NOW MY FAVOURITE MAMMAL!
Friday, July 18, 2008
Hello old friends
Am still alive, and all is well. I've been giggling at Steve's post on Querencia, here.
Here's my response: an image from a greetings card. I love it to bits.
And...I have new additions to the menagerie. Can you tell from my slightly worried smile that I'm rather lost for words to find myself suddenly in possession of a pair of jill ferrets?
They'll be highly useful for bolting rabbits for Mabel and I think they're really ridiculously cute. Despite their being ... a bit bitey at the moment.
And courtesy of my brother, a picture of Aimee in her new school hat, which makes her look almost indistinguishable from Jay (from Jay and Silent Bob). Ha!
Guess who's going to Svalbard in a week? Oh yes. Arctic here I come....
Here's my response: an image from a greetings card. I love it to bits.
And...I have new additions to the menagerie. Can you tell from my slightly worried smile that I'm rather lost for words to find myself suddenly in possession of a pair of jill ferrets?
They'll be highly useful for bolting rabbits for Mabel and I think they're really ridiculously cute. Despite their being ... a bit bitey at the moment.
And courtesy of my brother, a picture of Aimee in her new school hat, which makes her look almost indistinguishable from Jay (from Jay and Silent Bob). Ha!
Guess who's going to Svalbard in a week? Oh yes. Arctic here I come....
Wednesday, June 04, 2008
Apologies
For being such a poor blogger. I'm apologising right now.
I'm writing this goshawk book, and it's taking up all the parts of my brain that do words.
I'll be back. Really.
I'm writing this goshawk book, and it's taking up all the parts of my brain that do words.
I'll be back. Really.
Tuesday, June 03, 2008
So: when did bowperches get crap?
I don't know. I really don't.
They used to be awesome. But something went wrong, and I'm not sure why.
Pluvialis' guide to what you need in a bowperch (apart from it 'not breaking' of course):
It's only three things.
Why can no-one get it right?
Seriously, pretty much everything out there fails to fulfil at least one of these.
Broken tail feathers!
Ring won't travel freely when the bird bates: too high an arc
I just have no idea what this is.
It's as if as soon as falconers start designing hardware, they've forgotten about the bird. None of them seem to have watched a hawk on a bow for very long:
Is it that we're all flying Harris' hawks these days? Oh no, it can't be. Or is it? Is it? Is it that Harris's never bate, so no-one worries about these things?
No, it can't be. Can't be. For starters, American perches seem to be better. Mike's falconry supplies do a nice one:
See? Harris' hawk!
Northwoods' one is a good shape, though it's let down massively by the wrapping. Now, where did that talon go? Also, has anyone any experience of this kind of strange double bow? It might work. It might not, but it might. What happens when the bird jumps down on the wrong side of the bow? Do you have to make the leash extra-long to stop it getting brought up short?
No, the more I look at this the more I'm just confused.
The best bowperches I've come across in the UK are Martin Jones' ones. They are bloody expensive, but worth saving up for. Which is what I'm doing, right now.
The coolest goshawk perch I've ever seen involved the bird being able to fly down the length of a steel cable between perches about twenty feet apart. One of the perches was under cover. That goshawk was muscly as a pitbull and in perfect feather. I wish my tiny town garden was big enough for a perch like that...
Rant over. Anyone any theories, though? Why and when did they get so crap?
Update: my god, I have never, ever sounded so self-satisfied and snotty as in this post, have I. Sheesh.
They used to be awesome. But something went wrong, and I'm not sure why.
Pluvialis' guide to what you need in a bowperch (apart from it 'not breaking' of course):
- Smooth bow-shape allowing the ring to travel smoothly across to the other side should the hawk bate.
- Padding that will neither hurt the hawk's feet, nor impede the passage of the ring.
- In indoor bows, a ring that falls to floor level when the hawk bates. Tail feathers always get broken by a leash that travels at an angle up through the train to an attachment point higher than floor level.
It's only three things.
Why can no-one get it right?
Seriously, pretty much everything out there fails to fulfil at least one of these.
Broken tail feathers!
Ring won't travel freely when the bird bates: too high an arc
I just have no idea what this is.
It's as if as soon as falconers start designing hardware, they've forgotten about the bird. None of them seem to have watched a hawk on a bow for very long:
Is it that we're all flying Harris' hawks these days? Oh no, it can't be. Or is it? Is it? Is it that Harris's never bate, so no-one worries about these things?
No, it can't be. Can't be. For starters, American perches seem to be better. Mike's falconry supplies do a nice one:
See? Harris' hawk!
Northwoods' one is a good shape, though it's let down massively by the wrapping. Now, where did that talon go? Also, has anyone any experience of this kind of strange double bow? It might work. It might not, but it might. What happens when the bird jumps down on the wrong side of the bow? Do you have to make the leash extra-long to stop it getting brought up short?
No, the more I look at this the more I'm just confused.
The best bowperches I've come across in the UK are Martin Jones' ones. They are bloody expensive, but worth saving up for. Which is what I'm doing, right now.
The coolest goshawk perch I've ever seen involved the bird being able to fly down the length of a steel cable between perches about twenty feet apart. One of the perches was under cover. That goshawk was muscly as a pitbull and in perfect feather. I wish my tiny town garden was big enough for a perch like that...
Rant over. Anyone any theories, though? Why and when did they get so crap?
Update: my god, I have never, ever sounded so self-satisfied and snotty as in this post, have I. Sheesh.
Cognitive dissonance
So we've all seen this, right? What I didn't notice until my brother pointed it out is that the photographer running his hands through his hair, far left, about six seconds in, is my dad. Ha!
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