I spent Thursday driving around the countryside looking for peregrine falcon nest sites. I’ve been a licensed falconer for close to 30 years, but have never a) rappelled into a nest site to take a falcon chick, b) taken a wild peregrine. (A) is because most of my falcons have been captive bred, with 1 taken in the fall as a “passage” bird. I did take 1 older chick about 5-6 years ago, but that was a stroke of fortune. I was checking cattle in mid-June and as I entered an area on our ranch with a nice cliff on it, I saw a female prairie falcon leave a little bluff opposite of the cliff. From her wingbeat and attitude, I immediately thought “She’s got chicks!” So, I turned my ATV toward the cliff and drove right up to a bunch of prairie falcons chicks almost ready to leave the nest. It’s rare that you don’t have to rappel down a cliff to get falcons, but on this nest there was a vertical crack running almost up to the nest. I figured I could shimmy up that crack and get close enough to either flush a chick or grab one. Plan worked and I was quickly chasing a young prairie falcon down the almost dry creek bed, catching him when he tried to cross a small pond.
I’m standing there with a male prairie falcon in my hand and I’d rather have a female, but a bird in the hand, right? I got back on my ATV, turned it to head out, and there, standing right in front of me was… a female prairie falcon chick. I think she’d already fledged and was probably hiding under the rocks at the base of the cliff. So, I did the logical thing and grabbed her. Now I had two birds in the hand! But just for a second or two. I climbed up the cliff as best as I could w/ a prairie falcon in each hand and carefully tossed the little male up the crevice to a ledge. He quickly scrambled up higher and was safe.
Now, the whole time this was going on, Georgia and the kids were in the truck out in the pasture waiting on me. I was late and knew they’d be getting concerned, so I tucked the falcon in and rode up and out. When I approached, I found out they’d been having a discussion. The kids opinion was that I was hunched over because I was hurt, but Mom was wiser- “He’s got a bird.” Prairies can be very bad tempered, but this one turned out to be a very sweet and calm falcon. Unfortunately, I really wasn’t prepared pigeon-wise or mentally to fly her and I ended up mostly just feeding her for nearly 3 years. Finally, one nice spring morning I removed the bars from the hawk house and let her free.
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| A great female praire falcon |
This didn't happen the way it does on TV. She sat in her hawk house for hours and I finally got worried that the cat would try to attack her or something, so I finally lured her out with a quail. She took that and sat on top of the hawk house for another couple of hours before disappearing. I disappointed myself with that falcon as I should have flown her, but I just mentally wasn’t there.
Part B of “Why I haven’t taken a wild peregrine” is because they haven’t been available for falconry take for 30+ years. After being taken off the Endangered Species list, though, a group of falconers put in a lot of hard work and about 4-5 years ago we got a wild take in New Mexico. We can only take 2 birds total from the state and this is decided by a drawing. I got drawn this year and I intend to put in as much effort as I can toward getting a bird. Hence my day spent in the mountains driving around looking at cliffs.
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| A captive bred peregrine falcon that I had just prior to the prairie |
The Déjà vu part of this post, though, is that I found myself today working under a sink. This time, though, it was proactive and I installed a new faucet in my daughter’s bathroom. I once again used the Sharkbite connectors and PEX tubing and it went well. I’ll do the utility sink before too long as it has 2-handle faucets and I much prefer a single handle faucet because you can tell by the position of the handle whether your water’s about right for hand-washing or not. And if you have soapy hands and find the water too hot/cold, it’s so much easier to slap the one handle over a bit than it is to try to adjust a round knob that you can’t turn w/ soapy hands anyway.
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| Under the sink. Again. |
I’m sure y’all’un’s are just fascinated by this mundane stuff! I do have some exciting news, though- our youngest son is getting baptized on Sunday! He requested it, so I asked him some questions about what baptism is and what it means. I liked his answers and we’re going to do it.
I have some more interesting things coming up, but you’ll just have to wait and see what they are!
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