We didn't have much of a plan in place when we arrived in Idaho. An uncle, retired from the Air Force, was living in Glenns Ferry beside the Snake River half way between Boise and Twin Falls, so we went there first. Not long after we got to Glenns Ferry I flipped over our Econoline van into a deep ditch. Luckily no one in the van was badly hurt, but it was going to take some time to repair the vehicle. So the plan became finding a place to live in town. We found a small rental belonging to the proprietor of the general store and moved in.
Although I have spent a couple days going through boxes of photos from our years in Idaho I did not find a lot that I was expecting to find. I also had only vague memories to go along with many of the pictures I did come across. Luckily, Margaret has a high-resolution memory that stretches easily back into the '70s and '80s. For instance, I said to her that I did not recognize the white cat in this picture.
"That's Pinky", she said, "the stray that adopted us."
"Was that the one that got trapped in the storage shed?", I asked.
"No, that was our cat."
"We had a cat?"
...and so on.
I found some places in the hills near Glenns Ferry to hunt jackrabbits with my Red Tail, just as I had done in California. There were great cliffs beside the River to both east and west of town where all kinds of raptors nested including hawks, falcons and eagles. When the next nesting season arrived I decided to free the Red Tail and take a couple young falcons to train. The house in town was not very convenient as a training base, so we ultimately moved up river about five miles to a house located on an old dairy farm, now converted to raising grains. The house was surrounded by fields irrigated with ditches, and it was an easy walk to the river. I could walk out of the house, step off the porch and send up a falcon to hunt.Raptor populations world-wide were starting to recover in the 1980s from a DDT-induced low. Falconry traditions and practitioners were vital to that recovery and a large number of the best falconers in the world lived in Idaho. At gatherings of the Idaho Falconers Association I met some of the greats who were champions of habitat restoration and captive breeding projects including Morley Nelson and Charles Schwartz. The guidance I got from them and other members of the group were key to my own achievement of becoming a competent falconer.
I also tried to pass along some of my own experience to my older daughter. We started her, as is the tradition, with a kestrel. Then she moved on to handling a tiercel (male) Prairie Falcon. I don't think I was a very good teacher, but Selena has always been an excellent student, and it seemed she gained something of value from that experience. The falcon -- we called him Mizar -- was a good flyer who mounted very high overhead and he became very expert at bagging Hungarian Partridges, Chukar and quail.
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| The Journal - Idaho Falconers Association, 1982 |
I did not do a lot of photography in Idaho. Falconry is a very demanding discipline, and along with that and making a gesture toward bringing in some income to support the family there was little time to devote to documenting my hobbies and obsessions. I worked at a variety of manual labor jobs which allowed me time for my birds. Those included working in a Grand View greenhouse, driving a cement truck, bucking hay bales , caretaking the Elmore County fairgrounds and working on commercial trout farms just downstream from Twin Falls. My birds shared their kills with us, and my rifle also brought us venison and a lot of rabbits.
Luckily, again, Margaret took on the task of making family pictures with the Pentax and she made many fine ones of our daughters and their friends. She also put the Pentax to good use while working as a reporter for the Glenns Ferry Pilot.
I do have a few more pictures of our time in Idaho and I'll share them in another installment of the story.
(I wrote a little more on this topic back in 2010 on my other blog.)
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6 comments:
Thanks for another great instalment, Mike. Beautiful pic of the hawk.
I imagine a huge amount of satisfaction came from being with those birds and being instrumental in their conservation.
Where I live in south west Scotland we regularly see buzzards and red kites, fabulous looking birds. Unfortunately due to some very enthusiastic reintroduction programs in recent years there is some concern that the balance has potentially tipped too far the other way and other smaller species of wildlife have been impacted. Not far from us there is kite feeding station that started as part of the reintroduction scheme some years ago but has become extremely popular with the general public, where you can go and see literally dozens and dozens of (upwards of 100?) kites at specific feeding times. All wild birds free to cone and go but obviously they know where their best interests are, I guess. Despite concerns about their potential impact, seeing so many of theses beautiful birds together is still a most spectacular sight.
Btw as I write this, I have our Patagonian conure, Percy, sat on my lap keeping me company 🙂
I did not play any direct role in the conservation of the Idaho raptors, but I think my enthusiasm and respect for the birds did have some positive effect on the local community. I did rehab some injured and orphaned birds, but that kind of activity has no real influence on survival rates. In the end, what got the job done was tightening protections for the raptors, banning DDT and other noxious pesticides, and developing captive breeding techniques which allowed the quick repopulation of many historic nesting areas. These days it seems every big city has its favorite pair of nesting Peregrines and live cams to record the hatchings.
It’s good that attitudes and behaviour towards our fellow inhabitants of the Planet has changed for the better in recent decades, though sadly still a long way to go in many areas of modern life. I won't climb on to my soapbox, here’s obviously not the place, although I suspect you’re a man after my own heart on such matters.
Btw I had the unexpected privilege of observing a nesting pair of ospreys at a local nature reserve. What an amazing sight 😃
Yes, the Osprey are world citizens like the Golden Eagle and the Peregrine. We see them along the Rio Grande and there were a lot on the Snake River as well. The Osprey were regarded as a nuisance by the fish farmers in Idaho. We tried to scare them away from the ponds with fireworks noise, but the amount of fish they stole was really insignificant.
What an interesting biography. You certainly did a lot of different jobs back then. And good work with the raptor preservation. Here in MS, we see eagles many days when we drive to the levees on the Louisiana side of the Mississippi River.
Eagles were very common in Idaho. I had to be careful to keep an eye out for them when I was flying my own birds. Along the middle Rio Grande I only regularly see Bald Eagles in the Fall and Winter.
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