for the birds

This small collection of hoods is about the only thing I have left from ten years in falconry. After I had mastered some of the intricacies of building and flying fighter kites, it seemed a natural progression to move on to hawks and falcons. It was a bit of a stretch undertaking this while living in San Francisco's Outer Mission District, but it turned out for me to be the right time and the right place.



I started out as everyone must with kestrels and red tail hawks. The kestrels were great little flyers. My Red Tail got to be very adept at catching ground squirrels and jack rabbits on the fill-land flats east of San Bruno Mountain. I also hunted there with my Salukis, but never achieved the bedouin ideal of working the birds and dogs together.



The pursuit of falconry ultimately contributed to a disaffection with city life. One day, we loaded the kids, the Red Tail, the dog and a friend from down the street in the Ford Econoline and headed for southern Idaho. The Snake River valley was the great center of modern falconry then, and I had the opportunity to fly some fine birds including Prairie Falcons and goshawks.



I did little photography during those years as falconry is a demanding taskmaster that permits no distractions. There are a few pictures somewhere, though. I'll dig them up eventually.

A Day in the Life

Dinner Time 

Day's End

*Falconry and Coursing Dogs

Dutch Salmon

Xenophon and Gemma on San Bruno Mountain

I read an article in the New Mexico Political Report this morning about the long struggle to protect the Gila, the state's last free-flowing river.  As has been the case for as long as I can recall the article started off with a reference to the involvement in the fight by Dutch Salmon.  It came as a shock to see that Salmon had died in March.  I found it hard to believe that his passing had not been sufficiently noted in the press for me to have seen it when it happened.

I read Dutch Salmon's first book, Gazehounds & Coursing, when we were living in San Francisco's Outer Mission District in the mid-70s.  His tales of chasing jackrabbits in the deserts of the Southwest inspired me to acquire a pair of salukis.  My dogs and I spent many hours together on San Bruno Mountain south of the city, and we also chased a lot of jacks in the fill land near Brisbane.  My decisions to move to Idaho and later to New Mexico were certainly influenced by Salmon's stories as well.

I put coursing and falconry aside for quite a while after we left Idaho, but I got back to the dogs when we moved back out to country living on five acres in the Chihuahuan Desert south of Hatch, New Mexico.  I got two greyhounds which were fine companions for walks in the foothills of the Sierra de Las Uvas.  Jet was a small black greyhound that came from a pack of coyote hunters belonging to some Basque sheepmen in central New Mexico.  Sky was an elegant brindle from a line of racers from the same area.  I miss those many fine days with my dogs in the high desert, and I will certainly miss Dutch Salmon's fine writing and his advocacy for the preservation of Wilderness.