/Not Laughing

The falcon cannot hair the falconer.

/my passionate density, let me show it to you

the odds must be once in a Millennium

I got to see a falconer at a Ren Fair. Very cool.

I have a newspaper photograph of falconers on my refrigerator.

It shows two Central Asian falconers in traditional costume, which is heavy on the leather and the embroidery and apparently dates back to the Middle Ages if not the days of Alexander the Great.

They are looking at a photograph on a digital camera.

I love that picture. It is priceless.

If I ever find it on the web, I will post it. In the meantime, I think it's time for another version of A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court. I have a good sight gag for them.

"The animals are always the first to know..."

My mom had a giant black-haired wig. Before my friends and I reached puberty, we would steal my mom's wig and run around the grocery store with the wig sticking out of our pants...near the fly so it looked like we had ridiculous pubes.

Then one day, in aisle 6, a woman warned us that a bird of prey may mistake our fake pubes for a rabbit or something.

We promptly removed the wig...


/good times.

We have a local guy who does falconry stuff for Ren-Fests. He was a HS Biology teacher who did raptor rehabilitation on the side.

This sounds like a scene that Ben Stiller will use in an upcoming film.

. . . dropped it like a pan-scrub.

Samson came to him as a skeletal, parasite-ridden three-year-old that had been stolen from a zoo and kept in a wardrobe. "He was quite aggressive and mixed up. It took about eight months to get him right."

You know, on the list of "stupid things to avoid doing", I never even considered adding "keeping a golden eagle in my closet."

A fine ploy...the hawk. A fine weapon. How long did it take you to train the bastard?

I never trained David. I friended him.

/first to name it wins a nickle.

Mouser: You know, on the list of "stupid things to avoid doing", I never even considered adding "keeping a golden eagle in my closet."
Well that's because you're not a stupid twat.

Lampmonster: A fine ploy...the hawk. A fine weapon. How long did it take you to train the bastard?

I never trained David. I friended him.

/first to name it wins a nickle.

King, Tower. Gimme nickle.

The highlight of any falconry exhibition comes when the bird mistakes a man's toupee for a squirrel

Good thing those birds are carnivores. Otherwise it might have gone for his nuts.

/yes, I pronounce the "b" in subtle.

Jason McFarkster: Lampmonster: A fine ploy...the hawk. A fine weapon. How long did it take you to train the bastard?

I never trained David. I friended him.

/first to name it wins a nickle.

King, Tower. Gimme nickle.

Bingo. Your nickle will arrive in four to six weeks.

Mouser: You know, on the list of "stupid things to avoid doing"...

I work with birds of prey at a wildlife education and rehabilitation center; you'd be horrified to hear the things people have done. I think that this rocket surgeon was featured on Fark a few weeks ago; the worst part is that it's not that surprising to me. In my time working with wildlife, I've heard about and/or seen some awfulness first-hand. Keep in mind that it's illegal to possess so much as a feather of, or harm in any way a bird of prey in the US, thanks to the Migratory Birds Act. Despite that, I've seen/heard of

-A great horned owl that was stolen from its nest and raised on hotdogs. Guess what? Hotdogs don't have calcium, which birds normally would absorb from their prey's bones. No calcium = rickets. So not only is the bird imprinted on humans and thus unreleasable, he has rickets.

-State trooper pulls over a car, hears a noise in the trunk. Driver has an owl in a cooler that he was 'going to make into a lamp'.

-A pair of bobcats that were being kept in a six foot store front window

-An owl that was caught in a leg trap, beaten, and left for dead in a Dumpster.

-An owl that was stolen from his nest, illegally raised in captivity, presumably by someone who thought it would make a nice pet, then, when they realized that owls DON'T make good pets, released. They found him dive-bombing people in a park. This is why imprinted raptors can't be released - they see humans as competition for their territory. This is not a situation that ends well.

There are, though, some wonderful people out there, and some amazing stories of recovery, like the eagle in the article that went from a scared, emaciated, damaged bird to a rock-star flight bird. Stuff like that keeps me hopeful.

Well, damn, it's my thread! 'Bout time!

Next thing you know some idiot will have him on a talk show set that he recovered from the garbage with a squirrel just recovering from major surgery with really tiny instruments.

Dale: Falcon, go find a vole.

Bill:AHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

Dale: Ah, so Bill's a vole.

Profhet: Next thing you know some idiot will have him on a talk show set that he recovered from the garbage with a squirrel just recovering from major surgery with really tiny instruments.

He got a talk show set from the garbage? I'm sorry, forgive me, I'm brain damaged. Can you rephrase?

Bwahhahhha Subby . . . I can see it in my mind's eye right now. Especially him tearing the rug apart. Too funny

They must have known the hawk would grab the mouse/rat, or else why the camera, the setting and the kid backing up?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XTt7pSav8ts

Lots of fun, nevertheless!

But what is a blue falcon?

SherKhan: The falcon cannot hair the falconer...

Baldilarity was loosed upon the world

/one of only two graves I've made a pilgrimage to see.