A bird story from the past from friend, Jim, in Madison, WI. This is the one that got Jeff Gibson remembering his "Thunderbird Eggs" adventure:

>
> As I mentioned before, a couple winters ago bro-in-law Jack and I drove from Madison to Portland. All across the West and Northwest, we saw big raptors, including many bald eagles. Jack is something of a bird aficionado, too... not like you, but he's a well-versed amateur, with lots of bird books in his library. He remarked that he was surprised to see as many bald eagles away from obvious bodies of water. I'm thinking of areas like Western Montana, Wyoming, Utah, Idaho, and Eastern Washington. I of course had no horse in that race, so couldn't comment, other than to say, "Damn, that's a gorgeous bird!" [Jim is one of those non-birding types, and has his own bird classification system : there are 2 groups of birds - sparrows (drab-looking birds) and robins (birds with color) ! ]
>
> Seeing the hawk reminds me of a hike I took with my dad and a friend of his, when I was a kid... maybe eight or nine years old. I think it was on the friend's rural property. Up in the distance, sitting on a tree stump or frence post, was a magnificent hawk, probably what we call a red tailed hawk. Looked just like the one in your picture. [I had sent him some Red-shouldered Hawk pics] My dad told me to sneak up and capture it with my hands. [Yikes], Batman. A challenge. I was afraid. This was my dad. He wouldn't ask me to do something dangerous, would he? Yet hawks were dangerous! If he wanted me to catch a hawk, though, I was going to catch it. I crept up from behind, inch by inch. My heart was pounding. I grabbed it! Yup...I grabbed the stuffed hawk!
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> My dad and his friend had a great laugh over that. Everybody won, because I'd passed the test, wholly believing I was capturing a hawk. They had some fun, knowing that the hawk was taxedermy. I think it was stuffed, and not a decoy of some sort, but who knows? It was a long time ago.
>
> Jim

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Jim said that the possible illegality of possessing the feathers or 'skin' of a bird of prey was unknown by any of them 'way' back in the 50's...

Any of the rest of you have an bird-related pranks, from childhood or beyond, that you dare share? :-)


Barb Deihl

North Matthews Beach - NE Seattle

barbdeihl at comcast.net
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