My favorite photo - a newly fledged Bald Eagle has a feisty American Kestrel take a ride for a second, taken at the river behind the house.
Pileated Woodpecker pair in the front yard. New photos nearly every day on our Blog page!
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Things are always hopping at the Raptors of the Rockies organization. We're taking care of the birds and maintaining their enclosures, we're conducting raptor programs at local schools and organizations across Western Montana, art is flying out of the studio, we're taking photos and shooting video, we're out in the field birding and/or doing research, and much, much more. To help you keep up with the flurry of activities happening at Raptors of the Rockies, we're blogging on a more-or-less daily basis and our most recent posts are listed below. Enjoy!
International Wildlife Film FestivalPosted: Thu, 24 Apr 2025We started doing programs for the IWFF in 1989, then at Holiday Inn, and programs in Kiwanis Park the first of which had no attendees. Mike Maples assembled some people sleeping under the Higgins Street bridge to attend, then a big crew. The first WildWalk Parade, programs on the stage at Caras Park for 12 years. So always fun to have filmmakers assemble at the Raptor Ranch for a visit, and one gal told me "It's the most fun I have ever had!" Love you, miss you, Chuck Jonkel and Barry Gordon, pals forever.
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Thanks, JackPosted: Tue, 22 Apr 2025Our buddy Jack Kirkley of Dillon, recently retired professor at University of Montana Western just found these photos in his archives! Keith Fialcowitz and myself photographing a Great Gray Owl nest in the Big Hole Valley, June 2011. Maybe the next etching will be one from that day...just wait. (Not this one...HA!)
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Brand NewPosted: Sat, 19 Apr 2025The "Art Inertia" has been on pause for 2025 until this week and just finished a drypoint etching of a Snowy Owl on the Washington Coast. Major turmoil over here the last few months, and needed some cheering up. Printmaking does that! So the photos here are printing, painting, and final product- 9 x 12" printing inks plus a little of each: gouache, pencils, pastels.
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House Wren HousesPosted: Fri, 18 Apr 2025Two House Wren nests, cleaning boxes today and hopeful that they return soon. Five pairs nesting here in the yard a few years ago, fewer every year since. Perhaps tough times for these, favorites of our resident songbirds. One with sticks packed in a box, the other on a Aspen tree cavity (my etching...)
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Lee Metcalf Nat'l Wildlife RefugePosted: Wed, 16 Apr 2025 The nest right by the visitor's center and seems like it failed last year after a huge wind storm.
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Hurray!Posted: Mon, 14 Apr 2025An evening view from the yard and he finally showed up! Hopefully back to normal and fledging on the 4th of July!
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A WAY Mystery NestPosted: Sun, 13 Apr 2025I watched an eagle through the scope, hunkered down in the nest and looking all around until dark. Now what's up? It was as if she was waiting for a food delivery that did not occur. Then this morning an eagle perched briefly in the limb just over the nest....Okay, now I am wondering, and stay tuned (and an old photo for you.)
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Mystery NestPosted: Sat, 12 Apr 2025 "Our" eagle nest that we watch through a scope in the living room, and destination for my daily afternoon walk appears empty. I noticed a hunkered down eagle on the morning of March 9th, about the right time for eggs and incubation, so figured they would be hatching this weekend. Promising picture here from a week ago but haven't seen anyone home since, not even perched in the tree above. That nest built in 2011 has ben vacant before, three years in a row starting in 2018, and now is huge and hard to watch when the cottonwoods leaf out. I've been wrong before, so we shall see.
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One More From TEACHPosted: Wed, 09 Apr 2025 Here is our teacher showing the students my etching "GHOwl," next to our model for the day Simon. What a ham (the bird I mean.)
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Another New SchoolPosted: Tue, 08 Apr 2025That makes 142 schools (so far) and yesterday over at the old Jefferson School, 67 students aged 5-10 enrolled in TEACH. And a unique audience as half of them are refugees from all over and I referred to my handy globe in the office: Syria, Lebanon, Yemen, Jordan, Afghanistan, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Uganda, Tanzania, and Myanmar. WOW! First was a program with Sib, Simon, Billie and Taiga the Rough-leg, then a sketching session for the older kids. I told them I used to live in Cameroon, West Africa and one little clap for that...what a day!
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