by Mindy Batch

It was a cool evening that later turned very cold.  Patches of snow could be seen under the moonlit sky as we drove around curves and hills and up and down gravel roads into the early morning hours.  We pulled down the mountain road and parked the truck waiting for the darkness to disappear into daybreak.   I anxiously waited for the morning to come.  We had been driving all day and night, trying to get to our destination as soon as possible as we had such a short time to stay and locate the elusive goshawk nests.  Hoping to find an active nest was not an easy task as I would soon learn.  I was pre-warned by my partner that this trip would be very gruesome and that I needed to be in good shape to endure all the daylong hiking that would be involved in locating a nest.  I just laughed and said to myself, who is he trying to kid?  I make my living loading and unloading airplanes all day, how could hiking in the woods be so difficult?  I was soon to find out!

 

I can’t think of the words to fully describe the beauty and peaceful sights that I experience each and every time I go to the Medicine Bow national forest in the southeastern tip of Wyoming.  I have made four trips to this beautiful countryside in search of active goshawk nests and each time we have been successful in locating birds, although once or twice it came down to the last possible hour and day. There is never a guarantee that you will be successful and at times there are tense moments as you realize that you might have spent all the time and money on permits, gas, lodging , food and licenses only to go home birdless.  I think when you weigh all the pros and cons in pulling wild eyass goshawks it is more economical to purchase a bird from a breeder. But then again you would miss the opportunity of a lifetime experiencing the gratification and excitement that overcomes you when you look up and realize that you just found your very first active nest after hours and days of endless hiking up some pretty rugged terrain.  The only other thing that matches that feeling for me was when I climbed and retrieved my first goshawk.  I knew at that moment that I accomplished something in my life that most of the population would never dream of doing, and most likely more than most falconers would ever accomplish.

 

Ever since I became an apprentice in 1996 I heard countless stories from my sponsor, friend and co-worker Tom Schultz and the rest of the Missouri falconers.  I would listen with envy as they told the stories they experienced in the state of Wyoming pulling birds from the nests.  They had countless topo maps with numerous nest sites plotted on grids, marking active, inactive, what year the nest was found, how many birds, etc.  Some of these falconers would make annual trips, pulling a new bird each year.  They also gave these nests names….like Three Tiercel nest, Red Rock, Demon nest, Witch nest, 9.5 mile nest and so on. They veiled and cherished these maps like they were their first born child.  I believe you had to sign your name in blood and assure complete secrecy or they would cut your tongue out.  I assure you that I am NOT exaggerating on this!  The deal was, you as a participant must locate your own active nest or put in the time and effort proving your worthiness.

 

So here it is Day 1…….waiting for that sun to come up.  Man….this is going to be easy.  I am convinced that I will be the very first person to find numerous active nests.  I thought my calling in life was to be a detective.  I love solving puzzles, especially the kinds where they give you a list of items to find camouflaged in the picture!  I always find every item.  Yeah, this is going to be easy…..I can find every nest in this National Forest.  OK….it’s light enough to see the trees, let’s get rolling!  By the way Tom, tell me again what a goshawk nest looks like?

 

Hours have passed.  Hours of hiking and checking old nest sites to see if they may be active.  I feel like someone took a baseball bat and hit me on the back of my neck!  Now I am thinking to myself, we must have at least 25 maps with at least 10 nest sites on each of them and according to my partner, everyone that we have checked has been inactive…hey wait a minute….I think I see green pine needles in that nest….yeah….that’s right…What?  What do you mean it’s not active?  I swear I think I see something!  Ok….now everyone is leaving me standing at the base of this aspen…..they are saying there is nothing there but I think they are wrong.  Just let me shake the tree a little…hey wait guys…..are you absolutely sure this is inactive?  As I turn around there is not a falconer in site.  Well maybe we could come back and check this later, maybe then the female will be back on the nest…maybe.  As Day 1 is coming to an end the only thing I have to show for myself is sore muscles, a stiff neck, and blisters on my feet.  When we get back to camp I am too tired to do anything but sleep and I can’t believe that I didn’t find any of the camouflaged items in the puzzle.

 

Day 2, like Day 1, starts out to be a beautiful morning.  Being up in the mountains and breathing the fresh mountain air. The campfire is going with the fresh smell of coffee perking and bacon and eggs sizzling in the skillet.  Ah, paradise.  The squirrels are rustling in the leaves and you can hear the sweet chirping of a western tanager in the distance.  Yes, this is paradise.  But there is one problem…I can’t move.  I can’t get out of my sleeping bag.  I thought I was sore yesterday, but this morning I am paralyzed!  I am told to unparalyze myself and get a move on it.  We have a full day ahead of us and time was wasting.  OK, OK.  I’m moving.  I’m convinced that today will be a very successful day.  I felt confident that we would find no less than three active nests.  So we pack up our backpacks with bottle water, trail mix, binoculars, and jerky.  Oh yeah, and all those topo maps.  Can’t forget the precious topo maps.  More nest sites to check.  Hey, how old are those maps anyway?  The day goes by as hours of hiking and checking old nests sites and lugging around those silly maps.  Maps are everywhere.  I am going to burn those maps when we get back to camp tonight.  As the day goes on another problem far worse than the maps comes to our attention.  We are driving up and down the mountain roads from nest site to nest site, getting out and hiking up the mountains, checking the nests, getting back to the truck and driving to more nest sites….hey, did you see that vehicle go by?  The one with the out of town plates.  The one with the out of town plates and three or four guys in it.  Yeah.  The vehicle with three or four guys in it looking at maps and pointing in every direction.  Just what we need.  More falconers.  Now the pressure is on.  It turns out that they are indeed falconers looking for goshawk nests.  This group Tom knows and they have also been coming up here for years.  Nice guys.  From Indiana.  And they are very experienced at finding nests.  Just as experienced as Tom.  We stop and chat and find out that there are seven in their party and they want to pull 5 chicks.  They also came out here a few days earlier and they already found one active nest and pulled one chick.  But they still had a lot of searching to do.  This was a year in Wyoming before they changed their regulations to leaving one chick in the nest.  The requirements are to leave two chicks in the nest.  That means more nests must be found.  Now the race was on.  The other problem was that Tom and Joe (fictitious) shared some of the same nest sites.  End of day two.  Forget the “I feel lucky” day.  When we get back to the camp site I find myself neatly and gently folding all those precious maps and guarding them with my life, besides I wasn’t really going to throw them in the campfire!

 

Day 3..Forget the beautiful morning, the squirrels, the birds chirping, the coffee and the bacon and eggs….we need to get our #$%^ out of bed and get a move on it.  Time is wasting and the race is on.  We would go up one mountain road to a nest site and we would pass other falconers coming down the road.  That’s how the day went.  People going in all directions trying to find active nests before the other party.  The day lingered on.  I swear we must have climbed every mountain top in the area.  I was thinking that maybe it would be better to switch the agenda to a week of hunting for morel mushrooms instead of the birds.  I needed something to change the direction of my neck.  At least looking for the morels would give my neck a much needed break.

 

 We decided to employ some help from local falconers in the central part of the state and they connected us to another falconer.  Never hurts to use all your resources.  So at the end of day three and still unsuccessful we decide early next morning to drive over to the western part of the state and hook up with another falconer I’ll call Jimmy (fictitious).

 

Day 4….Early morning….beautiful morning,  birds chirping, squirrels playing tag rustling in the leaves…you know the story but we don’t have the luxury to enjoy a thing.  We hastily break down camp and pack up all our belongings.  We have a five hour drive  to the western part of the state where we meet up with Jimmy.  He takes us to an area where there is a beautiful lake.  Not like the terrain Tom is use to.  When we get to the top there is a big beautiful nest and it doesn’t take long to figure out that it is most definitely active.  The chicks appear to be a little older but you can’t see the whole picture when you are on the ground and looking up 60 feet.  We can see at least two chicks in the nest.  While Tom gears up to climb (did I mention Tom has a fear of heights?) I get out my video camera and anxiously wait for the show to begin.  I wasn’t disappointed.  Remember this is my first trip goshawk hunting.  I have never seen anyone climb a nest.  I only heard the stories.  Horror stories.  Yep, I was not going to be disappointed (smiling to myself). To be continued………..:)