Remembering Mike Connolly

I was saddened hear that my old friend Mike Connolly passed away last Sunday. Mike began training hawks in the 1960s in the San Diego area and quickly excelled as a game hawker—first hunting cottontails and other game with his great Cooper's Hawk, Shadow, and later flying Peregrines (most notably Orchid and Witch) at ducks for years. He became a legendary figure in California falconry, and deservedly so. He was always generous with his time. He brought his peregrines to every California Hawking Club field meet for years and always let everyone tag along to watch his falcons catch ducks. He had very high standards and inspired a generation of young falconers to follow in his footsteps. I spoke with him on the phone just a couple of weeks ago when his hospice care began. I still thought he might bounce back one more time. Mike was such a powerful presence, it's difficult to accept the fact that he's gone. He will be greatly missed.

                                                                 Mike Connolly with his peregrine falcon, Orchid.                                                  Photo by Omar White

                               

Mike Connolly (left) and Scott Francis (right) came to see me when I gave a talk in Missoula, Montana, during my book tour for Falcon Fever. They were two great California falconers who are now both gone. Rest in Peace, my old friends. 

Rest in Peace, Merlyn Felton

I was deeply saddened to hear about the death of my old friend, Merlyn Felton, who passed away on November 11, 2016. (Most of his friends, including me, first heard about his death this week.) Merlyn and I worked together in the late 1970s at the Santa Cruz Predatory Bird Research Group, where we cared for the Peregrine Falcons in the captive-breeding project and did field work. But Merlyn did much more than that. At a time when the Peregrine Falcons at Morro Bay were one of the last known breeding pairs of the species in California, Merlyn spent countless hours, night and day, for months each spring camping at Morro Rock, guarding the nestlings from anyone who might harm, harrass, or take them. In the years he did this, the birds always fledged successfully, adding to the peregrine population at a time when the species was critically endangered. Now there are many nesting peregrines in California, and Merlyn played a vital role in bringing them back.

Merlyn wrote an interesting 1994 memoir about his experiences on Morro Rock, titled Falcons of the Rock, writing under the pseudonym, Donovan Lavender. If you can find a copy at a used book dealer, I highly recommend it. 

     Merlyn Felton, Tim Gallagher, Danny Verrier, and Bill Murphy in the 1970s. Photo by Brian Walton

Merlyn was an avid falconer, and we had some great times flying our peregrines in the Salinas Valley and other places in Central California. He was one of the most dedicated people I've ever met. He will be greatly missed. 

Merlyn Felton and his Peregrine, 1978.   Photo by Tim Gallagher

Merlyn Felton and John Schmitt on Morro Rock in the 1970s.   Photo by Glenn Stewart

Remembering Jim Enderson

James H. Enderson

I was very sorry to hear about the death of falcon researcher Jim Enderson, who passed away on Tuesday, January 10. Jim was a Professor Emeritas of Biology at The Colorado College, where he taught for nearly 40 years, from 1962 to 2001. A key figure in raptor Conservation, he was one of the biologists who brought the desperate plight of the Peregrine Falcon to the attention of the scientific community at the landmark 1965 Madison Peregrine Conference. A few months after the conference, he and a fellow researcher floated the entire 1,000-mile length of Canada's Mackenzie River in a canoe, searching for nesting peregrines.

I first met Jim when I was 16, at a national falconry meet in South Dakota, and got to hear firsthand all about his adventures on the Mackenzie. He later was closely involved in the successful effort to breed peregrines in captivity and release them to the wild, and he served on the administrative board of The Peregrine Fund. Jim wrote a wonderful book about the decline and recovery of the species titled, Peregrine Falcon: Stories of the Blue Meanie (University of Texas Press, 2001).

I got to spend time with Jim again several years ago during a research trip to northern Greenland, where Peregrine Fund biologists were studying Gyrfalcons, tundrius peregrines, and their High Arctic prey species. Although I didn't see him again after that, we always kept in touch and hoped to get together to fly our falcons at game. He will be greatly missed. 

Rest in Peace, Stephen Frank

I was saddened to hear about the death of legendary British falconer Stephen Frank (at right, above), who passed away last Saturday morning. Steve was one of the most interesting people I've met in a lifetime of falconry. He lived for decades in a battered old crofter's cottage on a lonely grouse moor in the Scottish Highlands, above the Dornoch Firth. He was one of a handful of British falconer who kept the sport alive in the years after the Second World War. Steve cut quite a figure in the field in his youth, always racing full speed over the moors like a wild stag, clad in sneakers and a bright-red sweater (which he hoped his falcon would key in on) as his falcon circled high above him. And he was constantly shouting encouragements to his falcon and his dog, his voice echoing across the moors. He was always a picture of vigor, exuberance, and boundless optimism. When I visited him a few years ago, we sat together drinking tea in front of his old cottage, basking in one of those rare Scottish days when the sun is shining. His old pointer, Handel, lay curled nearby on a battered easy chair with stuffing sticking out of torn seams in the tweed. We spoke endlessly about hawking and about bird dogs—which he loved as much as his falcons. The last time I saw him, he was already well into his 70s, and he'd had a hip replacement, but he was in no way ready to give up the sport he loved. He was training a new eyas tiercel Peregrine and a pointer pup. This was his answer to creeping old age and its accompanying infirmities. He will be greatly missed.

On the death of my friend and mentor, Jack Hagan

In Memoriam

John W. Hagan

(1930 – 2013)

I just heard that my old friend Jack Hagan passed away earlier this week, on Monday, August 19. I first met Jack at a meeting of a newly formed club, the Santa Ana Valley Falconers’ Association, when I was in my early teens, and he became a great mentor to me in falconry as well as in wildlife photography. The club met weekly at Jack’s home in Santa Ana, California, and later at Jeff Sipple’s house in Cypress. Recently divorced, Jack was a professional photographer and also a collector of various reptiles and amphibians (which might explain the divorce). I remember he kept live rattlesnakes in aquariums in his garage and rare turtles in his bathtub. His house was often sweltering inside, to accommodate the tropical turtles.

Jack took some amazing photographs in the late 1940s of a Peregrine Falcon nest in Laguna Canyon. When he came back from the Korean War, though, the nest was empty, and the peregrines never nested there again. This was but one of the California peregrine nests he knew off that had been abandoned during the DDT era.

Jack was in his mid-thirties when the club formed, with thinning dark-brown hair and a pipe he puffed on constantly. He had the most calm, unflappable nature of anyone I’ve ever met. The younger guys in the club called him the “Old Man,” which always made him smile. He had certain catch phrases he would use in conversation. If you asked him a complex question, he would puff thoughtfully on his pipe and say, “This I do not know,” but would then go on to expound in great detail his theory on the topic at hand. He drove a classic Mercedez 300 SL sports car with gull-wing doors and usually flew goshawks.

Jack had an extensive collection of old falconry books, as well as some beautiful framed 19th-century falconry prints on the walls of his house. He told me I was welcome to come over anytime and read his books, which I often did.

Jack would later become the first president of the California Hawking Club, which, in some ways, sprang from the ashes of the Santa Ana Valley group, using the same logo, which artist Jeff Sipple designed.

The last time I saw Jack was in 2001 at the 30th annual field meet of the California Hawking Club, which was held that year in Bakersfield. I had moved to Upstate New York about a decade earlier and didn’t get to California much anymore. We—and several other charter members of the club, such as Jeff Sipple, Bob Winslow, and Mike Arnold—came to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the club’s founding. 

It was great to see Jack. He hadn’t changed much. His hair had gone gray, and somewhere along the way he had given up the pipe, but he was the same affable, good-natured Jack. I will truly miss him.