Wyoming in Winter

Hawking on millions of acres of BLM Land

I came across this photo a couple of days ago and it took me back two decades to the moment when I was standing in snow up to my knees on a very cold morning in Central Wyoming. I was with falconer Steve Chindgren and my husband Tim Gallagher on a crystal-clear morning where the snow sparkled and our breath froze as it left our mouths. I can almost hear the anticipatory whining of the dog who was ready to be released from the kennel in the back of the truck so he could get to his job of pointing sage grouse in the tundra-like sagebrush sea.

I’m trying to remember what I wore on my feet and if I had a scarf wrapped around the lower part of my face. I know Steve was bare-headed and wore no gloves as he let the bird dog out of the kennel and began to get his gyr-peregrine hybrid ready to fly. A transmitter had to be attached to her tail or leg (I can’t remember which) before the hooded falcon stepped onto his gloved hand. Steve walked away from the truck with the falcon and began looking for his dog on point.

When you’re a spectator, the action is slow at first then it’s a flurry of activity as the dog goes on point, and the falcon is unhooded and put into the air. As the bird circles high into the sky everyone looks skyward then toward the dog then back to the falcon.

“Where’s my bird? Where’s my bird?” yells Steve as he peers into the sky. He’s blind in one eye so we help by pointing and shouting.

When the bird is in position right over the dog, Steve yells at the dog who runs toward the sagebrush. A handful of grouse burst from the cover flying low and straight looking like footballs with whirring wings. The falcon takes aim and drops from the sky like a bullet heading for the last grouse in line. Then it’s a sound like the crack of a bat hitting a baseball and a blur of feathers as both birds drop to the ground.

We all run through the snow toward the place where the birds landed to find the falcon sitting on her catch. For a moment there is nothing outside the falcon and the grouse, then the bitter cold begins creeping back finding the spaces between coats and sweaters and tee shirts and has me yearning for the warmth of the cab of the truck and the low sounds of country music.

[See Falconer on the Edge: A Man, His Birds, and the Vanishing Landscape of the American West, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2009]