You can see here how dark a redtailed hawk's eyes become when they mature. Many hawks have very pale blue or yellow eyes when young. As the bird gets older, their eyes become dark orange, red, or brown, depending upon what species they are. This bird was in great plumage and was healthy and fit, with nicely conditioned pectoral muscles.

An immature redtailed hawk just out of the trap, about to be released. Pete snapped this shot of me during the best day of trapping we've had so far this season. We caught, banded, and released 22 hawks in one day, with my good friends Rodney and Dan. I finished up the week by trapping 27 more, for a total of 49 raptors in a single week!

I've been trapping a lot of migrating hawks and falcons this fall with the dual purpose of banding them and finding myself one or two to train and hunt with for the duration of the winter months ahead. This is a portrait that I took of a young female Cooper's Hawk, fresh out of the trap - looking totally wild-eyed and just as beautiful as every member of her species.

A few days ago, I awoke in Huntington Vermont and headed over to Bristol to grab breakfast at a great little bakery. Just as I stepped out of my car to stretch, I heard a familiar crackling sound, and turned around to see that an antique furniture shop over the road had just caught fire! When the firemen arrived, they hooked into a hydrant right next to my car, and effectively "trapped" me there for the next two hours. It was an interesting, solemn, and strangely heartwarming morning observing the locals.

To me, the first cold autumn evenings call for good friends, good wine, and a fantastic meal, carefully and respectfully prepared from a few gamebirds harvested with the help of my old bird-dog. Gallit and Molly prepared wild rice and a mix of locally harvested root vegetables to accompany these beautiful woodcock. We spent the evening musing on where our food comes from and what our responsibilities are as consumers.

I always find myself drawn to cemetaries in the fall. There's something about the way deciduous trees put themselves to sleep for the winter that reminds me of death. And it happens much too quickly... just like our own lives. We'll all be dead tomorrow. That's how short life is.

Looking at this photo, I imagine brightly colored leaves falling gracefully from maple limbs and lodging themselves firmly into the earth, six feet deep.

Those of us who live in coastal New England are so lucky to have the very estuaries that inspired Rachel Carson just outside of our back doors. These saltwater marshes are fantastically beautiful if you actually go out onto them and observe the wildlife that reside there. I snapped this photo while flying along our coastline with a friend of mine, in his Cessna.