Kite Strings

Jason Rogers - 2011/12/23 05:42:23 UTC
Port Macquarie

I don't know if it's an urban myth but I heard that they thought the California Condor was going extinct so they decided to captive breed them. So they went and caught every single bird, so concerned were that that a species may go extinct and be lost forever.

First thing they did with them was give them a delousing bath, instantly making the California Condor Louse extinct. Colpocephalum californici and everything it could ever tell us about the evolution of condors gone in a moment.

Malury Silberman - 2007/02/07 04:08:06 UTC
Alhambra, California

2007/02/05 - While flying over the ridge at Kagel today, I spotted an adult Mountain Lion on the spine between the second and third bowl. It was a really BIG cat.

Vrezh came over for a look and he spotted a second lion nearby. Be alert if you hike the mountain, and be alert on launch too. The lions are present.

Lucky 13 - 2007/02/17 00:20:19 UTC

I was on launch halfway through setting up my glider when I looked up and saw it. It got down low and walked in slow motion for a few seconds, then pounced and ran for me. I closed my eyes hoping for a quick death, but to my surprise, it only wanted to play with the shiny Hang 2 streamer on my glider! After a while, I got bored watching it, so I just cut off the ribbon with my hook knife and gave it to the cat. After that it left me alone.

Allen Sparks - 2010/08/07 19:58

According to:

http://wildlife.state.co.us/Education/TeacherResources/ColoradoWildlifeCompany/CWCFall1998Snakes.htm

All snakes in the state of Colorado, except the Prairie Rattlesnake, are nongame species and protected by state law. It is illegal to kill them or take any of them from the wild for barter, sale, or any commercial purpose.

I've decided against killing any snakes on or near launch. I think I'll follow Steve Ford's plan of moving the snake to another location, if I encounter one.

We spent some time looking for the snake(s) around noon today, but found none. I suspect that they are only a danger in summertime early or late in the day.

Peter Lert writes here of the turkey farm and his 1-26 being interpreted as a large buzzard. It brought back a memory of my experiences with red-tailed-hawks and hang gliders. In the spring of the year the baby hawks would hatch and start to fly. Each spring there was a new batch who would share the lift of the ridge with the hang gliders. It may be hard to believe but it's true that the babies couldn't fly very well at all in the beginning. They had terrible landings, especially in wind. They'd crash and tumble and ground-loop. They had trouble staying up and they couldn't find a thermal to save their hide. We had great fun watching them learn to fly and floating with them on the ridge. In a hang glider, human beings could slow down to 18 knots, wrap the thing up to 60 degrees and core a thermal. For the first time in the history of man this machine allowed us to fly at the same speeds as the baby hawks. They'd watch us find a thermal then enter along with us, usually above and at our six o'clock position. If you stretched your neck a bit you could see them in the rear, turning with you at your six. It usually took about three to five minutes for them to accept you as something that wasn't out to eat them. Once that happened the fun began. They would usually dive on you, shoot by your upper surface and leading edge then drop down right in front of your face about two meters ahead of you. From this position you could watch their multivariable dynamic wings work. What a gorgeous sight as they would pull in the wing on the inside of the turn and extend the outboard wing to stay in the thermal. Or, they'd pull in both wings if a gust hit them to counteract the increased lift. They could change the angle of attach of each wing separately or even span-wise so each segment of their wing was producing lift differently. What an advantage.

I remember how I perceived their general collective personality. Once they weren't afraid of you, they accepted you in their sky and the fun began. The best way to describe them is they acted like baby kitty cats. We would make up some small dough balls from flour, lots of sugar, egg and water the night before a spring flight. We'd dry them in the oven and load them into our flight suits. The dough-balls were easy to retrieve while in flight and would penetrate if threw them toward a bird. Actually I remember flicking them with my thumb like shooting marbles. The baby hawks loved to eat these dough-balls. If a bird would miss grabbing the ball as it went by you got to see absolutely wonderful flight dynamics. Many times the bird would roll inverted, pulled his wings flush to his body and redirect his path while twisting and redirecting the flight path with tail feathers. They looked like a torpedoes shot from a submarine since they could streamline themselves so well. Then there was competition too. Sometimes I would fly with three to five birds in the same thermal. I'd have a bird off to my right, a couple ahead of me, one on the inside of the turn and maybe even one over head. I'd flick out a dough-ball and watch them all go for it. They'd roll inverted, spin, split-S, hammer-head, whatever it took to get to the dough-ball first.

As I said, they have personalities like small house cats and that best describes how I felt watching them. They were funny and they loved to play with the big bird of the thermal (me). They were very intelligent. It was unusual for them to fly with you in the ridge lift but if you started circling they knew you'd found pay-dirt. If you snagged a thermal and did more than a couple turns you'd have two or three heading at you to cash in on the lift. Once established in the core they could just leave me in the dust. Their sink rate was much lower than mine and their ability to change the dynamic shape of their airfoils gave them far superior performance. I've seen them enter the thermal below me and go whizzing by me vertically at astonishing rates. However, they would usually throw away their climb performance to stay with me thinking they might get a dough-ball. Here's where they really got fun. It seemed like the most common maneuver was to out-climb me to get the superior energy edge. Perched behind me and above, they'd do that diving attack-like move until they were in front of my face and applying speed brakes, all the while turning in the thermal. From that position anything would happen. I've seen them roll on their backs and pop their wings (inverted) for a couple seconds then cut inside on the turn and climb above and behind me to the superior energy position once more only to repeat the same move. If you got two or three of them to start playing among themselves and include you it was spectacular. They'd dive at you from six o'clock high and roll together right in front of your face. Then you'd see them split-S, go off in different directions below you. They'd hide from you somewhere behind and above your wing again for the next run.

It occurred to me many times as I said above that what we were doing here was putting ourselves into their environment for the first time in the history of man. I had flown sailplanes for years and never had this happen. The reason is that the sailplanes fly too fast. Even an old clunker S-222 flies at about 40 mph for minimum sink and stalls in the high 30's. Flying hang gliders was the first time man could slow down enough to match their speeds in thermals. Slow down and without a noisy engine to scare them away. We too used them as thermal finders. If you saw one circling, it was show time. Interestingly however, if you entered a thermal with them established first, they would leave for a few moments then reenter. I sometimes thought that might have been some kind of built in survival mode since I was so much bigger and scarier to them. Once they determined you weren't there to eat them they loosened up and joined you. Then their curiosity got the best of them and although they could out climb you they usually stayed and played with you, diving and rolling and spinning. Once you got this far with them you could flip them a dough ball and it was all over. You were buds for life. You couldn't shake them if you wanted to.