I spent an enjoyable and exhausting weekend helping (gunner, bird boy, gofer) at the Northeast NADKC Solms/AZP test. Solms is a test for young dogs (done in the fall after a spring Derby); the Alterszuchprüng is for older dogs. The same test is run – AZP dogs are judged to a higher standard. It was a good learning experience for me – reading the rules gives you a sense of what’s going on, but working the test really drives home just how important retrieving is.

Saturday was overcast for most of the day as Hanna came up the coast towards us. A good thing – even though it wasn’t really hot (high 70’s, maybe low 80’s) the humidity was so high that your body couldn’t dump any heat. One dog doing the rabbit track found the rabbit, lay down next to it to pant and recover for 5 minutes, then picked the bunny up and returned to the handler. I don’t know whether she got dinged for it, but if she were my dog, I would not have begrudged her the lie-down.

Sunday saw all the ponds full to overflowing in the wake of Hanna’s 3+ inches of rain overnight. Cool, dry and delightful – half as many dogs to test – a walk in the park.

Rather than my usual slide show, I’m just going to post a few (mostly off-topic) favorites; the whole set is here.

Heron rookery where we did the duck search. A funny contrast – we were a mile or so from a drag strip and every few minutes you could hear the cars staging and then running. Not as loud as our occasional gunfire, but plenty startling if you were woolgathering.

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Juvenile form of the official NH State Amphibian.

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On point.

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PUPPIES!

So, let’s say I eventually realize my tongue in cheek dream of flying a Steller’s Sea Eagle on seals (on the pack ice up Newfoundland way). Further, we’ll allow that my exploits get me an invite to central Europe to visit with eaglers there. While there, my bird attacks Václav Havel. Does that count as flying at (wait for it) Czech?

I’ll leave it to comments/commentors to explain the bad falconry pun…

A confession – with all the rain we had in July and August, the lawn in the back yard got away from me (not that I’m all that great about it when it’s not pouring). Finally some sun and dry weather – the low spot where the Siberian Iris live doesn’t have a quarter inch of standing water – I gotta mow! Way out back I discover a subterranean Yellow Jacket nest the quick and easy way; I mow over the entrance then get stung as I walk behind the mower into the stream of very pissed-off exiting hymenoptera. The good thing about letting the lawn go? The clippings were so thick that the wasps had trouble surging out – I only got stung once. The nest was in an out of the way place – I figured I’d leave it well enough alone unless/until there was another run-in. Last night someone solved the problem for me – dug up the nest and, I assume, ate the occupants (certainly ate the larva).

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I learned something new! I’d always assumed that burrowing wasps just constructed dirt chambers, like an ant nest. After seeing the paper strewn around, I looked it up:

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I also googled around a bit to see what might have caused the carnage.

Raccoons, skunks and other animals play a role in the demise of yellow jackets as summer wanes.  These foraging mammals will dig down into yellow jacket nests at night and devour the whole colony.  You might see the remains of such a repast, with bits of paper nest chambers strewn about. *

Sounds about right.