moss
Been here much more than a while
- Location
- Carlisle, Massachusetts, U.S.
I had a another request to put a fallen great horned owl young back in its nest a few days ago. The challenge was that there were 5 possible nests located nearby in the white pine grove where the owlet was found. Three of the nests had small animal body parts under them, two of those had egg shell remains under each. I climbed to the nest structure that had eggshells, a squirrel's tail and half of a rat on the ground under it. When got to it there were no signs of nesting activity. I was able to examine the second best nest contender using binoculars from the first nest, no signs of life there.
I turned the owlet over to the rehabber that originally contacted me, she took it to a wildlife veterinary clinic where it was determined the owl had a leg injury, they're treating it.
Some interesting details came up setting rope and climbing. A classic difficult line setting exercise, very high crown and I needed the upper anchor to be above the nest, it was on the lowest viable limbs. It was gusty so the bag trajectory path bent quite a bit depending on how strong the gust was. Had 5 or so bad throws and finally snaked the throwline over two dead branches and one live one close to the trunk. You can see that rope route briefly at 2:57 in on the video. I inspected it carefully from the ground with binoculars before climbing and deemed it good to go. I always do a dynamic bouncing test to feel it out before climbing and that tested solid.
Many climbers talk about reducing "sitback" in their setup, either shortening hitch cord length and/or tightening up their bridge with an adjuster. I try to keep those parts of my climbing system "tight" but don't worry about it too much. The reason being is that I usually ascend continuously, when I stop to rest I automatically flick the hitch or wrench tether up before I sit back on the system, and “Voila!” no sitback. Pretty sure that I'm not the only one doing that ;-)
You can see that little detail flicking the hitch up at my first rest on a plus 90' ascent around 1:50 into the video. It would set on it's own but I'd probably lose a foot or so if I sat back without doing that.
Otherwise not much happens ;-)
-AJ
I turned the owlet over to the rehabber that originally contacted me, she took it to a wildlife veterinary clinic where it was determined the owl had a leg injury, they're treating it.
Some interesting details came up setting rope and climbing. A classic difficult line setting exercise, very high crown and I needed the upper anchor to be above the nest, it was on the lowest viable limbs. It was gusty so the bag trajectory path bent quite a bit depending on how strong the gust was. Had 5 or so bad throws and finally snaked the throwline over two dead branches and one live one close to the trunk. You can see that rope route briefly at 2:57 in on the video. I inspected it carefully from the ground with binoculars before climbing and deemed it good to go. I always do a dynamic bouncing test to feel it out before climbing and that tested solid.
Many climbers talk about reducing "sitback" in their setup, either shortening hitch cord length and/or tightening up their bridge with an adjuster. I try to keep those parts of my climbing system "tight" but don't worry about it too much. The reason being is that I usually ascend continuously, when I stop to rest I automatically flick the hitch or wrench tether up before I sit back on the system, and “Voila!” no sitback. Pretty sure that I'm not the only one doing that ;-)
You can see that little detail flicking the hitch up at my first rest on a plus 90' ascent around 1:50 into the video. It would set on it's own but I'd probably lose a foot or so if I sat back without doing that.
Otherwise not much happens ;-)
-AJ
