Feathered Bomber The three down-covered young look tike sleep-walkers in white flannel bed pajamas. by Richard Porter From high in air, a duck hawk with wings folded motionless like the vanes of an arrow dives down upon a blackbird. The smaller bird shifts slightly leaving the hurtling falcon with nothing but a claw full of feathers. Its wings motionless still, the hawk swoops up again to a height almost equal that from which it attacked before. Then, like a light bomber peeling from formation, it turns over and once more plunges earthward. At one moment the falcon appears to be a mere speck in the sky. At the next it is upon its quarry, which is already winging hard for the shelter of a friendly grove of trees. The feathered meteor strikes. A puff of feathers rises. Before the limp and bleeding body hits the ground 30 feet below, the falcon is underneath, turns it over and deftly catches the victim in its talons. Righted again and with the quarry secure, the falcon flies off to its nest. You hear a sharp cry similar to that of a gull as the returning mother hawk nears the aerie. You see another hawk swoop down from the side of the ledge and sweep out to greet his returning mate. Meeting her, he banks sharply, flies back to the nesting ledge, circles far out over the valley again. Then you hear the whistle of long wings whizzing by the blind you have constructed near the nest. As you peer through your small observation porthole, in the mother bird swoops and with a slight thud lands upon the nesting shelf. Her fierce brown eyes glare at the blind as she nervously sidles past, as if to say she knows you are there. But her young need food. The three down-covered infant birds look like sleepwalkers in white flannel pajamas. They all run forward, for they have learned where their next meal comes from. They are in no mood to wait for their dinner. But the mother has other ideas, and feathers float about the nesting area as she deplumes the bird. Her sympathy is won by the hunger call of the famished young and before she has completed the feathering, she tears a few splinters of flesh from the creature and tenderly places them in the mouth of the nearest youngster. He greedily gurgles them down and sets up his rasping cry for more. Now the mother hawk is too busy feeding her young to pay much attention to your blind, and this gives you the opportunity to study her more carefully. She is a beautiful bird, with her streamlined body and the slate-colored back contrasting with white under parts barred with black streaks. Light of the morning sun shines upon her and makes the contrast even more noticeable. You see the characteristic falcon mustache on her head and the long, pointed wings crossed over her back. The gray beak, bloody from her latest kill, has on its end a wicked appearing hook with which she tears her victims apart for the family table. Your eyes fall to her yellow legs and then to her large feet with their long, curved, needle-sharp talons, and you realize why she is able to acquire food so adeptly. While you are admiring her deadly beauty, she finishes the feeding and once again focuses upon the blind for a second or two. Finally, with a couple of jumps she is past the hiding place and gone again to get more food for her hungry offspring. We in Utah are indeed fortunate that the ravages of civilization have not completely wiped out the nesting sites and the breeding members of our birds of prey. We are fortunate that we still have hawks to assist in keeping our obnoxious insects and rodents in check. We have six main groups of hawks in Utah. They are the Eagles, Fish Hawks, Harriers, Buteos, and Ac-cipiters. The least common of these are the eagles, and for this reason they are seldom observed in the field. During the Spring and Fall migrations the Osprey or Fish Hawk sometimes migrates through our valleys following the river courses. They also are rare and are not very often observed. In marshes near our lakes, and along river bottoms may be found a grey hawk with long narrow wings and a white stripe across the base of its tail. More often, however, it is observed in the immature adult female plumage, which is brown with a white stripe across the base of the tail. This hawk in some areas is principally a mouser and therefore considered beneficial. In some areas it preys upon frogs, which are considered beneficial to man, thus in such areas it could be considered harmful to man. The Marsh Hawk is the only representative of the Harrier group in the United States. The most common group of hawks is the Buteos, or Broad Winged Hawks. Members of this group have been named Chicken Hawks. They have acquired this name from the uprisings and cacklings of chickens as they soar over. The Buteos may be observed soaring effortlessly upon air currents, and seldom are responsible for a misdemeanor so low as to steal a farmer's chickens. I have observed remains of rabbits and other injurious rodents near the nests of these birds. While the Buteo is innocently soaring over a chicken yard, a Cooper's Hawk is waiting, and then suddenly like a bullet the Cooper's Hawk swoops in, grabs a chicken and is then off leaving the blame on the Buteo. Common representatives of this group in Utah are the Red-tailed Hawk and the Swainson's Hawk. The Cooper's Hawk belongs to the group of hawks called the Accipiters. The group is often called Bullet Hawks, because of their rapid pursuit and overtaking of their quarry. The Accipiters might be compared to a pursuit ship, for they pursue their quarry. They have short broad wings and a long tail, which makes them maneuverable and speedy, in their unrelentless pursuit. The Accipiters have three representatives in the United States, and all three are found in Utah. They are the Sharp-shinned Hawk, the smallest of the group, the medium sized Cooper's Hawk and the Goshawk, which is the largest of the group, and also the least abundant. Hawks as a whole are beneficial to man. They are wild feathered creatures as are others of our variety of fauna, and they too must eat for survival. They acquire their prey for food, while man often hunts merely for the thrill of killing his game. He would be much better off if we would give our feathered friends a chance for survival. Already the Duck Hawk is fast becoming a bird of the past in the United States because of indiscriminate and unintelligent shooting on the part of our hunters. Our hawks should be conserved if for no other reason than to save them as representatives of one branch of our fast-dwindling wild life. Page Twenty-two How To Win A's And Influence Teachers by Julia Neville "When you get an A instead of a B when you actually earned a C," says a psychology instructor, "it is a good example of applied psychology." Thus we see that one of the key points in winning A's and influencing teachers lies in the artistic use of the intellectual apple polish. Of course, a careful analysis of the instructor before you begin polishing is a necessary precaution against rubbing the teacher the wrong way. In other words, do not underestimate teacher you might be disappointed. The first step in influencing professors is to let them know that you exist; otherwise they might think you are mostly pulpwood between the ears. This can be accomplished in several ways. One method commonly employed is to be an individualist, which consists of having your eight o'clock class start at eight-fifteen, and after the class is once started, setting out to prove that the in-sructor's views are as old as he is, and not consistent with the modern opinions of today. This approach might be interpreted as follows: The teacher may admire you for not being afraid to express your own ideas and overlook your tardiness because he is always late himself. However, if the teacher fails to adopt this point of view it may be wise to remedy it by enlisting him in an argument in which he finally convinces you that his theory is correct, thereby inflating his ego by making him think that he is really a good teacher after all. After you have once succeeded in getting the instructor's attention focused on you, the next step is to convince him how smart you really are, so that by the time he hears that you have a reputation for being a D student he will think you have been misjudged, or if kinder things are said of your ability he will be willing to support them. There are three phases in the course which offer you oppor- tunities to accomplish your second objective. They are: 1. Oral discussion; 2. Written assignments; 3. Examinations. The psychological principle to be used in class discussion is: If you don't know the answers to the questions the teacher asks, ask the teacher the questions first. You accomplish the same results both ways. In written assignments make it apparent that you have done a lot of research. This may be accomplished by spending 15 minutes at the library card catalog copying down references. Having completed the list of references, you must them neatly type up your own views with footnotes and a bibliography. Psychology can best be utilized in the essay type of examination. All you have to do, especially if you do not know the exact answer to a part of the test, is to write what little you do know and pad or substantiate it with a long discourse of your own ideas. The teacher might then give you extra credit for doing even more than the problem suggested. However, if the instructor should give an objective test such as a true-false quiz, discretion in determining trick questions is essential. One authority on the subject suggests that statements with "sometimes," "usually," "often," and "once in a while" should usually be answered true, while statements containing "never," "always," or "all" are generally false. Having completed all four of the preceding steps, plus a few flourishes in a personal way, you are, of course, prepared to collect your straight A report card. We should, however, dislike having you lose any sleep your guilty conscience prevents because of your having used psychology instead of work techniques. So we just ask you to remember this . . . anyone as smart as you are really deserves an A anyway. Page Twenty-three