Predicting Winter

The folks back home in MO predict the winter by looking at the wooly catepillars and persimmon seeds.

 
Upon cracking the persimmon seeds open, you will find one of the three pieces of "silverware" shapes.

KNIFE: means you'll have a cold icy winter (where wind will slice through you like a knife winter).

SPOON: means you'll need to shovel out of snow.

FORK: means you'll have mild winter.

Here's an example of a spoon and knife seed:

 

Pic from http://www.lauderdaleschools.net

So whatever you find the most shape of in the seeds, is the winter prediction. Most say you have to sample 10 seeds to get an accurate reading on how harsh the coming winter will be.

What's your winter prediction in your neck of the woods? My friends in MO say it's a "spoon" winter coming. They've already had one blizzard last week. We don't have persimmon trees here in SoCal so I can't do any predicting. Next year I'll be sure and grab some persimmon seeds in MO to check.

Crossbow Used To Free Entangled Whale

This is so kewl. Some good press for archery and crossbows. Lord knows crossbows take the heat as being too easy for some in the bowhunting community.

Good save!

The full scoop at the link below.

http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2010/05/05/crossbow_the_right_solution_to_free_entangled_whale/



Photo Northeast Fisheries Science Center

Sugar Gliders & Flying Squirrels. Childhood Pets

As adventurous kids we were always dragging home garter snakes, box turtles, lightning bugs and leopard frogs to mom's despair. Springtime was when we found many pets as the little ones tumbled out of their nests and got lost. One of the best finds in the woods behind our house was a flying squirrel. There's something magical about animals that soar and these little guys are fearless. They can sail like Superman from tall oak tree to maple tree.

I first saw a flying squirrel along Coldwater Creek behind our home in MO. At first glance it looked like many of the tree squirrels that sailed limb to limb along the lush park that bounded the creek. Something was different about this little guy though so I moved closer to watch it fly. My friend Randy later caught a baby flying squirrel and we made it our pet.

The first thing we noticed was they should come with a butt plug because they pooped everywhere. Even when you made sure it had taken care of business before you took it out of it's cage it would proceed to crap all over mom's new couch. We took the squirrel to school for show and tell and he was the hit of the day.

The longest I can remember one sailing was about 70 feet in a tree to tree jump. I thought he was going to break his little neck in the descent and hard landing.

Nope.

He got up, dusted himself off and started scoping out his next DZ.

Nowadays I see sugar gliders from Austrailia as pets in MO, they're illegal to own here in CA and a couple other states. A bit cuter than the flying squirrels we knew but the same poop warning applies.

A video of some of the fun you can have with the high wire acrobats of the forest.

CA DFG & NWTF Cuts Us Loose. No Turkey Transplants.

Been awhile since I've had something to good to rant about, something to sink my teeth into. "Brace yourself", as the doc told me on my last prostrate exam.

4 of us were there at the Inland Empire chapter NWTF meeting last Wednesday night at Bass Pro. You can really see how important the turkey transplant issue is to the local turkey hunters by their overwhelming support. /sarcasm.



Not to be a Debbie Downer but the turkey transplants starting back up are not going to happen here in San Bernardino National Forest. NWTF has come out and said they are more worried about banquets and the money generated from them. NWTF regional director Dave Halbrook said they are happy with their local chapters even without any huntable turkeys in SBNF. Tom Dockter, a member on the CA state NWTF board, told Yucaipa Mike and me that the NWTF regional directors biggest and only concern is banquets and generating money. NWTF corporate couldn't care less, they dismissed Yucaipa Mikes plea for help.

Worrying more about lifting as much money as they can out of my pocket and not about local issues was the biggest reason I left the NWTF years back. I'm headed that way again.

Bottom line, we're being told habitat improvement is the only thing we can do now since the turkey transplant EIS (Environmental Impact Statement) was poorly written by DFG and just invites being sued by the Native Plant Society. The same Native Plant Society that stopped the transplants of turkeys into San Bernardino and San Diego back in the late 1990s by filing a lawsuit.

As far as a hunter or a hunting group suing DFG, that's not possible I'm told. Wishful thinking but not something that can be done. I'm being told to just keep the heat on DFG to do the right thing.

I am a bit ticked also in that I was lead to believe the transplants were coming the past couple years. Every year there was a new hurdle for us to get over like prove there were still turkeys in the local forest only to find out there never was any real push to get the transplants going. We only just recently got the California DFG and NWTF to admit it publicly. Well, actually, it's the same line from years back, we just had them restate it to be sure.

Dave Halbrook said they would try and get money to fund another biologist position to help the local DFG biologist (Jeff Villepique) study turkeys and the habitat here but as local outdoor writer Jim Matthews told me, that's BS. Have the local DFG biologist just do his job, that's what he's paid for. Ryan Mathis, the California NWTF biologist, was down here in San Bernardino 2 months ago to meet with Jeff Villepique for a mind meld on what to start doing to help the local turkeys and Jeff Villepique was a no show for some reason. Same ole same ole, nothing getting down and nothing but more excuses.

I'm going to post this on the national NWTF forum, WON (Western Outdoor News) and OldGobbler.com so it's gets even more publicity in the last ditch hope someone will light a fire under the DFG or NWTF to do something. If they refuse to help us out, I'm done with the NWTF. They can bleed other fools for their banquet money to send Regional Directors on grand turkey hunts around the country while we scrap for turkeys on the crowded public land here in San Diego or travel hours north.

In fact, that's how it was put to us by Dave Halbrook. Hey, others are having fun right driving half a day one way to hunt right?

Not me, I'd rather stay local a few weekends to save money and hunt less crowded land, but that's me.

You folks make up your own minds.

Here is the thread on our CA turkey forum with more info. It's a sad tale of betrayal, complete with antis, money grubbers and skunk belly gubmint workers.

Turkey forum post

Story About a Big Squirrel And a Baby Squirrel

Continuing on the spring young theme, a fun video from the Interwebz for a Wednesday. Every once in awhile you see nature and the human race interact and you wonder what if we could talk to the animals.

What critter would you want to chat with?

What would you ask them?

What would you tell them?

Have you ever helped a critter out that was in a bad situation?

Enjoy,

Spring's First Casualty For 2009

Spring has sprung as they say but along with the fresh green growth and new babies we have our first casualty around the homestead here.

I've been doing some garden work in the backyard lately so I already knew there was a bird nest nearby. What kind of bird nest? I'm still working on that part, my best guess right now is a California Towhee (Pipilo crissalis). The colors, size and beak are close.

Anyhoo, every time I went near the ivy covered fence by the pool filter momma bird would scold me relentlessly. I figured something was wrong this time when momma and poppa's frantic chirps caught my attention since I wasn't even near the nest. A predator maybe? The neighbor's cat out for a tweety sammich?

Nope.



It turned out to be a baby bird floating in the pool. It must have fallen in while eagerly trying to learn to fly. Mom and dad were hopping wire to limb encouraging the dead bird to get back up and out of danger with no luck.

I fished the baby bird out of the pool and gently laid it in the high garden grass. The parents seemed to lose sight of the bird when it was in the pool net and they went crazy trying to get sight of their lost kin again. Both birds flitted around the pool, landing on the mower handle, then the electric wires above for a better view.

Every spring us kids found baby birds dead or flopping around the yard after getting the heave ho out of their nest. What an introduction to the world, fly or get eaten. Wood ducks have it the worst I think, they get pushed out and fall several long feet into the wet water.

Gee, thanks Ma.

What a wake up call that must be.

The big lizard under the pool filter slab was the next one to turn up toes up, not sure what enticed him into the pool. He's the first one to commit Hari Kari in the water like that.

Hopefully, that's the end of the spring deaths, it's not fun to find baby anythings laying silent.

P.S. If you recognize that bird please post up in the comments here or drop me a line.

Thanks.

Squirrel Hunting The Pawpaw Patch

This was a squirrel hunt with my friend Bob C. in his pawpaw patch near Washington MO. We just saw one squirrel and ended up looking for pawpaws most of the evening.

The pawpaw tree, Asimina triloba, yields 3- to 5-inch-long fruit, the largest fruit native to the United States. Pawpaws taste like a cross between a banana and a mango and look like pears. The huge black seeds, big enough to choke a horse, take up a lot of space where the fruit is located. If the gods ever do a redesign of the pawpaw I hope they shrink the seeds down a bit for more space for the delicious fruit.

The name, also spelled paw paw, paw-paw, and papaw, probably derives from the Spanish papaya, perhaps due to the superficial similarity of their fruit. Pawpaws have many other common names such as prairie banana, Indiana (Hoosier) banana, West Virginia banana, Kentucky banana, Michigan banana, Missouri Banana, and Ozark banana.

The earliest documentation of pawpaws is in the 1541 report of the de Soto expedition, who found Native Americans cultivating them east of the Mississippi River. The Lewis and Clark Expedition sometimes subsisted on pawpaws during their travels. Chilled pawpaw fruit was a favorite dessert of George Washington, and Thomas Jefferson was certainly familiar with it as he planted it at Monticello.

As kids we used to sing a song about pawpaws.

THE PAW-PAW PATCH

Where O where is pret-ty lit-tle Su-sie?
Where O where is pret-ty lit-tle Su-sie?
Where O where is pret-ty lit-tle Su-sie?
Way down yon-der in the paw-paw patch

CHORUS
Where O where is pretty little Susie?
Where O where is pretty little Susie?
Where O where is pretty little Susie?
Way down yonder in the pawpaw patch

Pickin' up paw-paws, puttin' um in her pockets, etc.
(CHORUS)

Come on, boys, let's go find her, etc.
(CHORUS)

Fuzzballs

Each spring brings the young kids of our planet out, it's always a joy to watch the newbies find their legs and explore their new found world.

I first saw these California Valley Quail as they crossed the road in the foothills of Claremont CA. Mom and dad were easy to see but the little fuzzballs looked like Morse Code dots, scrawling across the pavement like on a ticker tape.

"Wow, they're just lil guys" I thought to myself. Maybe a late 2nd hatch.

The covey was too fast for me to catch in the road with my Canon GL-2 camcorder so I parked and waited to see if they would come back out of the Catclaw bushes where they had disappeared.

Since it was feeding and scratchin time it wasn't long before they popped back out for some tasty seeds and bugs.

Man are them lil goobers fast with such short legs. I tried to count the chicks and got maybe 12 to 14. See how many feathered pinballs you get. I figure Mr. Hawk and Mr. Bobcat have already glommed a quail cheeseburger or two so this hatch was close to 16 maybe? Not much to chew on though, more like popcorn shrimp for a large predator or raptor.