Someone asked me recently when
hummingbird feeders should be taken down, to insure that hummingbirds would
migrate on time and not be caught in a winter snap of some sort. I once
believed that was important, but I realize now that leaving feeders filled with
liquid has nothing to do with delaying the little bird’s migration flight. It
doesn’t.
Migration is triggered by dwindling
light, and the change of many factors as fall moves closer. Hummingbirds may
indeed die at any stage of their migration, as thousands of birds will, through
natural causes due to age more than anything else, but they aren’t going to
stay too late because feeders are left up.
If you don’t believe me, just leave feeders
full and watch what happens. The hummingbirds will leave anyway. I am not sure
that they aren’t made stronger for their migration flight by the existence of
such feeders, as natural food dwindles with the absence of blossoms they seek.
So don’t worry about causing a problem for the little buzz-birds. That theory
has been spread mostly by the master naturalists who spend more time in books
than they do outdoors.
I saw a good indication of that recently
when one of the state’s newspapers carried a story about teal hunting.
Blue-winged teal migrate earlier than other ducks, and so there is a special
hunting season for them in mid-September. The newspaper’s outdoor page showed
two photos of blue-winged teal, but they were both drakes in spring plumage.
In the spring, the males are indeed a
beautiful bird, but in September they look NOTHING like those pictures. I doubt
if anyone associated with city newspapers would know that. In September, there
are none of those markings, and teal are as drab as most other marsh birds.
Only the wing panels have any color.
Beginning hunters who do not know what
they are looking at need to know that hen wood ducks and hen pintails and
gadwalls might look a little like teal in September, but once you have a
knowledge of waterfowl species and how they fly, you won’t mistake them.
I have hunted teal since I was a teenager,
when that special season was first instigated, and I enjoy it tremendously, but
there are problems with wood ducks being confused with teal, even though in general
their habitats and habits are far different.
The early flights of teal are likely 90
percent blue-wings, but there are always a few green-winged teal in September
hunts. That is strange because green wings are one of the latest migrators,
coming through our area in December with the late flocks of northern mallards.
Both species are very small, but the meat is as good as that of any wild ducks.
I usually skin my teal, cut the breasts in strips about the size of my little
finger and fry them with some onions and Lawry’s seasoned salt. The legs and
wings are just about too small to eat, but there’s a little meat on them too.
In my latter years of college, I was
determined to be a waterfowl biologist, because I have always been so
fascinated with wild ducks and geese. My dad and grandfather and I hunted them
when I was only ten or eleven years old.
For a time, I was the waterfowl editor
for Gun Dog Magazine, and I hunted with many knowledgeable and experienced
waterfowl hunters. Most all of them could tell at a glance any species flying
past within 50 yards.
But if you are a real expert, you can
look at a flock of ducks a couple of hundred yards away and pretty much know
what species they are, from size, shape and speed, and wing beat, even when you
can’t see their colors. If you hunt blue-winged teal the next week or so,
remember that they will look nothing like the photos shown on outdoor pages of
larger newspapers. Those are spring plumage photos, and nothing similar to what
a
September teal is. It is a bad situation
when young duck hunters go out to hunt ducks and aren’t sure which species are
which. It’s even worse when young conservation agents don’t know a mallard hen
from a drake gadwall. A year or so ago a couple of my friends were checked by a
young female agent on the James River to whom they had to give a crash course
in duck identification. She had a book to tell her what the bag limits were but
they had four species of ducks and she didn’t know what any of them were.
Folks expect conservation agents to know
a great deal about the outdoors, and the older ones did. Many of the younger
ones do not. A reader called me this week to tell me that he had heard a
conservation agent on a Texas County radio station telling folks that while bullfrogs
were indeed good to eat, they were also great bait for “troutlines”. In all my
years of trotlining for flathead catfish or blues or channels, I never ever
heard of any trotliners using bullfrogs for bait.
I can’t even imagine that. It would be
comparable to using ripe red tomatoes to throw at squirrels and rabbits in
place of regular ammunition. Comparable to using pecan pies for deer bait! Big
flatheads sought after by trotline, or what he referred to as ‘troutline’
fishermen, seldom take dead bait. You catch them on live bait and live frogs
held under water for a short period of time will be dead.
I cannot imagine someone doing that to
any living creature, even a mouse. Any catfish caught on a bullfrog would be
just as easy to catch on any of a dozen other kinds of bait. In fact, I will
have to check the laws, but I think it might be illegal to use bullfrogs on
trotlines if you look through the fine print. It is illegal to use any gamefish
for trotline bait, and even sunfish, one of the best baits for flatheads and
other species, must be under a certain length.
If bullfrogs are legal as bait, it is a
bad situation, because year after they become scarcer and scarcer. On streams
where I found bullfrogs in abundance as a boy in late summer, there are perhaps
about twenty percent of the bullfrogs in most of them that there were forty
years ago. In another column, I will go into some of the many reasons why
bullfrog numbers are declining, but while I understand why any of us would love
to have a skillet full of bullfrogs, please don’t use them for ‘troutline’
bait.
You might be interested in knowing that
the first frost is only 38 days away, so it might be a good idea to go down to
the pond or creek and take one last swim. One of my old friends was sitting on
his porch last week with tears running down his face. I asked if there had been
a death in the family or something of that sort. He told me he was crying
because he had just eaten the last tomato out of his garden.
These are tough times for those of us who
have gardens and love garden produce, but you have to remember that winter has
good times too. Thanksgiving and Christmas are ahead, rabbit hunting in the
snow, and walking woodland trails with no snakes, no spider webs and no ticks.
God has given us six or seven seasons to enjoy for their variety, not just
four. And the best of them all, as I see it, is the one we have now, and all
those we are going to have.
Write to me at Box 22, Bolivar, Mo. 65613
or email me at lightninridge @windstream.net.
To see what our new fall magazines look like, go to my website… www.larrydablemontoutdoors.blogspot.com
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