Fall
migration time is here and over the next few weeks you can hunt both migrating
doves, and blue-wing teal ducks. The teal are one of the best eating of
all waterfowl, and I have hunted them since I was about 15 years old. Back then
I paid less attention to bird migration, but as I sit in the morning on the
porch drinking coffee I notice the birds that have left my feeders and see new
ones that are arriving.
Blue
grosbeaks are gone, as are the rain crows, which live in my big oaks and never
visited the feeder anyway. Butterflies are starting to show up everywhere on
this wooded ridge; I saw three or four this morning alighting on the bark of
oak trees. They will start showing
up in large numbers the next few weeks, into October, dozens of beautiful
species. Some migrate a long, long ways, like the monarchs. Some species don’t go that far. But none of them migrate ten or twenty
feet off the ground where we see them.
They get up high when the upper winds blow south and it doesn’t take
much for wings that light to travel hundreds of miles in a hurry.
I
watched three immature yellow warblers, which I am sure hatched this summer,
come and eat from my feeders, then disappear. They are travelers and will
not be back. The gulf coast
beckons. On a limb from a white
oak next to my porch, a small slim grey catbird spent some time sitting stone
still. I think it is the first one I have ever seen up here but they are not
uncommon.
Though
some might think I am crazy to like being apart from most of the world, I think
about how I am blessed to be sitting there watching birds and butterflies and
wildlife as the sun rises above the timber, knowing that millions on a morning
like this are driving in city traffic, about to spend the day in some kind of
cubicle or office. I haven’t ever had to do that. But then, all those multitudes have
much better bank accounts than I have.
Few
people today treasure birds and butterflies as I do. Most of the masses don’t miss that, in fact most never see a
bird or butterfly. My pickup is ten
years old and my boat is 20 years old, and that’s what happens if you don’t
really live your life for money.
But I have a peace and contentment, and a whole ridge full of huge, tall
valuable oaks and walnuts, and birds and wildlife. Someday, when I am gone,
someone will probably make a fortune from “harvesting” my trees. Loggers like that term, ‘harvesting’. And
when that time comes, I will be gone and so will these forest loving birds that,
like me, aren’t really worth much…
With
the bow hunting season beginning, deer hunters need to know about how the
telecheck system is being used to target those who kill and report
large-antlered bucks. That
information comes in a letter a year ago from a person inside the conservation
department’s enforcement division and he says that women who hunt with a bow
are especially singled out. Agents
go to the home of women who report killing a deer and want to see them shoot
their bows. Most folks do not know
that you can refuse that kind of bullying. You do not have to let any agent in your home or shed or
barn if they have no search warrant, and you do not have to prove you can shoot
a bow or a rifle either for that manner.
If you hunt deer, for heavens sake read that letter on my blogspot, and
pass it on to other hunters.
And
if a pair of agents come to your home and act as if it is a friendly visit,
don’t let them in if they have no search warrant… talk to them outside. Last year a young man who allowed two ‘friendly’
agents to come into his home lost 5 mounted deer heads that he had legally
taken over many years. They confiscated his deer. That is what they came to do, and they fooled him into
letting them in. Remember that you have rights they cannot usurp. A few years ago the MDC lost a one
million dollar lawsuit because someone knew their rights and acted upon them.
Victims
are almost always people who have no idea what agents can and can’t do. I cannot believe that people are
ignorant enough to let themselves be bullied that way.
We
have a couple of thousand dollars worth of funds set aside to hire lawyers to
defend people unjustly accused. If
you know of a hunter or fisherman charged with a technicality or completely
innocent of a charge made by conservation agents this fall, notify me and we
will help you get a lawyer with those funds. More information about your rights can be seen on my
blogspot, (larrydablemontoutdoors) resulting from my own interviews with MDC
heads of the Enforcement Division.
Somehow this needs to get out to folks. It is time to start fighting back… way past time in fact.
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