Hula Haiku

Water source of life
brings us together looking
sky peppered with birds

Venison Burger Made Right

Many people have much of their venison ground into burger but are never really happy with the results.  The fat on deer as a whole is not a good tasting fat and there is no marbling of the meat like on beef.  Therefore unless you add fat to venison burger it will be dry and will not have much taste.  Since there is no fat in the meat to bind it together it will crumble if you try and make it into a patty. The solution to this dry tasteless burger is too easy, you just add fat.  You can have the processor add pork or beef fat to your venison burger and then use it just like ground pork or ground beef.  If you do it at home you can mix it many ways.  I try to end up with a product that is about 25 percent pork or beef fat to 75 percent venison.  I sometimes buy the cheap overly fat beef hamburger at the grocery store and mix in ground venison until it has enough fat in the mixture, this makes great burgers.  If my area grocery stores run the packer beef briskets on sale that have not been trimmed of the excess fat, I will buy one of those to grind and mix with my ground venison.  A brisket ground up with and equal amount of venison makes very good burger. I buy pork jowls or fatback to mix with my ground venison for my breakfast or link sausage recipes.  If you like the flavor of Bacon Burgers you might try my favorite way to make them.  I buy the cheap bacon ends that come in a box or a big plastic bulk package. These are the end pieces of slabs of bacon that are odd sized and cannot be sliced to go in the packages as sliced bacon.  It is just small and end pieces of actual cured bacon.  I grind it up and mix it with the ground venison until the mix fries up like you want and then it can be made into packages of formed burger patties.  The taste when done on the grill is of a great bacon burger, with a slice of your favorite cheese most will not be able to even tell that the wonderful burger they are eating is 75 percent venison.  I sometimes take the bacon burger mixture and add seasonings to make breakfast patty sausage, be sure and cut back on the salt as the cured bacon is already salted. This will make a patty sausage with a cured bacon flavor. With a little experimentation you can come up with all sorts of ways to use your venison burger.  My wife and I use the burger in mexican food, Italian food, meat loaf or any other way we would use ground meat. Just remember to add at least 25 percent fat when you grind the burger and you will have a product the whole family will enjoy.  Wild Ed

Walking the Catwalk!

Among the tiny handful of birding events that I do every year is The New River Birding & Nature Festival in Fayette County, West Virginia. There are plenty-plenty reasons why I love this annual spring birding bacchanalia: it's run by good buddies of mine, the birding is truly incredible, Swainson's and cerulean warblers, the landscape is breathtaking, it's a small and intimate gathering of the tribe, they let me play music, there are hottubs in the cabins, and it's only a three-hour drive from the Bill of the Birds man cave. Now, there's another reason. The catwalk!

In the photo above you see a view of The New River Gorge Bridge which carries WV Route 19 across the vast, rocky, gaping maw of the New River Gorge. Do you see the horizontal line of brown steel girders running below the roadway? That's where the bridge's catwalk is located. Come along little kitty-cats and take a stroll with me. If you are acrophobic, you might want to stop reading now. I suggest you google the phrase "Rick-rolling" as an alternative way to soothe yourself.

Here is the understructure of the gorge bridge, stretching off into infinity, toward the south and the Fayetteville end of the bridge. We're climbing out onto the catwalk on the north end.


The company that owns the rights to take people on the catwalk (they market it as "BridgeWalk") has figured things out quite nicely. You are fit with a rather all-encompassing harness—the same kind that mountain climbers or bridge maintenance workers use. You are instructed to bring only items that can be lashed onto your body (see my binocs in the photo above). If you drop your precious iPhone over the edge, it's gone, dude.

The harnesses are attached to a lead which is latched via caribiner to a turnbuckle device that rolls along the safety cable. But that cable is attached to the bridge structure in about 50 places along its length. This is where the ingenious turnbuckle comes in: it ratchets through the attachment brackets, like a mini paddlewheel, while keeping you safely attached at all times. A few gentle tugs gets your line and harness past each attachment point. It's a very clever solution and much safer and more convenient than having to unhook and re-hook each bridge-walker's harness.

We walked the catwalk with six other people, plus a guide. Geoff Heeter, one of the New River Birding & Nature Festival founders and the fellow who invited me on this little adventure, wisely suggested we bring up the rear of the group. This was a very good call as we were able, after the first few sections, to lag behind a bit to take photos and do a bit of birding.

Here's our group, lined up for a photo, taken by our BridgeWalk guide Jim Smith.

And here's Geoff all harnessed up and grooving on the view. And speaking of the view: it is spectacular. I've been to the New River many times in the past 20 years, but being out over the gorge like this was a new and thrilling experience.

As you move out over the gorge, there is only the metal grate of the catwalk below your feet and two steel bands plus a top rail guarding you on the the sides. I'm not afraid of heights, but my knees did wobble a bit for the first 10 minutes or so. Once you get used to it, the thrill takes over for the chill and the experience becomes utterly enjoyable.


That's the New River way down yonder! But there are other fabbo things to see, too!

We saw at least four peregrine falcons on the bridge. These birds are from a population that was hacked on a local cliff face as part of a reintroduction program. We noted bands on the legs of two of them. And the birds seemed utterly unimpressed with the humans clanging along the catwalk—probably because there is a constant roar of traffic on the bridge just feet above, and because there is a steady stream of bridge maintenance workers, and now bridge tourists, coming along the catwalk each day.
The structure of the bridge has numerous holes, ledges, and perches perfect for peregrines. They have nested on the bridge for the past couple of years. Perhaps the birds we were seeing were adults with this year's young?

The BridgeWalk experience is going to be offered at the 10th annual New River Birding & Nature Festival next April 30 through May 5. The festival fills up really fast, so if you've been thinking about attending, don't wait! This final photo shows how close we got on our BridgeWalk to one of the peregrines—my closest look ever at a perched p-bird!

Hope to see you next spring in West Virginia, on the catwalk or elsewhere!

Coons Take Over the Deer Feeder

As the pictures from one night this last week show, the coons have taken over the new feeder. It has become obvious that I am going to have to remove some raccoons from the habitat. We counted fourteen coons at just two feeders. You might enjoy some of the pictures taken by the new Primos Truth Cam 60. I am becoming a fan of the pictures and the quality of the product it produces. Have a great Thanksgiving and I will be back next week, Wild Ed

 

Episode #34 of This Birding Life

Greetings bird people! Episode #34 of my podcast "This Birding Life" is now available (free!) for your listening pleasure over at Podcast Central and in the Podcasts section of the iTunes Store (where it's also free). This episode is an audio recording of Greg Miller's heart-warming presentation at the 2011 Midwest Birding Symposium held last September at Lakeside, Ohio.

In case you don't know who Greg is, he was one of three birders who did a North American big year in 1998 who were featured in Mark Obmascik's best-selling book, The Big Year. The book was the inspiration for the movie "The Big Year" made by director David Frankel and featuring an all-star cast including Jack Black, Owen Wilson, and Steve Martin. Programming note: Episode #33 of "This Birding Life" featured an interview with Director David Frankel.


Greg is one of the nicest, most genuine people I've ever met. In his own words, he's "Mr. Un-Hollywood." In his presentation at the MBS he talked about growing up with a bird-watching father, and the highlights and lowlights of his life leading up to his decision to make 1998 his own big year.

I hope you enjoy this new episode of "This Birding Life." Please feel free to share your comments about it here on Bill of the Birds.
Until next time, I'm wishing you clear skies and ossum birding! I'll see you out there with the birds!

Waiting for This Sign of Spring

OK the bleariness of the Ohio winter has settled in upon us and signs of spring, well, there are none! Sigh.

There's one specific sign that I look for each spring—one that lets me know that the ambient daytime temperatures are warm enough for there to be airborne insects. The air above our southeastern Ohio woods is peppered with gnats...

It's the return of the blue-gray gnatcatchers! They return in spring sometime in early April, usually around the 5th. Once they're back, they are with us until early October, giving away their presence with their high-pitched wheezing calls.

What's facing us now here in Ohio is about six months of gray skies and icky weather. Funny that a bird as gray as our winter skies can be such a harbinger of the joys and colors and music of spring.

I. Can't. Wait!

Results With New Primos Truth Cam 60




Truth Cam 60 Test Area


To say I am impressed with the Truth Cam 60 is an understatement.  I put the camera out for three days and instead of just a few pictures it had taken 591 pictures.  The camera was placed approximately 60 feet from the feed pen as that was where the closest tree I could mount it on was located.  I would have liked to have mounted it a little closer to the pen yet the night pictures still let me identify the wildlife from that range.  The daylight pictures were good and the camera is so sensitive it took pictures every time a bird flew in or out of the feed pen, pretty impressive to say the least.  I am going to turn the sensitivity to medium and see if it will not take so many pictures of the various birds.  We ended up with pictures of deer, cows, turkeys, raccoons, grey foxes and a bobcat.  I have a feeling that I will really enjoy this camera.  I do however have a bone to pick with Primos on the 20/20 Mounting System I purchased for the camera.  The T-Post adapter does not fit the T-post size that most Central Texas ranches use in the fences and will have to be bent or put undue stress on the plastic mount.  The mount as a whole is made out of flimsy plastic and the magnetic connection was almost undone when I went to check the camera in just three days.  I am going to have to mount the camera somewhere else as I fear the mount will drop it out the tree and damage the camera.  The staff at Primos needs to get busy and come up with a mount that is equal to the great camera they are producing.  It needs to hold it securely without fear of the camera falling out and being damaged. I feel as if I just wasted $20.00 on the mount. Get out and take a few pictures of your own and I
hope you enjoy these, Wild Ed

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