The 2012 Big Sit Results!

The Metro Munchers at their Big Sit circle in Harrison Twp, MI.

The annual tailgate party for birders known (officially) as The Big Sit! has been held each October since 1990 under the auspices of The New Haven Bird Club (the organization that holds the trademark to the name The Big Sit!). If you're not familiar with the concept of a Big Sit, this link has a good explanation. Basically Big Sit participants spend as much of 24 hours as they can stand bird watching from inside a 17-foot diameter circle in some birdy spot.

In 2012, there were 233 registered Big Sit circles worldwide, most of them in the United States and Canada. But there were also circles in Panama, Sweden, Mexico, and South Africa. The braggin' rights for highest species count among all North American Big Sit circles in 2012 goes to to The No Bullsitters who were sitting at Cape May Point State Park on the southern tip of New Jersey. They had an astounding 132 species! Wow!

There were Big Sit circles in 40 of the 50 US states, begging the question of what the heck is WRONG with the 10 states with no Big Sit? [AR, HI, KS, KY, WY, TN, RI, NM, NV, MT]. A few of these have hosted Big Sits in the past so perhaps it's just a matter of not submitting their results. Here is a list of all the registered circles for 2012. And here is a link to lots of other stats for the 2012 Big Sit.

Here at Bird Watcher's Digest we love The Big Sit so much that we've been the promoters and data keepers for it since the 2002 event. Four years prior to that the good folks at Swarovski Optik became the sponsor of The Big Sit's only annual prize: The Golden Bird Prize. The Golden Bird Prize is a $500 cash award given to the winning team to apply/donate to a conservation cause/organization/project of their choice. Here's how the winning team is selected: At their annual winter meeting, the New Haven Bird Club randomly chooses a North American bird species from among all the species recorded on all the North American Big Sits. Then all the Big Sit circles that recorded that bird species are placed into a hat and one lucky team's name is drawn as the winner of The Golden Bird Prize.

The species selected for the 2012 Golden Bird Prize was the sedge wren. From among the Big Sit circles that saw a sedge wren on the 2012 Big Sit, The Wheeler National Wildlife Refuge "Wingers" lead by Dwight Cooley, were selected as the winners of The Golden Bird Prize. 

The sedge wren was the species selected as The Golden Bird for the 2012 Big Sit.

The Wingers had a very "wrenny" Big Sit, recording four wren species among their total: house, sedge, Carolina, and marsh wren. The Wingers plan to donate the $500 prize money from Swarovski Optik to the Wheeler Wildlife Refuge Association. This association, established in 1998, is an advocate for the Wheeler NWR complex and the National Wildlife Refuge Association. In addition, they sponsor and support many conservation and education projects on the refuge.

The Wingers have held a Big Sit at Wheeler NWR in Alabama for many years.

Congratulations to Dwight Cooley and the Wingers for their winning effort at Wheeler NWR in Alabama during the 2012 Big Sit. The 2013 Big Sit will be held on the weekend of October 13, 2013. You can watch the official Big Sit web page for announcements and the opening of registration.

I'm going to write about our own 2012 Big Sit here at Indigo Hill in one of my next posts and explain how we doubled our fun, if not our list of birds. Until then, stay birdy my friends.

Wild Sauce

Our local HEB ran pork butt for $1.00 per pound the other day and I bought several for grinding up to mix with venison to make some summer sausage. While grinding the pork butts I cut enough lean strips from one of the butts to make pork bits and rice for our evening meal.  While trying to come up with a sauce to glaze the pork in I made a spicy sweet and tangy red sauce that was one of those accidents that turned out so good I had to write it down and remember how to make it.  Everyone that has tasted the sauce so far has asked how to make it so here is the recipe.  Hope you enjoy it, Wild Ed



Wild Sauce


1 cup ketchup

1 cup cider vinegar

½ cup brown sugar

½ cup sugar

2 tablespoons paprika

1 teaspoon cayenne

1 tablespoon black pepper

1 tablespoon dried chipotle pepper flakes

2 tablespoon dried red pepper flakes

2 cups water

Mix all ingredients well and bottle.



We have been making Wild Sauce, BBQ Sauce and Chutneys to hand out as small Christmas gifts to friends and family this year.  We are going to get together with both sides of the family and our kids and their families this year and be able to enjoy them all.  I hope each of you have a Merry Christmas and get to spend time with those you love.  God bless each of you in this new year and God bless Texas, Wild Ed

Texas Cranberry, Cherry, Orange Chutney

With the holidays coming up we are preparing foods for the family Christmas feast get together.  Each of us brings different dishes to my Mom's place for a combined Christmas Eve feast.  Some family members are famous for certain dishes and others are famous for just showing up to eat.  It is probably that way in your family also.  As for me I just bring what my Mom asks unless I have something going on the smoker or have made something special.  This year Mom wanted me to bring Cornbread dressing, gravy and cranberry sauce.  We are also bringing some fresh tamales as they are a Texas Tradition.

I did not want to bring just canned cranberry sauce so I came up with this recipe for a wonderful chutney. I thought some of you might like to try it on your holiday table.  The last ingredient is optional and try just a little in a small sample to decide which way you like it.  I found I prefer just a little vinegar in my chutney but others like to leave the vinegar out.  Which ever way you like it sweet or tangy it beats the heck out of canned cranberry sauce and puts a wonderful smell in the house when cooking.  I hope each of you get to share a Christmas feast with your family, Wild Ed

Cranberry Cherry Orange Chutney

2 bags fresh cranberries

1 cup sugar

1/2 cup packed brown sugar

2 small oranges diced

1/2 cup dried cherries

2 tsp ground cinnamon

1 tsp ground ginger

1/4 tsp ground cloves

1/4 tsp ground allspice

1 cup orange juice or water

Zest from one small orange.

Apple Cider Vinegar to taste (Optional)

Combine all ingredients except vinegar in a large sauce pan or pot. Cook over medium heat, stirring frequently, until cranberries pop and juice is released from cranberries, about 15 minutes. Reduce heat and simmer, uncovered, about 15 minutes or until thickened; stirring occasionally. Add vinegar if wanted to taste.  Chill before serving.

Always Take a Camera Along in Texas

This last Saturday my uncle Bob and I made a trip up to Priddy, Texas to meet a fellow outdoorsman to purchase an older boat and motor that I plan to turn into my Colorado River adventure boat for the grand kids and just maybe to help take care of my second childhood urges, if they don’t kill me first. The seller got tied up behind a wreck on the trip down and was late to the meeting at a deer lease about 5 miles out of Priddy. Not wanting to pull into a hunting camp with strangers not knowing our reason to be there we decided to drive up a nearby hill on the farm to market road we were on and just observe the wildlife, sit back and tell life stories to each other until the seller arrived.

This is where I learned a life lesson that apparently has taken me fifty eight years to learn. While sitting on the side of the road we saw some vultures fly down at what we thought was a big vulture sitting in a dead tree maybe a half mile away. As we watched it looked like the vulture in the tree had light shining off of its head. I reached in the back seat and got a pair of 10 x 50 Cabela’s binoculars I carry in the truck for just such an occasion and focused them on the bird. To my surprise there sat a fully mature adult Bald Eagle, in the middle of no where far from rivers or lakes set an eagle just taking in the afternoon. I turned to the backseat again while remembering my camera was lying on the couch where I had laid the case when I came in from the ranch last weekend. I had no way to record what we were seeing and the rare sighting would go un-documented, perhaps it was just a moment for my uncle and I to share at that time. I know the saying that this posting is worthless without pictures, but I just wanted to remind all of you to always carry a camera in the outdoors or anytime you are on a trip around this great State. You never know what you might see, Wild Ed

PS:  It is not always easy to find a decent place to eat when your out on the road headed to an adventure so I encourage hunters, fisherman and other outdoorsmen to let people know where to stop when on the road.  We stopped at a small cafe on the south edge of Goldthwaite Texas on 183 that had a large number of vehicles in the parking lot.  I don't remember the name but they had a good cheeseburger with fries for a fair price.  The table next to us had mexican food that looked awful good so I will try it the next time I go through the area.  It is on the west side of 183 on the south outskirts before you get into town.

Podcast Episode #40: Optics Buying Advice Part 2

My interview with Ben Lizdas of Eagle Optics was just too meaty to include in a single podcast episode, so we broke it into two parts. And this new episode, which is number 40 in the "This Birding Life" podcast archives, contains the second half of our conversation about getting good advice when buying birding optics. Ben and the folks at Eagle Optics are super experienced in guiding customers through the buying experience.

Ben Lizdas of Eagle Optics.

In this episode we discuss some considerations for specific types of use: hawk watching, shorebird watching, warbler watching, backyard feeder watching as well as parameters for choosing the right binocs for traveling, hiking, and the proper binocs for use by young bird watchers.

 Special thanks to Zeiss Sports Optics for sponsoring "This Birding Life."

EVENT ALERT!
If you'd like to meet Ben Lizdas and sample the very best in birding optics for yourself, make plans to attend the Birding Optics & Gear Expo, March 23-24, 2013 at the Grange Insurance Audubon Center in Columbus, Ohio. Eagle Optics will be there along with reps from the major optics manufacturers. It will be a great opportunity to try before you buy. Registration is FREE and all registered attendees will be entered to win one of our fabbo door prizes.

Endangered Whooping Cranes Stop in Central Texas

Central Texas Birdwatchers and Naturalists are again trekking to Lake Granger in Central Texas to view the rare and endangered Whooping Crane. What makes this such a unique opportunity is that the birds normally spend winters along the Texas Coast near Aransas National Wildlife Refuge hundreds of miles to the south. After migrating from their summer grounds in Canada two family groups have decided to spend some time here in Central Texas. Each group consists of two adults and one juvenile crane. Instead of dining on crabs and shrimp these birds are acquiring a taste for freshwater mussels, snails, insects, frogs and grains left behind in local farmer’s fields.

                       Juvenile and adult Whooping Crane

These birds may just be here for a while and then move on down to the wintering grounds on the coast or they might just make this their winter home. If you plan on seeing the birds remember they are protected as an endangered species and must not be harassed or disturbed. Be sure and take a spotting scope or good binoculars to get a good look from a distance. I kind of hope they stay around and establish some Central Texas flocks. You never want to have all your eggs in one basket anyway, Wild Ed

Caption Contest #24

I'm pretty sure we've found a new product that's guaranteed to get rid of pesky artist/naturalists, but we need a caption from you that sells this new product to the unsuspecting public.

If you've got a great idea for a caption for this new product ad, share it here using the Comments window of my blog. I'll pick a winner on Friday, December 14, 2012. Thanks to Julie Zickefoose for being in the photo. I'm not sure if her face is revealing worry or relief.

Gentlepeople: start your caption engines!

Phoebe's Special Birding Adventure

 

 During our recent family sojourn in South Texas as part of the Rio Grande Valley Birding Festival, I was really happy to see daughter Phoebe (age 16) finally really get into bird watching. And because Phoebe was into it, her younger brother Liam (just turned 13) also got into it, though at a somewhat lower intensity level.

Both kids had exceptional birding moments during our six days in Texas, but it's Phoebe's experience that I'll relate here. Liam's we'll share another day.

Julie and I'd been working during the festival as guides and speakers and the kids came along where space was available. They went along on one of Julie's trips and helped me with the large group of young birders on Saturday morning. Then on Sunday we all got to be together on a Breakfast with the Birds trip to a local private ranch called Rio Costero. Al Batt was one of the other guides and he and Liam kept up a constant banter about going "squatchin'." (This means they were going hunting in the South Texas scrub for sasquatch.)

Birding a resaca at Rio Costero.

The ranch was amazing, the birding was engaging, and the breakfast was so good that we all ate too much. After taking the group bus back to Harlingen, our family hopped in the rental car and headed for South Padre Island. We'd promised the kids an afternoon at the beach—they'd never seen the Gulf of Mexico. Well, actually Phoebe had, as a three-year old, but that doesn't really count.

 Being at the beach was really fun. We frolicked in the surf despite a fairly strong undertow. We body-surfed and splashed and ran. The kids asked us to take photos of them leaping with joy.

It was hard to leave the beach, but time was winding down and there was another place, across the street from the beach access, that I wanted to visit: the boardwalk adjacent to the South Padre Island Convention Center. This boardwalk and the natural and human-enhanced habitat around it is a famous birding hotspot. In early spring the birding action is in the small trees between the start of the boardwalk and the convention center. I once did a Big Sit here during the Texas Birding Classic and it was crazy birdy. This being November, the best birding was out in the marsh through which the boardwalk winds.

 Immediately we began seeing and calling out bird after bird: northern pintail, green-winged and blue-winged teal, shovelers, Forster's and royal terns, tricolored heron, little blue heron, roseate spoonbill, American avocet, black-necked stilts. I was pleased at how many of these species Phoebe knew on her own. Liam was riffing on the birds' names—as newly minted teenaged boys are apt to do—and cracking himself up in the process.

Moments before Phoebe's great bird sighting.

We ran into a small flock of familiar Ohio birders who had found an American bittern, which they were kind enough to share with us. Phoebe really like this one and we began telling her some of the natural history of the species. She even recalled seeing them before on our annual trip to North Dakota.

American bittern.

 Twenty or so minutes later, as we were turning around to head back to the car, Phoebe stopped, raised her binocs and pointed, saying "What's THAT bird? Is it another bittern? It looks smaller."
Umm. YES Phoebe, that's a least bittern!

Phoebe's least bittern!

WOW! A two-bittern day! We watched the least bittern fishing for about 40 minutes. We took photos and video. And we reached our Ohio birdpals by cellphone and returned their earlier bittern favor.

Watching the least bittern.

 I can't accurately convey how happy and proud these few moments made me. We've never pushed our kids to get into birding. Sure, we've have forced them out of bed in the wee hours regularly in their lifetimes just to bring them along with us on birding trips. And we've thrust expensive optical instruments into their tiny hands and implored them to get a good look at some fabulous bird or other. But we've never forced them to become bird watchers. Now it seems the metamorphosis is happening naturally. [Which was ALL part of our evil plan from the beginning!]

Phoebe keeping the trip bird list on our Breakfast with the Birds field trip.

Phoebe is already there. It might take Liam a bit longer. It would help if we could just get one good look at a sasquatch. Now THAT would be a lifer!

Predator Control Necessary In Today’s Wildlife Management

In today’s politically correct environment the animal rights people keep trying to force the rest of us not to eat meat, wear leather, fur or use animal products. My belief is that GOD placed animals here for us to use responsibly and humanely. Whatever your thoughts the truth is that with fur prices no longer worth the hunting or trapping that has taken place in the past most predators are multiplying out of control in many areas of Texas. Raccoons have gotten out of control in our part of the State and are responsible for destroying many game bird and song bird nests. Just driving on the highway we see large numbers of them that have been run over by traffic each night. They tear up our supplemental wildlife feeders, bird feeders and make nightly raids on cattle, sheep and goat feeders every night. The bird nest boxes we put up are often raided and hummingbird feeders are destroyed on a regular basis. Nothing that smells of feed or food is safe as they come out every night in large numbers. Free ranging poultry is completely out of the question.  What will happen is that they will eat themselves out of house and home unless controlled. As the population increases they become susceptible to disease breakouts of rabies and other diseases dangerous to us along with our livestock and pets.

We have chosen to manage the predator population on our place so we can have some of them present but not enough to cause too many problems or have a disease outbreak. We will be hunting and trapping until we feel we have the raccoon population under control again. It is sometimes a hard decision for some to make but letting Mother Nature control the population is no longer something that will work in today’s environment. The raccoon really has no natural predators except in extreme wilderness areas and disease or starvation is not a choice anyone would choose for the population. Use humane methods and check your traps daily if that is one of the methods used. I like the dog proof traps and cage traps as they allow me to release anything I want and don’t hurt pets if they should get caught. I also encourage people to skin and have the furs processed for your own use, if you must remove something from the population it would be a shame to waste it if it is usable. Wildlife management decisions are not always easy so make the best decisions you can for the whole environment. Wild Ed

Central Texas Again Short of Rain

I watched three does run across what is left of one of the food plots at the place and they left dust trails.  My truck is covered in dust and dirt after a day working in the dry conditions.  The only thing left in the food plots are weeds and if it does not rain soon the weeds will die.  I hope this is not the new normal as our area is turning to desert.  This lack of rain is also hurting the wildlife as there is not much food and most of the shallow tanks are dry.  We are building another small water trough just for the wildlife and hope it will help some of them survive.  If you have the means to help out the wildlife with either food or water be sure and do so.  Even if it is just a little extra for the birds all will be appreciated.

We sat out on the barn patio the other night and marveled at the stars we are able to see when we get out of the glow of the Austin Metroplex area night lights.  While watching the stars were were serenaded by a pair of Great Horned Owls with background provided by several Screech Owls.  It was a wonderful way to end a hard day of work.  Get out and enjoy nature wherever and whenever you can, it restores your soul.  Wild Ed

Ready for Grosbeaks

"Band of Gold: Evening Grosbeaks" by Julie Zickefoose

 I've heard their calls once or twice this season, flying overhead, unseen. I've also heard the voices of bird watchers, breathless with excitement, after capturing a glimpse of these dynamic birds with the massive bills and mustard-colored plumage. Evening grosbeaks!

Yes it seems that this is an invasion year for grosbeaks and other members of the finch family, too, including pine siskins (currently EVERYwhere), purple finches, a few redpolls, and both flavors of crossbill (we still have just two crossbill species in North America as I write this, though the "splitters" are hard at work).

It's been years since we had a serious influx of evening grosbeaks here in southeastern Ohio. I remember a couple of visits to our bird feeders in the early 1990s, but that's about it. Of course many local birders—in fact many bird watchers in the Midwest recall the huge northern finch incursions during the late 1970s. The winters of 1977-78 and 1978-79 were among the coldest and snowiest in modern times. And we had colorful, feisty flocks of finches covering our feeders. I remember filling the feeders almost daily and watching hundreds of evening grosbeaks and common redpolls descending to gorge themselves. We'd started Bird Watcher's Digest in the fall of 1978 in our house, and all the bird watchers' chatter and newspaper articles about the winter finch invasion gave us great encouragement to keep the magazine going.

The male evening grosbeak from Willard Bay State Park in Utah.

The last evening grosbeak I set eyes on was a male lagging behind a small flock of his species in a riverside forest just north of Salt Lake City, Utah. I was birding there with two friends on a morning off during the Great Salt Lake Birding Festival. Seeing a gorgeous male grosbeak, singing and foraging, in green leaves was a bit of a context shift for me. You can read the full story of that birding adventure in this earlier post from this very blog.

Julie's quick snapshot of one of this year's grosbeaks in our gray birch tree.

Julie called me last Tuesday with the happy news that a small flock of grosbeaks dropped into our yard, foraged below the hopper feeder, then vanished. Even my mom reported a flyover evening grosbeak back in October. Now that people all over the region have seen evening grosbeaks, I am getting fully prepared. I know that evening grosbeaks prefer sunflower seed offered on a platform, so I built what may be the world's largest platform feeder by placing an old, weathered piece of siding across the corner of our deck railing. Crafty of me, huh? I poured a large bucket of black-oil sunflower seed onto it and stepped back. Ten seconds later a tufted titmouse dropped in for a seed.

Here's my gargantuan feeder, with my hat and a tiny tufted titmouse for size perspective. Now how could any passing evening grosbeak not notice this? I'm thinking about making some grosbeak decoys (out of French's mustard bottles) and using my iPod to play grosbeak flock calls out the window. But I'm NOT desperate. Not at all.

The Twins and Dusty's Buck


Yesterday my eldest daughter brought two new hunters into the world.  Paeton, Parker and Mom are all doing fine. I will spare you the pictures of newborns but hope to have them on these pages in the future.

My daughters have a friend that is like a daughter to us and they refer to her as their sister by choice.  Yes Sarah we mean you!  Anyway she recently got married to this guy that turns out to be one of those great guys.  Don't let this increase your hat size Dusty.  Back to the real world, Dusty sent me a picture of his opening morning buck taken near Henly, Texas.  Nice buck Dusty and job well done.  Wild Ed

 

Happy Birthday Liam!

With today's activities and festivities, Liam has celebrated his birthday in Texas three times. Today my blond-haired boy turns 13. We're celebrating with some morning birding, then an afternoon time-out while I give a talk at the Rio Grande Valley Birding Festival, then some shopping for some new threads for the birthday dude, then a dinner out somewhere fun. I keep teasing Liam that we're taking him across the Mexican border for a b-day party Carlos E Queso's, which is just like Chuck E Cheese's, but more picante!

He's not buying it!

We call him many names: Po, Shoom, Broski...he puts up with all of them.

 

 No brother ever adored a big sister more than he adores Phoebe.

 He LOVES the costume fun of Halloween, his favorite holiday.

He is an expert at taking funny photos.

 

We never want him to grow up and leave home, but we know that day will come. And all too soon.

 Happy birthday, my sweet son. Thank you for coming into my life. I love you.

Remember Your First Buck

For those of us that are deer hunters there is probably no feeling that is much greater or emotional than the thrill of putting your first buck on the ground.  I still remember fifty years later the old Texas classic basket horned eight point that followed a doe onto a cactus flat where I was hunting near Round Mountain, Texas.  My grandfather had put me in the blind well before daylight and told me to shoot right behind the shoulder if the old buck he had seen several times before showed up.  I now know that grandad had passed the old buck up just so one of us kids might have a chance at it as I often pass bucks today in hopes my daughter or wife might have the opportunity to harvest it at our place.  The old buck heard the safety catch click as I took it off to shoot and looked right at the blind.  I put the cross hairs right behind the shoulder and pulled the trigger.  At the crack of the .243 the buck whirled and ran quickly out of my sight.  I was horrified, I must have missed.  Being eight years old I did not realize that a lung shot buck could run quite aways before expiring.  I put the rifle in the corner of the blind and left it as my grandfather had directed me to do and started the long walk back to the ranch house.  I dreaded telling grandad that I had missed a buck.  About five minutes down the road I met the old truck coming down the road to meet me.  I did not know at the time that grandad had been sitting in the truck at the pasture gate about 500 yards away waiting to hear my shot.  I explained what had happened and waited for my lecture.  Instead grandad told me we would go look and see what happened.  When I showed him where the buck was standing he studied the ground and took off in the direction the buck had fled.  After a few feet he pointed at the ground, looked back at me and grinned ear to ear.  There on the ground were several drops of blood.  As he followed the buck the blood trail became heavier until he stopped and pointed.  There about fifty yards away was the old buck piled up in a cedar.  The shot had been good.  That old hill country buck was a tremendous trophy to me.  I will never forget that buck or the wisdom and soft heart of my grandfather, Eddie Thomas.  Thanks for the memories.  Wild Ed

I have a good friend in Georgetown, Texas that had the chance to re-live that first buck feeling through his grandson this last week.   I congratulate Clayton and also Dennis for being a grandad that just created a memory that will last a lifetime.  Here is the sequence as Dennis related it to me.

Eleven year old Clayton Andrews of Georgetown had quite a first hunt. He harvested the heavy horned seven point with an eighteen inch spread on the first morning of Youth season at 7:45 in the morning. Clayton dropped the buck with one shot. He was hunting with Dennis Chapman, his Grandfather, on the Chapman Ranch west of Georgetown. He was using a 222 caliber rifle with 50 grain soft point ammo.

Watching the buck work his way through brush for five minutes Clayton never got buck fever, but Grandad was a nervous wreck hoping on hope that the deer would step out of the brush so Clayton could get a shot. Yes, Grandad is having the buck mounted for Clayton.

 

The TexasAntler Restriction and Ethics

 

I have struggled with writing about this as I know it will make some people mad.  The Texas Antler Restriction Rule has been around long enough for everyone in those counties effected to be aware of the rule.  There are still too many violations of this rule and hunters should be helping to enforce the rule by reporting those that break it.

 

Report Game Violations

1-800-792-4263

 

We had around nine, year and half old eight points coming to our feeders last year.  None of them would have been legal shooters under the antler restriction rule.  By the end of the season we could find none of them on our game cameras. I made sure my kids and family knew the antler rule and would not shoot anything but a legal mature buck, a doe or cull spike. I watched two of these young eight points crossing a road easement last year and jump over the fence on to a neighboring place with lease hunters.  I heard multiple shots and someone then yelling for help to find a deer.  I talked with a hunter last year that told me it was so close to 13 inches that he was pretty sure it was a legal buck when he shot.  My answer was that if it is that close why would anyone shoot it.  If you can not tell let it walk.  If a buck is too little to kill this year just remember how big it will be next year.  I also saw a neighbor and his grandson with a buck in the back of a truck that would not meet the 13 inch rule, so I mentioned it just to make sure he was aware.  He said it was a big buck to his grandson so he let him shoot it. What a great chance he blew to have let his grandson pass on the buck and then explained about deer management and that a true hunter doesn’t break the law or kill everything that they see.

 

 I am giving notice to all in this article that from now on I will be calling the game warden and reporting any antler violations I see, so will most of my family and friends.  So should you.  "Why" some will ask?  It is the law number one; number two is that we have only a few legal bucks on the place this year coming to the cameras.  It makes me mad when I think of all the promising young bucks of last year.  There would have been a pretty good group of nice bucks for the girls to hunt this year if not for the thoughtless shooting of illegal bucks by others last year.  In fact all of the hunters in the area would have had a chance at bigger bucks.  All of our would-be-bigger bucks were killed before they had any chance of growing a decent set of antlers.  I would bet that none of those eight points were mounted or even the antlers kept as a trophy as the largest might have had a twelve inch spread.  What is the point in killing them when a legal doe or spike could have been taken for meat?    The problem with management on small tracts is  that your neighbors have to manage the deer also.  Making sure they follow the law will help in managing the deer herd in the area.  I would also urge parents and grandparents to explain to kids and grand kids about management and help them hunt a cull or get a legal buck and then make sure they understand that the Texas Antler Rule helped grow the big buck for them to harvest. 

 

Remember I’ll be out there watching and so will others, I hope you will be too.  Wild Ed

 

Report Game Violations

1-800-792-4263

 

 

For counties with Special Antler Restrictions, a legal buck deer has:

1.       at least one unbranched antler, or

2.       an inside spread of 13 inches or greater. The inside spread requirement does not apply to any buck that has an unbranched antler.

Not more than one buck with an inside spread of 13 inches or greater may be taken.

The following picture shows how to judge if a buck is legal or not.  If you can not tell he is not big enough to shoot, let him grow one more year

 

Ears in alert position
are approximately
13 inches apart and
may be used to judge
the inside spread.

 

 

BWD Digital: NOT Scary!

It's Halloween season right now, which means there are scary things all over the place: Jack-o-lanterns, haunted houses, headless horsepeople, robo-calls about the presidential election, Old Man Jenkins from Scooby Doo...

One thing that is NOT scary, however, are the really wonderful digital options available for enjoying Bird Watcher's Digest.  

 

BWD is the magazine that I edit (and which my parents started in our living room in 1978). We're a magazine for folks who love reading about birds and birding. If you download the BWD App or use your e-mail address to log-in to eBWD our fabulous digital edition, flesh-eating zombies will NOT immediately surround you. I give you my word on this.

 

If you like reading about birds on your computer, give eBWD a try. In addition to all the great articles and columns in every issue, you'll get bird videos, sounds, audio files of authors reading their articles, and links to birdy websites all over the Internet. Just a few issues after we launched eBWD, it won a digital magazine award for being awesome. You can poke around the current issue of eBWD by visiting this link: http://www.birdwatchersdigest-digital.com.

eBWD: The digital edition of Bird Watcher's Digest

 Here is a video that we made to help our readers get maximum enjoyment out of eBWD.

 

Or, if you prefer reading on your iPad, Kindle Fire, Nook, or other digital tablet/reader, then the BWD App is a better option because it's designed to take advantage of the tablet format and interface.

You can download the BWD App here in Apple's iTunes. And if you're unsure about whether or not you'll enjoy the app, please browse the many positive comments it has received since it launched in January of 2012.

Here's the current issue of BWD as it appears on an iPad (our digest size is perfect for tablet reading!). Now if YOU get (or GIVE!) an iPad or some other whiz-bang digital gizmo for the holidays, wouldn't it just be wonderful to have some engaging, entertaining content inside it? We certainly think so.

Subscribers to the printed edition of BWD get access to the digital options for FREE! All we need is your e-mail address to verify your subscription.

If you're not a current subscriber to Bird Watcher's Digest it's just $19.99 for one year/six issues. Of course you can also subscribe to just eBWD (six issues is currently $9.99) or just via the BWD App (six issues is currently $4.99). But folks these low-low prices won't last forever...

It's a well-know fact, in these scary times, that one of the ONLY ways to keep flesh-eating zombies away from yourself and your loved ones is to subscribe to Bird Watcher's Digest.

Happy Halloween, happy holidays, happy birding, and happy reading!