Bird Camp Diaries: May 2007
The Bird Camp Diaries are nothing more than whimsical monthly musings. I hope you find them entertaining, and sometimes thought provoking.
Bob St.Pierre
Director of Marketing & Public Relations
Quail Forever & Pheasants Forever
Mushrooms on My Mind
I have Seasonal Affective Disorder. Call it what you want - cabin fever, SAD or the winter blues - I got it big time. It's not a condition easy to deal with as a lifelong resident of the Midwest's frozen tundra, but boy oh boy does it make spring all the more exciting. Yep, nothing medicates my Seasonal Affective Disorder like the beginning of spring and a May morel mushroom hunt! Spring has finally sprung across the country and that means shrooming, nesting pheasants, whistling quail, the fishing opener and a new puppy.
If you've not tried hunting for morel mushrooms before, you still have a couple of weeks left in the northern third of the country. Find a friend that knows what he/she is doing. Many folks do find it difficult to correctly distinguish morels from their poisonous counterparts, so be sure about what you take home for the skillet. However, if you do successfully discover these catacomb-looking spongyesque fungi, you'll discover they are morsels of tasty goodness. They compliment most wild game and red wines as table fair, but can't be beat next to roast squab and a light pinot noir.
Singing Bobs
As for quail, now is the time to be listening for the call of male bobwhites. "Singing" begins in early spring to attract a mate, signaling the start of the mating season. Nesting occurs from May to September. A typical bobwhite nest is a shallow, saucer-shaped depression in the ground, lined with plants and covered with grass and the previous year's dead vegetation. Clutch sizes vary from 10 to 20 eggs, and incubation lasts a little over three weeks. Bobwhites are what ecologists refer to as an r-selected species, which means they are subject to high annual mortality rates but are able to offset this mortality with high reproductive rates. Nesting loss is fairly high at 60-70%. Females will re-nest until successful or until it becomes too late in the season. With persistent nesting, 75% of females will produce young. Chick mortality is about 30%. Most deaths occur within the first two weeks of life, when the young are most vulnerable to weather. The life expectancy of the bobwhite quail is less than one year.
Nesting Pheasants
By and large, the winter should have produced good carryover of adult pheasants coming into the spring nesting season. That's good news considering the banner season most of us experienced last fall. However, the weather conditions during spring nesting season is the critical component influencing the potential for another bumper crop of autumn roosters. In April and May, we are looking for moderate precipitation and hoping to avoid "gully washers;" really heavy rains that wash away nests in ditches and other waterways, or drown nests in other low lying areas. Moderate spring showers are important to greening up good nesting cover and creating insect populations necessary to sustaining young pheasant chicks during their first few weeks of life. In June, pheasant chicks coming off the nests are very vulnerable to cool weather and cold rains. So, by late July, we should have a pretty good idea of what the autumn pheasant fields will hold.
Fat Raps, Hot-n-Tots, and Jitterbugs, oh my!
I would argue the world's best job is the guy or gal responsible for naming fishing lures... The Little Cleo, the Daredevil, and the Sweedish Pimple... brilliant! Outside of doing it for a career, it's pretty darn fun teaching a youngster the names of lures and how to use them. My nephew Nick is five years old and nothing brings a smile quicker to his face than the bite of a fish on the other end of his "wapala." As conservationists that care about preserving the wild places we've enjoyed during our lifetime, it's equally important to pass along our value for the land and water through our traditions. Fishing is one of the best ways we can foster those values with a tradition that's fun, affordable, and frankly offers you the only publicly acceptable opportunity to say "I think I'm going to switch to the pink Sweedish Pimple."
The Puppy Plunge
My wife, Meredith, and I are finally going to take the puppy plunge. We are relative newlyweds (married on October 8, 2005) living in the big city, so a puppy is a big commitment. But it is a commitment we are absolutely giddy to take.
Naturally, the first question asked after I say we are getting a puppy is, "What kind?" Well, as a newcomer to the husband occupation I've learned an important concept, "Go Along to Get Along." In picking a breed of puppy that will be a good bird hunting partner for me and a trusty companion for Meredith we've both made some concessions. You see, I come from a Brittany family and my wife comes from a Labrador family. I'm of the opinion that Labs are great dogs if you value slobber, and my wife retorts that a Brit will be great for helping me to lose that beer belly because I'll have to chase the darn thing across every field. So, we've met in the middle and have agreed upon a German shorthair pointer as our first child. A shorthair addresses my want for a pointer that can successfully transition from the ruffed grouse woods of Michigan to the pheasant fields of Minnesota to an Alabama quail hunt. And, a shorthair suits Meredith's affinity for medium-sized dogs with good personalities that don't shed by the wheelbarrow load.
So, we're slotted to pick second female from an Iowa litter born in April. In fact, our new puppy even has a name; Trammell. Growing up in Michigan, my childhood idol was Detroit Tigers shortstop Alan Trammell. So, Trammell will be coming home to Minnesota sometime early this June, and Meredith has picked out Tram's first collar and leash. Both are a matching pink and green camouflage design...
Go along to get along...
If you have story ideas, dog photos, pre-1980 hunting photos and requests for future On The Wing consideration, please send correspondence to ahauck@pheasantsforever.org.
Return to On The Wing: May 2007"On The Wing" Archive
- On the Wing: July 2008
- On the Wing: June 2008
- On the Wing: May 2008
- On the Wing: April 2008
- On the Wing: March 2008
- On the Wing: February 2008
- On the Wing: January 2008
- On the Wing: December 2007
- On The Wing: November 2007
- On The Wing: October 2007
- On The Wing: September 2007
- On The Wing: August 2007
- On The Wing: July 2007
- On The Wing: June 2007
- On The Wing: May 2007
