Another Varmint

 After we caught that raccoon last week, we thought that maybe we had solved the problem.  Not so mun.  We started noticing more evidence of another thief, so I set up the game camera.  Sure enough

That 'coon seems to have startled the cat.   So, the question becomes; Is that the same coon as last week.  I don't think so, for a couple or reasons.  First, I hauled last week's varmint eight (8) miles from the house in a straight line distance.  I doubt last weeks 'coon has found its way back here.  Seconnd, it would take an extremely retarded raccoon to fall for the same trick twice.

I'll haul this one off to reunite the family.  Hopefully, we've seen the end of our varmint infestation, but I"ll keep the camera set up for another couple of days, just to track the transients.

Varmint

 Over the past several days, Belle and I noticed that a varmint was paying us a night-time visit.  Things would be re-arranged on the patio, and we were going through a lot of cat food.  A lot more cat food than our single feline could use.  So, I set a trap.

Lookee what I found on the patio this morning.

This one is mightily upset.  His dignity has been heartily offended.   But, how many raccoons can say that they've taken a ride in a pickup truck?  This morning after coffee, I drove him to an undisclosed location and offered him a second chance.  When I opened the gate, he didn't hang around long enough to bid me farewell.

This is the second raccoon that Belle and I have had to deal with.  The first one was so big that the cage was filled completely with 'coon.  This one weighed about five pounds. I suspect that he is a yearling.

Catamount

They're called various things.  Lions, panthers, cougars, catamount.  They are damned big cats for this part of the country.  The Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries acknowledges that they exist, but cautions that they are rare ad protected.  Everyone talks about "black panthers", but they are not black.  The three I've seen range from tan to a chocolate brown.  A dark panther at night might look black, but I doubt it.

Whatever the color phase, their vocalizations are quite distinctive.  Below is a video that purports to capture a panther scream.  In my opinion, this one is hoarse.  The one that lived behind my house in the '90s was much more clear and disturbing.  It sounded like a woman in extreme distress and would make the hair stand on you head.


Hearing that on the way to the barn to feed horses in the pre-dawn would make you pick p your step and turn on all the lights.

Black Bear

Black bears are native to Louisiana, but they've been on the endangered list for quite some time.  I've known that there are bears, at least one mating pair in the area, because a mother bear with cubs has been seen not too far from the house.

Evidently, one has recently changed ranges, possibly a yearling that his mother has kicked out of the nest.  It's causing quite a stir on the local Facebook pages, even though the folks who live out here should be at least passingly familiar with the idea of a bear in the woods.

He ain't hurting o one, just wandering about.  This pic was taken this morning in the area of Philadelphia Baptist Church, which isn't far (as the crow flies) from where bears have been spotted in the past.

I just hope this bear doesn't do something stupid and gt himself hurt.  I kinda like the idea of bears in the woods.

Mallard Hen

A mallard hen, playing in a mud puddle in the yard.  She had a whole lake to roam in, but she's rather be in this little puddle between the shop and the house.

Go figure.  There's no telling what goes on in that mallard's mind.

Racoon

So, there's this raccoon climbing a St . Paul skyscraper.

After climbing 22 stories, he decided to find a convenient ledge and take a nap.  I don't know what he is looking for, but I hope he finds it.

Mallards

Mallards in the front yard.  In my younger days I hunted them, but nowadays I'm content to let them eat the bugs out of the grass.

Backyard Shooting

I went out to my wax bullet range this afternoon, to continue my frustration with the long gun.   Getting that long barrel out of the holster is a challenge.  I'm still not ready to hook up the timers yet, concentrating on draw, cock, fire without doing anything dangerous or picking up any bad habits.  After about 30 rounds, I went down, cleaned the target, then set up to shoot 10 more shots.

If I'm counting right there are seven (7) hits on that target.  There are two below the target that you can't see, and that one over to the right at 4:00.  Must have pulled that one, but shooting 70% is a good place to quit, so I took off the revolver, walked into the pool house, and retrieved a beverage.

Yeah, after shooting in the sun in 93F temps with 50% humidity, I was ready for a beer.

I noticed that the martins were busy, swirling around the corner of the yard.  Some folks have asked if my wax bullet shooting bothers the birds, and I can't actually say that it does.  Today, it appeared that they were teaching fledglings to fly, so I took out my video phone, and took a quick vid.   You can see the corner of my backstop in the lower right hand corner of the frame, and it doesn't look like the birds were bothered at all.



We've been shooting there all summer, and the martins don't seem to be concerned about it at all.

Birds in the Backyard

Grandson Elyas installed a bluebird house in the backyard last weekend, and today I was pleasantly surprised to see a bluebird using it.  I couldn't get a picture of the birds using the house, but I did get a photo of the male sitting on the power line over the bird house.

Eastern Bluebird on the left, redwing blackbird on the right.

While I had the camera out, I noticed some humming birds zooming around, and caught a photo of a little female using the feeders we keep out there.

I stopped on the way home and picked up crawfish for supper.  Milady and I have now had a belly full of mudbugs and we're tippling.  She in the wine, me in the bourbon.  It's shaping up to be a very good Friday afternoon.

What Is That?

Surfing around on the tintertubes this morning, I come to the Book of Face, where I find this interesting picture.

I can't vouch for the photo, because I know noting about it, but it is a very interesting photo.  A Google search for the image doesn't give us any information.

Interesting.

Gators

We find this story this morning about a guy who went to conduct some burglaries in Florida and got 'et by an alligator.

PALM BAY, Fla. (AP) -- Authorities say a man who may have hidden as officers investigated reports of two suspicious men in a Florida community targeted by recent burglaries was killed by an 11-foot alligator.

When he didn't return home after a night of burglary his girlfriend reported him missing.

 Brevard County Sheriff's Maj. Tod Goodyear says 22-year-old Matthew Riggins told his girlfriend he would be in Barefoot Bay to commit burglaries with another suspect. Authorities received calls Nov. 13 about two suspicious men in black walking behind homes and investigated. Riggins was reported missing the next day.

Of course, investigators were forced to euthanize the gator.

 Goodyear said sheriff's divers recovered Riggins' body 10 days later in a nearby lake and the injuries were consistent with an alligator attack. Authorities said Riggins had drowned and the alligator, which behaved aggressively toward divers, was trapped and euthanized.

I don't have much sympathy for a burglar, but being eaten by an alligator has to be a horrible way to meet your maker.

Saturday Morning

The trap worked fine

The raccoon drama is over.  The cats are at peace and things return to normal on the patio.  We'll speak no more of this unpleasantness.

That Varmint

That varmint we talked about earlier this week?  I wonder if this will end the problem?

I've got it set on the back porch right now.  Hopefully, the cats will learn to stay out of it.  We'll see.

That Varmint

I've been a fan of game cameras for years.  I've used them to watch wildlife and considered them just another way to enjoy the outdoors.  Also, as a full-time cop, I've used security camera footage to try to help solve crimes.  The downside to using video to solve crimes is that you have to watch the video.  For example, a high school where someone is suspected to have been in the building between the time that the custodian locked up at night and the time the principal unlocked in the morning might be 10 hours.  Do you know how long it takes to watch 10 hours of video?  You guessed it, 10 hours.  It's like watching paint dry.

Sometimes your video doesn't show anything, but sometimes there's that "AH-HA!" moment, when it all comes together, and you've got it all on tape.  Those are good times.

In this particular case, Milady and I have been plagued by a varmint, eating cat food and re-arranging the furniture on the patio.  I suspected a raccoon, but a picture is worth a thousand words, and I wanted times so that I could mount a proper response. So, in proper police fashion, I laid a trap for my bandit in the form of my old, trusty vame camera.  And sure enough, he tripped it.

 There's the varmint, right there.  Just as I suspected.  I know what he looks like and I know what time he tripped the camera.  A review of the evidence shows that's a big ol' coon, fat and healthy.

So now I consider my options.  Several come to mind, but I've rejected a couple.  For example, if I set a box trap, I'd probably catch my inquisitive cat, leaving the coon to continue his depredations.  I live in a suburb, so the idea of gunfire isn't particularly appealing.  I admit, as a gunny-person, it was the first thing that comes to mind, but I have to deal with the possibility of pass-through, fields of fire, and collateral damage.  These things I'll ponder in the days to come.

However, the first problem to consider was how the varmint was getting into the yard.  He's been doing this for several days, so he's probably found a route in and out.  It's simply a mattter of finding it.  Fortunately, the weather has conspired against the coon, in that the ground around the house is saturated.  My son, who was spending the night with us on a job, found the trail as he was leaving for work this morning.  In the mud outside the patio gate, he noticed two small tracks.

Sure enough, those are raccoon tracks in the mud outside the  gate, so I can be fairly certain that he's coming in from that direction.

So, now we've identified the target and his route.  We know approximate times.  All that's left is to determine an effective response.  Readers are invited to game this scenario.

Gar

A gar is a fish common to Louisiana waters.  It's a predator with a toothy mouth and a slender body.  Here in Louisiana we call them Alligator Gar because they have a snout like our alligators.  The fossil record goes back to the early Cretaceous period.  They're living fossils and have been living in our waters for lots of years.

When we catch an alligator gar, we do one of two things with it.  1) cut its head off and throw it back to feed the smaller fishes that it has been feeding on, or 2) make gar balls out of it.  Back when I lived on Bayou Derbonne, there was a cook down the road, Ginger, who made gar balls once or twice a year.  She'd call us and tell us to come down to the house.  We'd bring something to add to the feast, load the ice chest with beer and soft drinks (for the kids), and head toward Ginger's house, where we'd eat gar balls, tell lies, and hang out under the pecan trees.

I tell you all this, because while we were in Missouri and stopped by Bass Pro Shops, we saw an aquarium with an alligator gar in it.  Milady asked me to snap a picture, so I did.

That's a pretty good fish, but it wouldn't come out from behind that post.  I reckon it was about six feet long, not the longest I've seen, but a fair example of the species.  That gar will probably live to a ripe old age, being fed twice a day.  The biggest one I've ever seen was over 12 feet long, from the tip of his snout to the end of his tail.  That was a big scary fish, caught out of the Red River near Cloutierville, LA.

Ginger cooked him into gar balls, ad he fed about thirty people, with all the fixings (taters, hush puppies and salad.)  I don't care if I never catch another gar.

Martins

Purple Martins are a southern tradition.  They come north from Mexico each year and come to Louisiana (and many other states) in the spring.  My father and grandfather always had Martin houses, believing that they ate their weight in mosquitoes every day.  There's some question about that, but the fact remains that Martins are graceful fliers, they sing a beautiful song, and they're fun to watch.

Daddy always had a Martin house, but he didn't have much luck with the last one he erected.  He thought that the Martins didn't like it, but I always thought that it was sited wrong, and it wasn't the house, it was the siting.  When Dad died, the Martin house stayed where he put it, till last year, when Mom moved and gave me the Martin house.  I set it up in a corner of the yard, and while te birds inspected it, they never really moved in.  They're seasonal migrants, and had already made their nests when I put the house in the corner of the yard.  Still, I figured they'd remember where I put it, and sure enough, this afternoon I heard the song of a Purple Martin.

That's not a great shot, but there's  bird sitting on that perch, so I moved around to get a better view, and looky what I found.

That's a pair of Purple Martins, using the old man's house.  I'm very pleased that the birds like the accommodations, and I hope that they raise a happy family.  Dad would be pleased.

Deer Get Birth Control

It seems that Cornell University, in upstate New York was over-run with whitetail deer.

After years of bitter debate, Cayuga Heights decided that the deer population would be controlled through sterilization at enormous expense:

Yeah, but deer are mobile.

 The Cayuga Heights deer control was mostly a failure because, you know, deer move around, so sterilizing deer in Cayuga Heights didn’t prevent new deer from coming into the area.  And so on.

It didn't help the deer population, which seemed to be stable.

 Basically, if you were a deer on campus, you got so much free birth control it would make Sandra Fluke jealous; if you were a deer off campus, you got served for dinner.

But, because the does were sterile, they noticed an increase of more aggressive bucks, looking to find a mating partner.

Under normal conditions, all female whitetails go into heat within several weeks of each other and become pregnant at around the same time. This annual event is called the rut. However, if a doe is not impregnated during the rut, it will enter heat again the following month and again the month after that. Because the ligated does were unable to become pregnant, they continued to produce chemical signals of readiness to reproduce — signals that can attract bucks from miles away. 

Well, duh.  They finally decided to try limited hunting, archery, because guns on campus are so.... you know.

 “In winter 2013, our camera survey indicated there were 100 to 105 deer on campus. After the nuisance deer removal in 2014, the camera estimate was about 58 deer remaining on campus,” Curtis said.“Because the bow hunters are volunteers, this program is essentially cost-neutral,” Blossey said.

But, this is Ivy League, and an effective, cost neutral program simply can't be allowed, they're back to deer surgery.

Even after the surgical removal of their ovaries, one of the three deer became pregnant again. It is not clear how this was possible. One supposition is that some ovarian tissue may have escaped the scalpel and regrown into a functioning ovary.

Heh!

Venomous Snakes

With the incident yesterday at my son's house, and the upcoming hunting season, it might be appropriate to review the poisonous snakes in your locale, in my case, the venomous snakes found in central Louisiana.  Hereabouts, there are five species to be concerned about, although others are found in the Florida parishes east of the Mississippi.  A full list can be found here,  They are, in no particular order:

Canebrake rattler (also called the timber rattler, or banded rattlesnake), this is the one that my daughter-in-law dispatched yesterday.
Pygmy Rattlesnake.  This one is seldom seen, but can cause problems as well.
Cottonmouth.  Also knows as the water moccasin, or in some locales, the stubtail.    Found in low, swampy environs.
Copperhead, with a wide distribution, if's found in piney-hills and swampy land.
Coral snake  Two varieties in Louisiana, but they both have red bands touching yellow.  Remember the adage "Red and yellow kill a fellow."

Lots of folks will be out in the woods in the coming months, and it might behoove us to go to the link above and review the poisonous snakes in our woods.

There is, though that mythical beast that I call the Copper Headed Rattle Moccasin.  Bad attitude, powerful venom, I shoot those every time I see one.  Y'all be careful in the woods this autumn.

World's Record Alligator

At fifteen feet, nine inches and a thousand pounds, that's one helluva alligator.

It looks like it put up a fight.

The Alabama alligator was caught by the Stokes family after battling with it for more than five hours. It was hooked in a creek about 80 miles west of Montgomery.

According to the story, the weight destroyed the winch normally used to weigh 'gators, and they had to use a backhoe to get it off the ground.  The previous record was 14 feet, 8 inches from a gator caught in Texas.

Game Cam Pictures

Those of you who read this blog know that I like using a trail camera to evaluate hunting areas, to watch wildlife, and to catch cat-food thieves.  This may be time to review a trail cam that I used last year, in case anyone is considering buying one, and to look at photos I've taken on the little camera.

Last year, Milady gave me a Moultrie D55 IR camera as a gift.  I sat it aside for a while, then moved it to the family property to see what type of traffic I might see.  With the loss of my deer lease this month, I've been going through the pictures on the camera and I have some observations that might be valuable.

First, there is a disturbing tendency for the older cameras to "white out" some photos.  I've found that this happens most often during twilight, where the camera can't decide if it wants to shoot a photograph during those times when it can't decide if it's daylight or darkness.  The Moultire doesn't have that problem.  Of over 200 photos on that memory card, each of them was viewable.  For example, this photo:

Of course, you can click on the photo for a larger view, but this pic was taken in mid-December, at 7:23 am, on what obviously was a foggy morning, the perfect time for a camera to "white out".  Clearly, I can see a doe standing in the middle of the photo, a great job by the little camera.

Notice this photo, taken at 6:47 pm on Ocober 25th of a nice, shootable buck.  What I find interesting is that we can see sky through the trees, and while the buck might not have been visible with a lesser camera, it might also have presented itself during the last available minutes of legal shooting hours.  This is a great job by the camera in capturing an image that lesser camera's might have missed.

This picture really gets my interest, because it shows me the caliber of the deer that are using that meadow.

Taken in the wee hours of the morning, these deer are plainly nocturnal and I might never see them during a hunt, but the camera proves that they are there, so we have a healthy deer population in that area.

I really like this photo, taken in late May, or a deer that's just coming into velvet.  That's a nice deer, and I suspect that I'll be looking for him during the coming months.

One other thing that surprised me about the Moultrie, is that it took pictures for seven months on the same set of batteries.  My particular camera uses six C-cell batteries, and I only use Duracell in my cameras.  It took this photo of me in early June, as I was taking the batteries out of it.

I really need to learn to turn the camera off when I take it off the tree.  But, if you're looking for a game camera that displays time, date, temperature and moon phase, takes great pictures with great battery life, you could do worse than the Moultrie D55IR.  For a $120.00 camera, it is a whole lot of camera.