This past Saturday afternoon, after driving home from Pensacola, Florida and playing in a Senior Softball tournament, the first thing I did was check my game cams. Nothing special, the doe are still very pregnant and the bucks are still growing their horns, but one thing was kinda’ funny. Having seen some hog rootings and droppings around the water trough, maybe there was a “shot” in the camera. Only a single one and it’s not clear if it was a hog or a big coon, my guess a coon.
The next day, a very pregnant doe and last year’s fawn, now a yearling buck, showed up for a drink.
Something scared this young one, maybe the camera going off, but it definitely is not a pregnant doe. That night at the feeder 2 “new” doe showed up.
This is a “shot” of one of the “most ready to deliver” doe I’ve seen. The fawn only has to fall then she’ll have it.
Two more “new” doe showed up at the feeder, both of these look long legged, they are young and from their size, will only have one fawn.
Category Archives: Pictures
More Outdoors Pictures, May 19, 2012
On Tuesday, May 8th, I put back out my game cameras, ending a 2, month break. Right now there’s not many startling pictures, because the bucks around here have stubby horns, see below, and are still in velvet. By late August or early September, horn development will end.
Driving home this past Wednesday morning from our church’s men’s prayer meeting, to my left as I was coming on to my property, standing in the tall grass was a fine buck. His antlers were only half grown out, but he looked funny with his legs covered up, standing in the tall grass. No pictures of course, but so far this year we’ve had 13 inches of rain – Praise The Lord, almost our yearly total!
On Christmas day we have a rule, No Deer Hunting, but, the cameras were grinding away, showing this good, wide buck chasing a couple of small deer. The deer on the left, the lighter one, was one of this year’s fawns, barely a yearling, but apparently she was in heat, because the buck was in full pursuit mode. The deer on the right is a button buck. This picture is so good I have set it up as my desktop background.
So the buck chased her and I’ve heard that a doe will choose the buck to mate with, this is a good one, so, from the look of the same doe, pictured below, some buck caught up with her. If it was the one giving chase, with a 200, day gestation period, she will deliver any time now.
Two older doe are shown, both being ready to deliver, maybe they already have?
More Outdoors Pictures, April 14, 2012
After a successful hunt with Mickey Donahoo at his hunting lease, I returned to Goldthwaite and, I guess because of the shots in each knee, was able to resume my morning walks. My first walk was this past Monday, nothing showed up unusual or picture worthy, but as I was walking back to the house, I noticed, on the other side of the road, turkey tracks and I took this picture. Turkey movement around here was exciting to me!
Somehow, the date and time on the game camera has messed up and it reset, maybe lightning hit it? Anyway, the camera was working and on the afternoon of April 9th, this nice gobbler was feeding.
The next day a gobbler and an unidentified turkey, maybe a jake, more likely a hen, but last year was so bad I don’t think any broods were successful! Around here, bucks have lost their horns and these 2 young ones were feeding and paying no attention the turkeys walking along and browsing.
Eastern gobbler season opens in east Texas this Sunday, April 15th see my post “[Turkey Hunting]” on March 21, 2012. Weather forecasts are horrible for northeast Texas, severe thunderstorms and tornadoes, clearing on Monday, but hopefully, Monday or Tuesday morning I’ll be opening this season too!
More Outdoors Pictures, April 11, 2012
After shooting the turkey, Mickey and I decided, even though it was after 4:30 PM, that we’d go to another feeder and try for a javelina. We went back to the ranch house, picked up his .204, rifle, stuck the turkey into the fridge, drove back to the new spot and hurriedly built us a spacious ground blind.
Not long after completion, out walked a gobbler displaying his fan, not strutting, just showing off.
The first gobbler was still walking around showing off his fan, shortly he was joined by another gobbler, this one more wary.
The second bird, more wary, barely nibbled at the corn and protein, then walked toward our ground blind. Mickey, softly calling with a box call, had this one’s interest and as the big bird moved close to us, I snapped this picture.
Here’s a picture of an unusual bird, a bearded hen, only 10 to 20% of hens will have beards, and yes, they can lay eggs and raise poults.
We stayed around until dark seeing lots of turkeys, gobblers and hens, but no javelinas even though we were sure we’d see some. Up before the sun on Friday morning and back to the spacious ground blind. We could hear the gobblers coming down from the roost, gobble, gobble, gobble and knew they would head our way, but first up was this young doe. She spent several minutes trying to figure out who, and what, we were.
Finally the doe eased off, then the turkeys showed up. This picture shows a gobbler and a hen feeding, while another gobbler stands guard.
We came home, back to Goldthwaite, Friday afternoon celebrating a real good turkey hunt and some real good pictures!
Blue Bonnets ‘n Cactus
Texans love their bluebonnets!
Thinking that after the scorcher we had last summer, we probably wouldn’t see many bluebonnets this spring, but the pretty flowers are everywhere. Around our place, however, they are “few and far between” and only 4 had come up. Here’s a pic of our 4 bluebonnets that came up by our driveway.
Then, yesterday afternoon, Layla was riding with me and we went to check out our corn/protein feeder and change the card out in the game cam. Not 50 yards in our front, out walked a turkey hen, stopping to get a better look, she was probably already bred and out feeding. No camera of course, so we picked up the card, then decided to take the back way around to our house.
Driving along, all of a sudden we were clothed in bluebonnets, on both sides of the trail. Bluebonnets on our place, exciting, and me with no camera, but as quick as it took, back to the old ranch house, I got my camera, then back to the blue bonnets.
Bluebonnets and prickly pear cactus are pictured below.
Bluebonnets, Spanish daggers and more prickly pear.
Bluebonnets and mesquite trees are pictured below.
After all, we had a lot of bluebonnets on our place, a real beautiful flower, our State flower that always reminds me of my Aunt Lenora Bryan Peters, and her paintings of bluebonnets, how she captured the beauty of a field full of them. This Texans loves my bluebonnets!
More Outdoors Pictures, March 18,2012
Duh! This is a ring tail cat from Wikipedia. Yesterday, my son Randy inquired of me by e-mail, “If I was off my rocker?” My blog post of March 13, 2012 clearly showed a cat with a long tail that I misidentified as a ring tail cat. Ring tails are much smaller, smaller than a house cat, and are mammals of the raccoon family, but what type of cat is coming around the feeder?
Here’s a pic of a long tailed bobcat from the web at Cryptomundo, this one clearly has a long tail, but genetics say that bobs only have short tails, who knows the real story?
However, this “shot” of a medium sized cat walking away from the feeder clearly has a long tail, probably no tufts at the end of its ears and the front and back legs are almost the same size. Compare this to a bobcat “shot” on January 4th of this year, roughly the same size, front legs shorter, but it has a bobbed tail.
My guess as to what type of cat is coming around is either a big, domestic feline that is almost nocturnal or a bobcat, domestic cross breed, definitely not a ring tail cat!
More Outdoors Pictures, March 13, 2012
To say the least, the game cam on our corn and protein feeder has taken some very interesting “shots”, namely a ring tail cat has been coming around, this one taken on February 21st, shows it just walking off.
Then a “shot” of a cat beside the feeder, just sitting there not doing much of anything. This was a hard one to identify, but because I couldn’t see any tail and because the ears and color look OK, so it must be a bobcat.
This is a “shot” of a bunch of dove, 20 in all, feeding on the corn, anywhere from 5 to 20 come in each day to feed.
Finally, 3 squirrels show up and one’s kinda’ layin’ around enjoying the sun!
With all the doves and squirrels hanging around the feeder, now I see why the bobcats and ringtails are keeping a close eye on it!
More Outdoors Pictures, February 15, 2012
While braving the falling snow, yes it does snow in central Texas, I was humming the famous tune, by the renown, composer, Irving Berlin I was thinking up some new lyrics. Lyrics like I’m, dreaming of a white February 12th or something like that. Being from Houston, where snow is a rare occurrence, when it snows I want to get out in it, but this snow was wet and had big flakes, so much for braving it.
Sunday afternoon there were near blizzard conditions, but being a “flatlander”, I don’t really know what a blizzard looks like. It got real dark, the snow was blowing and swirling, it looked like a blizzard to me, so I took this pic of the conditions, flash and all!
Having planted onions last week and having just finished tilling the garden last Friday, I got real lucky and took full advantage of the snow and the half-inch of rain. These 2 pics show the onions and the nearly ready to harvest spinach. Natural moisture is far better that the drip system seen in both pics, but just having come off a record drought, it’s better to be safe than sorry.
Monday morning the storm had passed, the snow had melted and as we were getting ready to drive to Dallas, I got a drink of water, looked up through the big window and to my surprise a nice 10 pointer was running along the fence, not 30 yards from the back porch. This was a buck I’d not seen before and he was running, chasing after a doe, my camera was in the truck, so just mind pictures of this one. Some may ask, isn’t it late for bucks chasing doe? My answer, deer seem to know when conditions don’t favor survival of fawns, conditions like the severe drought we just endured, I say, “Just endured”, because across most of our State, December and January have been very wet months, so breeding may be extended.
More Outdoors Pictures, February 12, 2012
Catching up on my e-mails, I ran across a couple of very interesting pictures. The first was from Randy Pfaff, a pastor and hunting guide from southern Colorado. This was taken in late September 2011 and shows sandhill cranes heading south to their winter homes in northern New Mexico and the Texas panhandle.
The next one was from a fishing trip James Crumley, a neighbor, participated in with his 2 sons. This picture shows a big redfish, or channel bass, that they caught, this one’s probably 40 inches long, not that unusual around the jetties on our Gulf coast, but what is unusual is that the fish had been “caught” before! Notice the artificial plug, probably a variety of a Gulp plug, already in its mouth, the broken line attached to the plug, the scaring and the treble hook imbedded in the upper lip! Very, very unusual, but the fish was successfully released, of course, minus all hooks!
More mundane sightings around my ranch were the large number of mourning dove on the telephone line behind my house, I counted 32 one afternoon last week, but the camera lens wouldn’t cover them all, here’s 26 of the darting devils.
Then, last Saturday afternoon, sitting in MaMaw’s blind a good number of dove came into the feeder. The second “shot” shows 2 of them picking up the corn and I guess the protein pellets too. Of course with all of this dove activity, the season ended in mid January!
The last picture is of a gadwall hen that was sitting, all by her lonesome, on my neighbor’s stock tank. These ducks are short range, migrants, breeding mostly in our northern plains and wintering in Texas, Louisiana and Mexico, California also has a ‘huntible’ population of these birds.
More Outdoors Pictures, January 31, 2012
The game cam’s continues to get some interesting “shots”! Going back to the first of the month there is this one of an old doe, she’s very nocturnal, only feeds at night, whenever possible avoids feeders, and it’s been at least a year since I’ve seen her around the place, she almost looks like the deer drawings in a cave. Because of her age, she’s only having a single fawn now. How old is she, 8 or 9, who knows, but maybe we’ll get her next year?
Here’s a “shot” of a spike we missed this year. Mickey Donahoo said he thought he’d seen him during the special doe and spike season, so this fellow will have to wait ‘till next year.
This young, 8 pointer was “shot” on December 6th. His horns are just outside of his ears, a shooter based on our game laws and I was hoping he’d survive for the next season. The second “shot” on January 23rd shows that he made it and he should be a real good one next season!
This “shot”, taken on December 8th, shows a gray fox in broad daylight.
These are normally nocturnal creatures, shown in the “shot” of January 10th and very seldom seen during the day, however, in daylight, they will respond to an injured rabbit call.