A very strange occurrence took place on two different days last week. The first was that a quail, I think, showed up at the “Corner Feeder”. The second was that the same quail, I think, showed up once again, two days later. Quail are a rarity around here, back in 1992 when I first bought this ranch there were 5 coveys on it, 10 to 15 birds each, those have dwindled down to almost zero, this bird being only the first since I acquired game cameras late in 2010. Who knows what the killer is – fire ants, predators, spraying for insects, maybe a combination of those, maybe it’s just cyclical, who knows, but I know the quail have almost vanished?
We had some visitors at the “Corner Feeder” too, 7 deer in total, 2 new bucks, a 10 pointer and an 8. The 10 is a new buck, but I’ve got a “shot” of the 8, not posted, back in August. The bucks are nice ones, but the dominant buck is coming up to check these new guys out!
Finally, the last “shot” is of a Eurasian banded dove this is one of the first I’ve seen around here. They are big dove, almost as big as a pigeon and extremely intelligent and if you shoot one, probably, the others will fly to new parts. In Texas they are not a game bird!