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Re: Looking ahead to 2023-'24...

PostPosted: Sat Mar 18, 2023 10:48 pm
by Bud
unthoughtful

Re: Looking ahead to 2023-'24...

PostPosted: Sun Mar 19, 2023 4:29 am
by Rick
Bud wrote:unthoughtful


Criptic.

(Hope you and Elizabeth are OK.)

Re: Looking ahead to 2023-'24...

PostPosted: Sun Mar 19, 2023 10:15 am
by Bud
Rick wrote:
Bud wrote:unthoughtful


Criptic.

(Hope you and Elizabeth are OK.)


Yeah, untoughtful indeed.

We hope all is well with you and yours, Rick. Ever had to relocate all your duck stuff? We relocated south one city, and didn't realize all the waterfowling procurements we had. Guess, in our minds, we were thinking about opening a lodge one day?? Maybe we just like being prepared for it all??

Still have a wall full of decoys and stuff in one of our two sheds. We were getting pinched for money owning all that, and flat tired of picking up limbs. Squeezed into a small place, but we already have blue jays, finches, house wrens, mockingbirds, cardinals, brown thrashers, pileated and red cockaded woodpeckers, Carolina wrens, rice birds, crows we run off twice, hawks, kites, eagles, and furry things. May be missing someone. The mockingbirds were already here with a nest. Think we fit in so far.

It is not the same as watching hundreds of blue-winged teal working green rice in a 15-20 knot wind, though; hopscotching from the rear to the front. That day was a gift. Then, fly up into the wind, turn, and fly past their spot so they could turn and light into the wind back at the downwind side to make a new path.

Give us a call sometime, or best a text. Have stopped answering our phones. No phones in the house: heard them too much. Yes, we have graduated from the cell phone. Maybe email us. Better yet, maybe we can come visit and kill ducks again. Want to see you running that new call. You always have been a great duck commander.

Elizabeth sends her love, and we both grieve our loss of Doug.

Re: Looking ahead to 2023-'24...

PostPosted: Sun Mar 19, 2023 11:28 am
by Rick
Best to live by the notion that one door closes so we'll open another. (Says a fellow trapped in the limbo between not knowing if our camp door is closing just yet and the eventual need to reach for another's door.)

In the spirit of perpetual change, the part of the Reese farm where you watched those teal was accidentally sold along with Ann's share of the 80 acre marsh above it. But there were, indeed, lots of grand times on that farm while they lasted. Nights when I'd camp in my big blind there just to see and hear the late show and wake surrounded by waterfowl of all manner seem forever ago - but are far from forgotten.

Good as the shooting could be, my most vivid memory is of walking down the center road when the place was between farmers and the edges of that road so grown up with ragweed and such that the thousands and thousands of ducks taking advantage of sheet water to feast on volunteer and red rice, indigos, barnyard grasses and so on were mostly unaware of my passing - or just not caring, 'cause their neighbors weren't. Seemed the ground was literally vibrating underfoot from their splashing and chatter, while my ears rang with whistles, umpteen varieties of quacks and such. Most fascinating of that "such" being like the tinkling of small bells. Would suspect drake mallard mating whistling, if the time of year weren't all wrong. Tickled to still hear them in my head, regardless.

It's said that all that all we have left in the end is our memories. Could be much worse.

Re: Looking ahead to 2023-'24...

PostPosted: Mon May 01, 2023 8:26 am
by Rick
Teal are becoming a rarer sight on the bug and my morning ag land walkabouts, and there seems just one pair trying to set up summer housekeeping in a large flooded piece without crawfish cages. But this character and its mate were in a neighbor's oak when we got home today:
016a.jpg

Re: Looking ahead to 2023-'24...

PostPosted: Mon May 01, 2023 12:42 pm
by Deltaman
Pretty neat seeing a duck sitting in a tree, and breed on Black-Belly, breed on!!!!!!!!

Re: Looking ahead to 2023-'24...

PostPosted: Tue May 02, 2023 8:26 am
by Darren
Been seeing quite a few BBWD up in in the trees around here.

Re: Looking ahead to 2023-'24...

PostPosted: Tue May 02, 2023 12:46 pm
by Rick
Darren wrote:Been seeing quite a few BBWD up in in the trees around here.


Getting ready to make thighs and drumsticks for Johnny,

Re: Looking ahead to 2023-'24...

PostPosted: Tue May 02, 2023 4:29 pm
by PorkChop
I believe those things have been moving more northward each year. Reports of them being spotted in Kansas and even in Wisconsin.

Re: Looking ahead to 2023-'24...

PostPosted: Wed May 03, 2023 8:17 am
by Darren
Rick wrote:
Darren wrote:Been seeing quite a few BBWD up in in the trees around here.


Getting ready to make thighs and drumsticks for Johnny,


He's counting on it !

Re: Looking ahead to 2023-'24...

PostPosted: Tue May 09, 2023 9:42 am
by jrock75
They are neat birds for sure and amazingly adaptable. Compare them to where we stand with pintails who apparently won't nest unless a gold-plated shortgrass throne is set up for them. I live smack dab in the middle of urban Houston and we have them around. No ponds, lakes, fields, creeks, etc. to be found. Just houses and streets and shopping centers. I have seen a pair flying around the neighborhood for the last few days when we walk the kids to school. One spring we had a momma and about 8 babies walking up the sidewalk and all around the house. No clue where they got water.

Re: Looking ahead to 2023-'24...

PostPosted: Tue May 09, 2023 9:51 am
by Rick
jrock75 wrote:They are neat birds for sure and amazingly adaptable. Compare them to where we stand with pintails who apparently won't nest unless a gold-plated shortgrass throne is set up for them. I live smack dab in the middle of urban Houston and we have them around. No ponds, lakes, fields, creeks, etc. to be found. Just houses and streets and shopping centers. I have seen a pair flying around the neighborhood for the last few days when we walk the kids to school. One spring we had a momma and about 8 babies walking up the sidewalk and all around the house. No clue where they got water.


Made me think of a photo of several sitting on a Houston privacy fence studying a bird feeder. Friend here who lives close to a half mile from the nearest meaningful water has them nesting in his oak, but I've not seen them in my neighbor's again.