×

Deer takes its own picture

TRAIL CAMERAS are fun to work with. These silent tools of the trade enable wildlife enthusiasts to watch over game trails, fields, or even backyard bird feeders to see the activities that transpire while us humans are sleeping. And another neat feature of a trail camera is that mosquitoes that may plague the owner while setting it up, are not a problem for the camera. It just keeps clicking away without a sound, without protest, through wind and rain, dutifully doing its job.

This scribe has used a trail camera in limited fashion for many years. It does not provide any advantage from my perspective as a photographer or later this fall as an archer waiting with bow and arrow. However, it is interesting to see what transpires on the four different public areas I have used my trail camera. One short answer is that the forest never sleeps. There are day shift animals and night shift critters … and a few that seem to be active whenever they feel like it. If they pass by the camera, they become candid camera subjects.

While bowhunting, I always have a 35 mm camera with me. In these situations, my long lens camera is an active part of the equipment I take with me to the field. While enduring long sits in natural ground blinds, or if perched high in a tree on my portable tree stand, the camera is ready to record day time activities of wildlife. Sometimes it works out to capture great images of turkeys, pileated woodpeckers, owls, hawks or raccoons. But then I have to chose, to hunt, or take pictures. I do both, just not at the same instant.

For the most part I’m adding volumes of experiences into my brain. Meanwhile the camera cannot possible record all the subtle intricacies of pre-sunrises breaking away the weakening darkness of night, but I am there and listening to the forest wakeup as birds begin to announce themselves to each other. Shafts of sunlight penetrating between tall tree trunks is an image both for my brain and for the camera. Such beauty is overwhelmingly satisfying. It makes the hard work of getting up at zero-dark-thirty, walking into a dark forest, climbing into a tree and waiting for a new day to be born worth the effort.

Sometimes before I leave a peaceful place in this quiet forest setting, I’ll pull out a trail camera from my backpack and place it in a new location. While I’m gone, it can watch the area, the trail, the field and later tell me what I missed. That is OK that other wild critters pass close while I’m not there. Just knowing they are in the vicinity is good enough evidence that all is well in nature.

q q q

A late summer surprise at Green Castle greeted the Marshall County Conservation Board staff on Aug. 12. That was the birth day for a new bison calf. The little reddish-brown baby is energetic, runs like the wind, and knows how to stay close to mother for food and protection. A typical calving time for adult female bison is May after a 285 day gestation. However a review of wildlife literature documents births possible throughout the summer. From a survival standpoint, calves born in the month of May have grown sufficiently by the following winter to enable them to cope with cold wind and snow.

With the help of its knowledgeable mother, this late summer birth of a bison calf will have a very good chance of learning how to live on the rolling hills of Green Castle’s bison pasture. The bison exhibit at this park was established in 1989 with the placement of two yearling calves. An eight-acre pasture south of the main lake body was fenced to hold the critters. Public use of the park for fishing or picnicking had the added bonus of a wildlife exhibit. A few years later, Trumpeter Swans were added to the south silt pond as part of a DNR cooperative cygnet rearing program. Bison and swans are still there for public learning.

Bison numbers in North America have been estimated to have been 50 to 60 million animals scattered in small to large herds over most of America and the prairie provinces of Canada. These grazing animals thrived for thousands of years before settlement. In fact the bison we know today is a descendent of several other now extinct larger fore-runners of the genus, the much larger long-horned bison called Bison latifrons that had a 6 foot wide horn spread, and Bison antiquus, that was smaller than B. latifrons but still bigger than our modern day critter. Both of these species are recorded in North America’s fossil records back to at least 250,000 years ago. Bison latifrons became extinct during the Quaternary extinction event coinciding with the maximum extent of Wisconsinan glacial ice 30,000 years ago.

All of the ancient bison that came to North America did so by walking across the Bering Strait land bridge. During the maximums of numerous glacial events, sea water locked in ice lowered ocean levels by as much as 300 feet. A land connection between what we call Siberia and Alaska allowed animals to travel, find new territories and thrive. Bison ancestors used the land bridge numerous times, in both directions, over a course of time 500,000 years long, finding food to sustain them. Glacial maximums and minimums of the northern hemisphere repeatedly opened and closed this pathway to and from Siberia. Archaeology dig sites indicate the land bridge was still active 220,000 years ago and most likely long after that.

One of the ancestors to our modern bison was called the Steppe Bison that lived in Eurasia until 11,000 years ago and in North America until 4,000-8,000 years ago. However our modern day bison became the surviving species that dominated the mega-fauna of North America, nature isolated a few bison remnants in remote sites. In Europe today, Poland for example, live the European Bison called Wisent, and near Canada’s Great Slave Lake in the Wood Bison. Genetically these animals are very similar but just enough differences exist to make comparisons worth noting to taxonomists.

Free ranging wild bison exist in the United States in several locations. One is the Henry Mountains of southeast Utah. Another is Yellowstone National Park and the Jackson herd of western Wyoming. Arizona has the House Rock Wildlife Area bison. Alaska has three locations for plains bison. British Columbia has free ranging bison in their Pink Mountains. Wood Bison live in the northern area of Canada near Yellowknife, Wood Hole National Park.

As for you, the present day observer who may be interested in wildlife, a drive to Green Castle will be worth the effort. Wait and watch patiently for the new bison calf to appear. If you are lucky you will be able to see it. If its mother has it hidden in tall grass, just make a note to come back at another time. It will be your summer surprise to yourself to see new life on the prairie.

q q q

MOURNING DOVES are the most numerous game bird in America. Biological estimates place the total population at somewhere between 350 and 475 million birds. And on Sept. 1, Iowa game bird hunters will have a hunting season opener for this species. Hunters nationwide will likely take only 5 percent of these birds. This species population is considered very stable. Doves easily compensate for any losses, either natural from weather related, disease, or predators. One in 10 could be taken by hunters. Six out of every 10 mourning doves die every year from causes not associated with hunting. Still they bounce back year after year.

Doves are a migratory species. Hunters are reminded that they may not need the Iowa or Federal Migratory Bird Stamp (fee) to take this bird, they are required to have registered with HIP (harvest information program) and have a shotgun plug in the magazine for legality. Non-toxic shot is also required on public areas.

q q q

TEAL SEASON opens Sept. 5. Blue-winged and Green-winged Teal can be hunted from Sept. 5-20. Six per day is the limit with a possession limit of 18. Shooting hours are different than regular duck seasons. The special teal hours are sunrise to sunset. Best setups place hunters and decoys in an area where the morning sun is at the backs of hunters, offering the best possible light to help identify the large blue speculum feathers of Blue-winged teal, or the green speculum of Green winged teal. The teal season is for Teal species only, no other duck species may be taken. So hunters need to be keen on the identification of the birds. Game wardens watching from a distance, or in the next blind maybe, will take close note of legal and/or illegal takings.

q q q

DUCKS UNLIMITED is this area has usually had a late August trap shoot. That event is not being held this year. One can still practice clay bird or trap shooting at other times to enable the eye-hand coordination required to prepare for upland game bird or waterfowl seasons.

q q q

Wildlife has value … way more than its aesthetic appeal to most people. They are part of the landscape that completes the circle of life. If we only observe, or if we hunt some species according to wildlife science-based off take limits, the total wild grown pure protein that feeds people is huge. There will be an attempt in the future to quantify the value of these wild meat sources. If the meat from waterfowl, big game, wild turkey, wild sheep or bears was not available or offered to the hunter, his family or friends, how much more domestic meats from beef, swine, or poultry would have to be produced to make up the difference? Stay tuned. It will be very interesting.

q q q

“It takes ideas and idealism to help drive conservation. A mountain without wild sheep, mountain goats, deer or elk, is just a pile of rocks. A forest without wildlife or singing birds is just a big dark space of vertical things. A river, if it does not have big dark backed silver-sided fish is just a pile of water going somewhere.”

– Shane Mahoney,

Newfoundland biologist

and conservationist

Garry Brandenburg is a graduate of Iowa State University with BS degree in Fish & Wildlife Biology. He is the retired director of the Marshall County Conservation Board. Contact him at P.O. Box 96, Albion, Iowa 50005

Newsletter

Today's breaking news and more in your inbox

I'm interested in (please check all that apply)
Are you a paying subscriber to the newspaper? *
   

Starting at $4.38/week.

Subscribe Today