Smile For The Trail Cam

The old Wildview digital trail camera finally gave it up.

No amount of fresh batteries, reformatted disks or kind words could revive it. It is dead.

No complaints here.

Actually - I take that back. It gobbled alkaline C-Cells like they were going out of style. Especially in cold weather conditions. Nonetheless, I got quite few years of continuous use out my original forty dollar investment. Not counting all the batteries.

A new digital trail camera has entered service.

It's a Moultrie GameSpyi50. Complete with 5.0 megapixels of resolution, a 1 gig SD memory card, a laser for aiming the sucker and infrared flash. It is powered by six D-Cell batteries (cheaper than C-Cells) and is noted for its extended battery life.

It will date and time stamp each picture along with the temperature and moon phase.

As long as it takes good pictures and nobody swipes it I'll be satisfied.

Stay tuned...

Guess The Critter

Sometimes the best way to identify the critters that have been hanging around is to study what they leave behind.

Their nests, their tracks or the damage they do. And their scat.

Like this.

I've never seen scat like this before.

Anyone know who left it?

A Taxing Issue

Tax Foundation recently publised a report on "nonpayers" - people whose exemptions, deductions and credits wiped out any federal income tax due.

A record 51.6 million tax filers had no income tax liability in 2008 - or 36.3 percent of the 142 million tax returns filed.

I dunno. I just filed my taxes and wrote a big fat check to Uncle Sam.

Maybe I need a new tax guy.

You can read the entire report here.

Kentucky Violates NCAA Rules

Kentucky Violated NCAA Rules While Recruiting Basketball-Playing Dog

Mouse in the House

Been cleaning-out nest boxes.

Forty seven of them to be exact.

Nesting season is just around the corner and I want to be sure that the boxes have been cleaned of all of the old nesting material, any dead birds or other junk.

Spring housekeeping.

Some of the boxes have been occupied over the winter and up to the present time by these guys.

The first sign that they might be living in your bird box is when your sniffer detects the strong smell of urine.

This is the most common mouse in Wisconsin and the most widespread rodent in North America.

Peromyscus maniculatus.

Since it's at the bottom of the food chain it is an important food source for owls, fox, hawks and coyotes.

They're not very aggressive and are easily handled. They’re actually sort of playful.

And they don’t bite.

The bad news is that they are a host for the very dangerous hantavirus - which can cause Hantaviral Pulmonary Syndrome (HPS) in humans.

You can be exposed to hantavirus by means of inhaling debris from a nest.

HPS starts out pretty much like the ordinary flu – fatigue, fever, chills, aches and nausea. Before too long it can lead to – shortness of breath, reduction of oxygen (hypoxia or hypoxemia) and a buildup of carbon dioxide (hypercarbia) and acid (acidemia) in your blood, respiratory insufficiency (shock) or failure, buildup of fluid in your lungs (pulmonary edema), acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), arrhythmia and multiorgan failure.

Any signs like this and you should see your doctor.

When cleaning out a Deer Mouse nest from a nest box I guess I better do more than just hold my breath, eh? That little guy could kill you.

Blech.

Everything's Greening-up

Well - not everything. Just a few things.

This is strange.

I planted this food plot in August of last year with a combination of rape and turnip. And they're annuals.

Wouldn't you know it - it's greening-up rather nicely.
I don't know if this is just excess seed that over-wintered and has germinated or if the plants themselves survived the hard freeze.

My guess is the former and not the latter.

This is a bonus plot. That's not such a bad thing. Some early green forage for the critters.

And if they don't get it all I'll have some early turnip greens and roots before everyone else.

Talk'n Turkey

Up early and padded into the kitchen to turn-on the coffee.

Across the road in the plowed field to the south was a flock of at least forty turkeys.

Gasp!

There they were - strutting their stuff for the ladies in the morning sunshine. A target-rich environment for this old turkey hunter.

Why is it never like this during hunting season?

(Photo courtesy of NWTF)