Curmudgeon

Very nice. I'll be slaughtering this weekend and will put a camera on the guts and butchering scraps.

Thanks. I'll be near Dick's today. I am using the drawing device provided with the xbow. Rage heads are getting mixed reviews here. Any others use them?

Thanks. I'll be in town tomorrow. Maybe I'll check out some other brands of broadhead. Yes, the weight is the same. Even so, the broadheads were averaging about 2" lower than the field points.

This is the situation: I bought a Killer Instinct 350. It came with 3 bolts. I bought 6 Blood Sport bolts. All the bolts shoot well with field points. The Blood Sports shoot better than what came with the crossbow. The problem is broadheads. I bought Mussy broadheads. I was shooting with the dull blades Mussy provides with the Blood Sport bolts. The bolts - which had a 2" group at 30 yard with field points - all behaved differently. One bolt kept a 2 1/2" group. The next best 2 had groups in the 4-5" range. 3 of the 6 were beyond 5". 1 was at least 5" from the bull - a 10" group? So, with field points I get good consistent groups. With the same bolts, I get a wide range of performance ranging from good (1 bolt) to bad. Any advice?

Mike, You must have seen them, right? I can bring some the next time we cross paths.

Grow - If you haven't seen them, maybe they are localized. They've been around here for a long time. Not every deer is loaded with them. What concerns me is that they are getting on us independent of handling deer. Ratty - Dead deer don't cause the problem. They thrive on live deer. If all the deer were dead, the problem would be solved.

I blame the coyotes too! If they were any good at killing deer, this wouldn't be a problem.

In recent years, I've killed a number of deer that were covered with deer keds. Last fall I was picking them off myself after skinning a deer. I've been bitten by them a few times. Over the last 3 days, Mrs. C and I have been pulling them off ourselves after walking the property. I don't think I've ever gotten them on me when I wasn't handling a freshly killed deer. I just read in wikipedia they might be a vector for lyme disease. For anyone who isn't familiar with this pest, they are a 1/4" long cervid parasite from Eurasia. I believe they were brought to the states with exotic deer species. Here are some shots from google images showing both before and after the wings are shed. For more information go to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lipoptena_cervi

Check out these coyotes in the Northern Woodlands blog - http://northernwoodlands.org/game-camera/article/camera-strap-wrestling-coyotes

Right, it isn't pruning that is magical, it's the thinking. If someone approaches a tree that they have no history with, and it is not thriving, they should not prune it! Not until it's nutritional needs are met and it is growing normally. A vigorous, ingrown wild or feral tree is a whole different thing.

This has also been a bad year for fire blight here. Where my apples don't have good air movement, there are a lot of dead lower branches. I think I lost a pear, which are more susceptible. I'm less optimistic than some on the magical properties of pruning. I've seen many a wild apple that is healthy and vigorous but has never been pruned. Regarding top working - grafting new varieties onto wild trees - anyone who is handy should be able to do it successfully. I taught myself from written instructions years ago. I am certain there are videos on line.

Domestic influencese are the most likely reason. However, many species of wild birds have varying degrees of leucistism - a lack of pigment but not albino.

I love seeing bucks like that. Even from a half mile, without seeing antlers, you know immediately what it is.

I think it can be very difficult to judge the size of an animal in photos from wildlife cameras. I've noticed that the size of an individual in any photo changes radically when it moves closer or further from the camera. There are probably people here who know what is going on technically with the lenses. Sometimes people comment on a photo - say of a coyote - and discuss how big it is. I think you can judge how bulky it is, but only guess at height and length. Also, in any species, there is a huge size range.

My wife saw a bobcat on her morning walk around the property 2 days ago. Last year she treed a bunch of kittens, then came to get me. You can find some photos at this thread I was lucky. I saw my first fisher in the dacks in 73. It was 25 years before I saw the second, again in the dacks. I didn't see one in Otsego County - in the flesh - until 3 or 4 years ago. I've been getting photos of them on wildlife cameras since 2010.

The fisher distribution maps I can find all seem obsolete. Wikipedia's doesn't show any south of the Adirondacks. We know they are all over central NY and as far south as Southern PA and West Virginia. DEC, on their site, says they are in forested habitat in southeastern NY. Even so, I doubt they are on LI. That said, that particular island is terra incognita. I'm more familiar with the wildife in the pyrenees. Are there mink on Long Island?

There are fishers on Long Island? How did they get there?

He's making fun of the guy who says we should kill all the fishers.

It must have something to do with the weather and ground conditions on a micro level. I've had 4 apple trees dump their loads on the ground a week to 2 weeks before they are normally ripe. One of those is a variety I have grafted onto multiple trees. Only one tree of that variety lost its apples. It has the wettest feet of the 3. The others seem normal. The falling apples are good quality for the most part. However, the Wealthys are not up to par. The heart nuts also seem to be dropping early, though I am less certain of their timing because I can go several years between good crops. I've talked to others locally who are seeing the same thing with their apples.

A few years back, we got a series of photos showing a fisher rousting a coyote off a carcass at one of our research sites. Weasels are tough animals.

BRAVO to nyantler, stonearm, pygmy, left field and slickrockpack.

Michael Clark, NYSDEC R4 Wildlife Manager will present a program on coyotes Friday evening in Oneonta. For more information http://doas.us/event/coyotes-eastern-new-york/

Pygmy is right.

It certainly didn't help. Go on the Web and look up toxic caterpillars. They say it doesn't work. What helped was duct tape. Plastering it on my skin and ripping it off to remove the spines.

I had the exhaust of the tractor knock a tussock moth caterpillar of a tree so that it landed on the back of my neck once. I whacked it. That was a mistake. Without knowing, or thinking, I kept rubbing the area while working on the tractor. By the time I got back to the house, my neck was inflamed. I called the ER. They said to use cortisone. Don't! It doesn't help. I should have take a photo.