One last nice...

[growalot]

January night for the herd ...Last night was the third night I went to feed the dogs and let my head lamp scan the field....14 of them lay bedded across the open clover field...a sight not normally seen here in the winter snow or not....very little wind the last few days....... normally they move off the hill, but so far not this year...Today the winds returned and we will be getting snow showers...the arctic deep freeze is about to return for next week...hope they enjoyed this break....

[wooly]

 normally they move off the hill, but so far not this year...

Same here Grow.

I wonder if after years of making the trek to winter at lower elevations is possibly giving the higher ground a chance to rejuvenate enough browse to support a decent sized winter population, but still lacking in other survival necessity areas.

 

Up until recent winters, I used to be able to follow a "migration trail" as wide as a two lane road for miles and miles. Every deer on the hill eventually took it to head out of town and into the valley, but I haven't seen that in probably to 5 or 6 yrs now. A lot more deer staying behind and riding out the winter up here which is often a gauranteed death sentence.

Perhaps all the plotting that's gaining popularity around here is holding deer where they shouldn't be this time of year. Another blast of Ol' Man Winter on the way could start to put a hurtin' on some of these deer that stay behind as I've seen the last few seasons. Just something to think about. Maybe all these plots everyone's planting to benefit the herds overall health and condition are ultimately leading to their demise in the end! I know my post season body count seems to be growing year after year, and that's a pretty disturbing trend to notice without having some opinion as to why.

[Lawdwaz]

Hey you two, what's your elevation ?

[growalot]

Can't say that plotting has made the difference for I'm basically the only one in the area..save two that plot...but it is the opening up of ag fields...200 acres have gone from fallow to ag crops in the last two years. Then 50 went from hard woods to open grass ...for no other purpose than to open up the sky line and yet anther 50 has been allowed to revert back to woods after having been crops and pasture land....I have no concerns for their winter survival because we are surrounded by several pine and spruce plantations.....years ago the DEC was involved in planting several areas in spruce and pine...Our place had one such planting which has done what they wanted and grown big enough to die back under a hard wood succession that is the red pines...the Norway's and wht spruce planted in the area haven't really done that...they just got huge and blocked out the sun...though recently one changed hands and the new owner leveled about half of the wht spruce on his hill side...

 

I believe from the history that this area was nearly stripped of all forest land when the area became settled...plantings were for erosion control...Then a few younger plantings I believe were ppl with grand Christmas tree farm ideas...that never flew...

[growalot]

18-1900 ft

[wooly]

Hey you two, what's your elevation ?

 

Boy, I had to look that one up,lol

Never really needed that info before.

Looks like 1300ft, but it's 4 miles downhill to the valley.... how can that be?

Guess that just confirms how our deer herd has gone to hell over the years around here, hehe!