Habitat Happening: Live Blog!

[tooln]

I found one of these on my place this spring. Big pile of fur and not a bone around. Mine was near the fence line so I just figured the Amish neighbor dumped his hides there. Anyone else care to chime in?

 

[bueller]

Very nice tour. Keep the pics coming.

 

[SD51555]

Ours were well scattered out, and two of them were very deep into some thick stuff. Most unruly in our neighborhood toss their unwanted items no deeper than the ditch along the road.

 

[wklman]

Could very well be wolf killed. They don't leave much after they eat. Usually just the head and back bone and that can be carried away easily enough by something else.

 

[West Branch]

Could very well be wolf killed. They don't leave much after they eat. Usually just the head and back bone and that can be carried away easily enough by something else.

I agree, wolves will even break apart bones to get to the marrow. Very easy for small animals to carry away the smaller pieces or another wolf may come along and haul it away later. In 2013 we had a camera on a gut pile and a eagle carried the deer head away from the pile.

 

[SD51555]

If there is any green remaining on the evergreens, they will likely survive. When all of the needles are brown and crunchy...they are usually toast.

Almost all of them had some green left. It was very little, but there was some on most. We'll be back up around fishing opener to check it out. Any predictions on growth rate of the rye in the spring? It looks like we're going to give the soybeans/pumpkins/sorghum a try with brassica/rye or berseem as a summer back up if it fails.

 

[Bowsnbucks]

I agree with Stu on the spruce. I've had some Norways get burnt during winter, but when there's some green left on them - don't give up on 'em. Like Stu said, they'll probably look funky shape-wise for a few years, but after all the spruce I've planted over 20 yrs. - I can tell you they're tough. We've had winter burn and bucks rub them pretty hard several times - and they're still growing.

Nice work SD, on all you guys have done on your piece. Food and cover improvements ALWAYS draw deer - even in thin population areas. Since we've done food plots and cut / planted more cover, we've seen better fawn numbers and more deer sticking around all year. Deer are hammering our rye and W. wheat now. Stay the course !!

 

[SD51555]

I found some leftover cam pics from the last pull in December. I don't think I posted any of these.

 

[SD51555]

And more...

 

[SD51555]

Looks like I'm planting clover this weekend. I was planning to do a spray and pray on the trails with some clover seed where we've got shade issues. Well last year I bought about 5 lbs of berseem clover for the plot which i never used. I got it out of the bucket in the front of the truck tonight and it was starting to mold. Most of it still looks good, but I better zing it out there before the whole lot of it is shot. If I've got some roundup left, I'll go down the trail and then seed over the top of it.

 

[SD51555]

Made it up to the land in time to run out and pull two camera cards and about 40 ticks off myself, including 1 deer tick. The mineral camera didn't produce anything noteworthy. Below is all from the plot cam from the last 3 weeks.

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First pic of the year. Not much green yet...



Got a little snow a few days later.



These 5 became residents of this plot as it greened up.



Little bit of sparring out there.



Plot still hasn't greened up much.



Better shot of the plot condition.

 

[SD51555]

More...
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Bear! And he looks like a monster!







Can you find all 6?



As this thing has gotten greener, they're spending more time (daytime) in here. On May 4th, they spent over 3 hours in here tripping the camera every 10 seconds.



Final picture to show how the plot is coming along.

 

[TMIL]

The deer sure like what you've done. Nice work!

 

[SD51555]

The deer sure like what you've done. Nice work!

I'm blown away at how much grazing they're doing in there. I didn't get a chance to really survey the browsing. I was covered in ticks and moving quickly to get the cards pulled, downloaded, wiped, and reloaded to cam and get out of there before dark. I'll take some more pics with the phone tomorrow. The mushy stump got torn apart somewhat already.

 

[nwmn]

it's cool to watch the plot thicken/green up in the last two pics. looks like the deer have appreciated your work so far!

 

[SD51555]

Got back out today and did some more work. We were slated to post the property along the road, fix the bur oak tubes so they stakes were on the inside and swap out the zip ties for twist ties. We also took our first crack at hinging. That didn't go so well. Lots of the trees broke off. But we had some wins.





Where we tried burning the plot last summer we had morels start popping up. Darn near derailed the plans to spray this weekend. We found six in total. We'll pick them, pull some soil samples, and then the plot is getting torched with gly. There's enough food out now that I can feel ok about it.



A few of the bur oak plugs from last spring went from 10" to 30" in their first season. It looks like all 12 made it. Some faring far better than others, but they're alive.



Here's a sample of our winter burned spruces. Most of them are showing signs of life.



Here's the mushy stump from 3 weeks ago.




Here's the status this weekend.



And a phone shot of the plot on 5/8.

 

[sandbur]

What kind of beer works best to attract deer to the plot?
Do black bear prefer dark beer?

Looks great for the north country! I've got a few trees to get in on Tuesday up in zone 172 and hopefully a date with a walleye.

 

[SD51555]

We knew the plot alone wouldn't bring in deer. Once we put that Keystone Light can out there, we started getting pictures consistently.

 

[Bowsnbucks]

That looks like one heck of a bear, SD. Like a black Volkswagon !! :eek: Nice job on the plot. Deer sure enjoy it !! It seems when one deer finds some green goodies, pretty soon the whole local herd moves in. Maybe they'll drop a few fawns in your area and call it home.

 

[sandbur]

We knew the plot alone wouldn't bring in deer. Once we put that Keystone Light can out there, we started getting pictures consistently.

Try some good beer and you might see a real wall hanger!