Turkey Fights, Amazon Cheapo Camera, Storm Clean Up

When I pulled into the farm this week, there was a flock of turkeys by the swing-set. This was taken from the car.

I pulled in the barn and walked out to watch these two jakes who seemed to be locked in mortal combat.

I walked to within 20' of them and they were so occupied with the fight that they paid no attention to me.  I finally yelled at them and they moved 25 yards and resumed the fight.

Here's some video of the action.  YouTube says one of my videos violates community standards so I didn't post it. Action From the Car  More Action  Walking Up To Them  Resuming the Fight

The weather is so hot (mid 90 highs) that I went out first thing in the morning to try to clear some trails.  This is what I found.  A large cherry tree went over hitting other tress and making a mess on a trail. See the Ranger back there?

I worked on it for quite some time.

And eventually got it to where I could drive by,

And them I encountered a couple more obstacles just on the one loop.  By 11:00am I was soaked with sweat and exhausted.

One of the random YouTube channels that I occasionally drop in on is this one Wilson Forrest Lands  He does a lot of chainsaw work and other practical woods stuff.  He also has a corny "Dad joke" way about him that I just enjoy.  Anyway, he had some pretty neat trailcam videos and I decided to check out the cameras that he uses. This is it Amazon Trailcam Link

$49 with rechargeable batteries and a solar cell - micro SD card included.  It's Chinese of course and tiny.  I decided to try a couple.

I mounted one on a hunting stand looking out on a foodplot of clover.  This is daytime photo quality. And here's the daytime video. Daytime Video

It is a little different setup where you download an app.  The camera talks to your phone via bluetooth/wifi.  I was downloading all the images and videos while sitting there in the Ranger.  You can also just take out the micro SD card and use a reader if you want to.  This is an example of the night time video quality. Nighttime Video

First impression is pretty good although I was a little nervous enabling all the phone access that  it requires.  Hopefully Apple's "walled garden" won't let anything too nasty happen.

We had 1.5" of rain this week.  Things are still very green for as hot as it's been.  And the butterflies seem happy.

This shot appears to be some sort of hawk in a dive-bomb.

Dove season coming soon.

Pileated woodpecker.

A turkey in flight.

They seem to be pretty active now.

At least some of them must be evading the coyotes.

Same for the fawns - lots of them seem to be surviving.

The bucks have about 6 weeks until they shed velvet.  It seems like most of the frame is pretty set by now.

Spraying last week when it was cooler. We're waiting for a part to get the brush-hog back in service.  Some of the plots desperately need mowed to set back the weeds.

Maybe next week.

Dip and Pack Fail, Foodplot Struggles, Equipment Repairs

In early April of 2025, I hunted in Argentina. This was the post about that hunt Red Stag Hunt - Argentina

This is a photo of the red stag that I took on that hunt.

At the outfitters recommendation, I decided to ship the cape back for taxidermy in the US.  They use a local taxidermist/exporter in Buenos Aires that would preserve the cape, prepare it for shipping, and handle the export.  He was also to do Euro skulls on the blackbuck and fallow deer. I had never done this before - on my Africa hunts, I had the taxidermy done over there.  But the outfitter told me this was the best way to handle it coming from Argentina.

I made arrangements with my taxidermist at home to do the red stag but he was starting to ease toward retirement.  He agreed to take this one on because it looked interesting.  I expected that it would take 6 months for the export - even that seemed ridiculous for salting, crating and shipping a head and hide.

Anyway, after a year had gone by and it still hadn't been exported, my taxidermist informed me that he was now completely retired and accepting no new heads. I started a search for someone to handle it, and with a friend's recommendation, I talked to Mike Lingsch of Summit Taxidermy.  He had recently recovered from cancer, was limiting the amount of work that he was taking, but he thought this would be an interesting project.  He agreed to take it on.

I stayed in touch with Alfredo P Company Alfredo P Company trying to expedite the export.  They just kept saying that they were waiting for export permits from the government.  I expressed concern about the quality of the cape after all this time and they told me it had been inspected and it was perfect. Eventually the permits were issued, the crate flew to Chicago via Houston.  Coppersmith handled the import and arranged for a USDA approved taxidermist to receive/inspect it. Then they arranged for the transport to Summit Taxidermy where it was received on July 1. Almost 15 months.

On July 2, as I was driving to Chicago for the 4th, I got a call from Mike who said "take a look at the videos that I just sent you - we've got a problem".  Mike had videoed the opening of the shipment and you can see the videos here. Mike's Videos Here

The cape was still moist and pliable inside the plastic wrapping.  It was brown and didn't show much typical white from salt. And, it was infested with bugs and was ruined. The hair pulled right out of the hide.

I immediately notified Alfredo P Company and the outfitter.  After 4 days when I didn't get a reply, I sent a "please acknowledge" email and only heard from the outfitter - nothing from Alfredo P.  It's now been a week and still "crickets".

Anyway, Mike did a great job with a bad situation.  He said he's been receiving overseas trophies for 24 years and this is the first time that he's had an insect infestation like this. I met with him yesterday and he's going to salvage 3 good Euro mounts.

Meanwhile, out at the farm, I find myself "behind the curve" as usual. This is supposed to be a sunflower plot that is buckwheat, grass and weeds.

This is supposed to be a cowpea plot with some buckwheat.  I think I can see evidence of both among the weeds.

Some of the clover plots have had a grass and weed explosion.

Some are not too bad.

My bush-hog is down so I decided to do some spraying.  You're supposed to do this when weeds are less than 6" tall.  I'm late.

My apples look ok inside the electric fence but the peaches are showing signs of distress from "wet feet".  Clay soil drains slowly after a lot of rain.

But my cameras showed deer inside the fence for the first time in a year.

I found that the ground wire was off the grounding stake.  I think some of my helpers got a little zealous with the weed-wacker.

I had bush-hogged some of my trails previously and somehow managed to break off the top of a lift cylinder on the three point hitch.

Van arranged for Darren to come out and fix me up while Van worked on the zero turn mower.

The fawns are everywhere now.  We watched one splashing in the pond from up on the porch.

I'm not sure what was so delectable here - I had several photos like this.

I had recently been thinking that the number of coyote photos seemed less this year.

That changed this week.

It seems even the turkey vultures knew that the power was down on the fence.

Lots of turkey activity.

Including at the bird feeders.

And here's a couple shots of the areas where I did the timber stand improvement.

Some of the girdle and spray trees are obviously affected and some aren't showing any sign yet.

Anyway, my equipment should be back in service soon and hopefully I can catch up.