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.