I did a triple take Wednesday morning at the latest spectacle in our little corner of Hot Spring County.
A wood duck hen was in my back yard eating dog food from one of the collie’s food bowls. The hen then flew to the first big branch of a tall oak tree next to the house and climbed into an old squirrel’s nest. A drake woodie was there, too.
While I would be thrilled for them to raise a family with us, the location is unsuitable. When a wood duckling is ready to fledge, the hen pushes it out of the nest. It falls up to 60 feet and lands softly in the forest duff. From there, the hen leads her brood to water. There is no forest duff under our trees, only hardpan. There is no stream or pond close by.
Worse, one of the collies hates birds. She would devour any duckling that lands in her territory.
Wood ducks usually nest in tree cavities. I have not heard of them appropriating exposed nests of squirrels and other birds. I really hope they find a different spot.
UNHOLY POWER
Edwina Leach recently contacted the “Drivetime Mahatma” about what she considered an alarming power grab by the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission. The “Mahatma” forwarded it to us here at the “Pine ThicketBureau.”
We join Ms. Leach’s correspondence after the preamble: “I am afraid that these guys have a lot more power than even we imagined. If you will look at the month of March on this year’s G&F calendar, you might be as amazed as I was to find they have moved Good Friday to a Thursday this year.
“Ye gods, is nothing sacred? Now they’re rearranging Holy Days??? This has got to stop! Please help!”
We contacted Keith Stephens, public information officer for the AGFC. His shop, the information and education division, produces the commission’s calendar, a perennially popular item that features some outstanding wildlife photography, as wellas interesting information about fish and wildlife.
Stephens did not sound pleased to field this call, but he was a good sport. He acknowledged the error and assured us that, no, the commission had not secretly voted to move Good Friday to aThursday. Easter is safe, too.
“We made a mistake,” Stephens said. “We used the same template from last year, and we didn’t account for ‘calendar creep.’ ”
“Calendar creep” is the term the AGFC uses to adjust opening days of annual events like squirrel season, rabbit season, quail season, etc. He said the agency has gotten a lot of comments regarding the oversight.
CAT FIGHT
Ted Williams, one of America’s foremost environmental writers, recently was clawed for opining about feral cats.
Citing a study by the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Williams noted in a column published March 14 in the Orlando Sentinel that house cats kill an estimated 2.4 billion birds annually in the continental United States. He also advocated trapping and killing free-roaming cats in favor of trapping, neutering and releasing cats back into the environment, as some communities do.
He cut his own rope, however, when he wrote that Tylenol is an effective poison for free-roaming cats.
Cat fanciers retaliated by flooding the Audubon Society with thousands of protest e-mails.
According to The New York Times, the number of e-mails was 33,420. Williams has been a featured freelance columnist for Audubon magazine for 33 years. It is his primary market. Audubon put Williams on probation March 15. Williams formally apologized Tuesday, and Audubon welcomed him back.
A writer writes. He doesn’t always foresee visceral negative reactions to his opinions, and maybe he shouldn’t care. The Orlando Sentinel approved of Williams’ comments prior to publication. It’s distasteful for it to slam the writer after the fact.
Audubon has consistently been Williams’ vehicle to duel with some of the world’s most powerful industrial and political giants. He’s made a lot of enemies, but Audubon has always backed him, sometimes at considerable expense. It is, however, a house organ for a non-profit organization with a known constituency. It chooses its own battles on its own terms. Williams more or less acknowledged the distinction in his apology.
It brings to memory the sad case of Jim Zumbo, the longtime hunting editor for Outdoor Life. That great publication hoisted his head on the proverbial pike to appease a mob after he criticized the use of tactical-style rifles for hunting.
Sports, Pages 22 on 03/28/2013