High Altitude Blues

Bobby

Hazel

We have always liked the music of the Mississippi Delta - the Blues and Rock and Roll. I should be a natural at hunting Blue (Dusky) Grouse by that logic, wouldn't you agree. One of the goals that we set this year was to figure out how the hell to hunt, or for that matter even see a blue grouse. The short primer I got last year should have discouraged me after a million feet of altitude gain, a bright, burning sun, plus no birds. Stubborn, hard-headed, determined are all adjectives that could be used. Apply as you see fit! With that said, you know I had to try again. Bobby, Hazel and I started this morning on the western slope of the Rockies at about 9000 ft. and began to climb, slowly. Both dogs were enjoying the cold, 34 degree morning.  They actually acted like they knew what they were doing! I didn't, but I've always liked the saying "if  in doubt go higher", so we did.  Damn it is hard on a flatlander navigating big rocks next to long drops but we made it to 9500 ft. Both dogs got a good drink of water and moved about 25 yards when all hell broke loose. The first shot went god knows where.  Hazel kinda flash pointed and the second bird was up. It went straight in the sun and is still flying. The third was not so lucky. Hazel made the retrieve and we headed down hill. About 9200 ft. Bobby pointed and we had two! I was pretty damn ecstatic!  Hunting birds behind pointing dogs again in the most beautiful place I have been is a real treat. We have a friend that wants to try it on horses next week.  My horsemanship is way below Jennifer, Shelby and Colvin's so it might be a western rodeo! So to tie the title up, we rolled a blue in the rocks! Hell yeah.

Midway

It is ludicrous how hot it is across most of the USA now, so with summer reaching its midway point it is time for a couple of pictures from cool places Susan and I have visited this Summer. The snow in the high country of the Rockies is not as widespread this year as last, but you can still find it. Flowers are not nearly as abundant, and you have to get to 11,000 ft. to find pockets of beautiful and refreshing colors. Fishing has been great, but streams and rivers are getting pretty skinny putting stress on the trout. Some have already been closed by the Colorado Park and Wildlife dept.

 

 We have found a wonderful nano brewery in Paonia, Colorado, that makes as good a beer as we have tasted anywhere. I tried the Colorado Red and Susan had the Stout. The name of the Brewery is Revolution Brewing. They have a small tasting room/bar that is in a old church. The cast of characters hanging around would have made Hunter S. Thompson and Jack Kerouac feel right at home. It is really a funky, cool place.

 Our favorite new music so far this year is Walt Wilkins of Austin Texas. The name of his new album is Plenty. It is a great Hill Country music treat that is full of just wonderful, smooth ballads.
    We have several guest and family visiting us in the coming weeks and really look forward to sharing some of the true treats we have experienced. I hope the weather breaks soon.  Our friends and family that earn a living outside certainly have had enough by now. Bird hunting is getting closer so that has to mean colder weather is on the way.

     Drink a Colorado Red if you get a chance, download some Walt Wilkins and look forward to the second half!

Siren's Song

Greek Mythology. One of a group of sea nymphs who by their sweet singing lured mariners to destruction on the rocks surrounding their island
The long overdue weekend found me with about ten jillion things that a responsible adult would elect to do. The house for sale needed another room painted, maybe trying to figure a strategy on how my taxes were going to get filed, packing for our summer move, hell it was even the start of Arkansas turkey season! But no, I had to call the power station on the Little Red River and check the generation schedule  .For the first time since March 27th, water was going to be wadable. I panicked!  Was my boat ready to go? No. What the hell, I would rent one for the day at the dock. Most of my fishing equipment was in Colorado waiting on that pre run-off trip I never got to make. So the reasonable thing to do was to punt and live to fight another day. But that damn Siren song had me and was pulling with a purpose. I stepped back and tried to reason my way out of it.  After all, I was headed to Arkansas's tornado alley with the weather channel showing some kind of cryptic message about certain destruction this weekend. Also with all the freakin frackin going on there, an earthquake was also part of the roulette wheel. If I can borrow a phrase from the late Johnny Cochran  "sidebar please your honor".  If global warming is causing more and bigger tornadoes and the natural gas fracking is causing earthquakes by the dozens, are these natural or man-made disasters now? Anyway, it kinda hurt my head thinking about all that.
   So when I got the boat headed downstream I really didn't give a rat's ass about much except catching a trawler full of fish. Damn it was good! The fish hadn't been harrased for several weeks and I had the catch and release area to myself for three great and wonderful hours. Great blue herons looked at me with shock and awe before the day was over! Okay, maybe not, but it was great fun.  Most of the fish were caught on a local fly that we tie called a red ass. What is really cool is Susan and I tied these flys from Grey Partridge feathers we got on our Montana bird hunt. The water was a bit stained and still pretty high, but you don't get many days like this. Most of the fish were rainbows but an ocasional brown was scattered in.  Size was all over the board except really big. I'm sure I'll hear that Siren song again real soon.
    The next few weeks also have some great music in Little Rock. Robert Earl Keen just left and the Band of Heathens plays at Sticky's Rock n Roll Chicken Shack this week. In May, Ray Wylie Hubbard will be at the Rev Room. We will have room at our table for both shows, come enjoy great music with us!

Robert Earl Keen

Upland HighWay

Most of the famous roads in America that you think about are the roads that go east and west or follow the coast line. For us its US 83. From the tip of Texas to the Canada border it has it going on if you are a bird hunter. White winged doves and bobwhite quail in South Texas starts the trip. Farther north in Texas it is blue and bobwhite quail. As you hop across the Oklahoma panhandle into Kansas the change in geography lends itself to larger birds. First is the lesser prairie chicken then ringneck pheasant. And finally the greater prairie chicken. Nebraska and South Dakota feature sharptail grouse, prairie chickens and pheasants.North Dakota adds the (pocket rocket) grey partridge, somewhere along the way I hope that a Sage Grouse is still out there. The end of the line is Brandon Manitoba, Canada. We have driven, hunted and followed some wonderful bird dogs  on several parts of this drive but still need to hit a few more. The culture moves from Native American and Spanish American, to Norwegian. Birds change from Gentleman Bob to the icon of the prairie, the prairie chicken grouse,and the wind always blows. It is either a drought, flood or some unbelievable snowstorm. But to Jack the Dog, Cap'n Pablo and the rest of our happy  furry gang,  all game birds smell the same. Hunt birds Jack, go find them!

Happy St. Patty's day!

The best band ever,(except the Beatles) playing with the best modern day Irish singer! Click on ithe link and turn up your speakers.


http://youtu.be/x1RxTEOn_Y0

New Movie

My favorite book of all time has finally been adapted to the big screen. Although I am not much of a movie  person I can't wait for this movie. On the Road, by Jack Kerouac is coming soon.
http://t.co/7R4NQjcI

The best line from the book I can remember, and it is so true with me - "The only people that interest me are the mad ones. The ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones that never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like roman candles across the night."
Check it out.

Oddities,Invasions and Beer

My first thought when I saw the odd white blackbird was just to remark about it and drive on, but about a mile up the road we turned the FJ around to see if we could find it. Also, to prove to Susan what I said I saw! In a group of a couple of hundred blackbirds it is pretty easy to see a white one. Unfortunately our camera card was full so it got a pretty long ways away before we got any shots. This is the best we have and it is crappy but really cool. My brother Clay said it is lucky not to be hanging out in Beebe, Arkansas, on New Year's eve night. I think they have picked up several thousand dead blackbirds in the last couple of years. Click on the picture and it should get a little bigger.

Our next neat thing to happen in the birding world is seeing an invasion of Cedar Waxwings. As many as that same flock of blackbirds has blitzkrieg all the berry bushes in my hood. My mother and I have always been a fan of the slick and clean looking Waxies.

Finally, we have finished our second batch of beer, Peregrine Brewing Ambrose Ale. Not bad, not great. Next up is a bock. It won't  be as great as the Tommyknocker Butthead Bock. It is one of the best beers we have ever tried. If you go through Idaho Springs, Colorado, pick up some. We found our sixer sitting proudly between the Shiner and Lone Star in Shamrock, Texas. This is really great bock beer. Those elves have brewed a great beer.

Our mountain that we will attempt to climb this year has been identified. Fishing season started for us Saturday, and a trip to the Saxon Pub in Austin by God Texas to hear Walt Wilkins and the Mystiqueros looms on the horizon. We have a really wide canvass - get some colorful paint and help us paint it this spring.

Companions

The 2011 adventure season ended for us Saturday, February 18th,  in the Texas Panhandle. The year saw us trapse from the Mississippi Delta, Ozark Mountains, Rocky Mountains, Great High Plains of Texas and Kansas And the beautiful prairie Land of the Dakotas and Montana. Through all of these thousands of miles, one constant was our traveling companions, our family's dogs. They all have their specialties. First and foremost is the master hiking and navigator, Buckwheat the Boykin Spaniel. He has been to the top of the world several times this year and only caused a bother by having all the hikers we passed stop and pet him and ask" What kind of magnificent dog is that!" Our guard dog is his mother Ophelia (Opie). She also made the trip to Montana and helped keep the prowlers in the night at bay. Anna's English Setter, Jack the Dog has developed into the"go to" pointing dog. We have chased chucker on the Black Canyon rim, Sharptail and Sage grouse,Grey partridge, prairie chickens, and pheasants on the American equalivalent of the Serengeti, the North American Prairie  and Gentleman Bobwhite in the Great High plains and the Arkansas River Delta. Jack's backup cast on these trips were Bobby and Hazel. Bobby is kinda the joker of this group but he also had some high times with roosters and greys. Hazel, the damned and downtroddin has turned into a fine chicken and pheasant dog. She can put on her list a sage grouse or two which is pretty damn impressive to me..Also terrorising pheasants along the way were William's Boykin, Peirre. a student of the famed spaniel trainer Tom Ness. He has turned into a hard hunting flushing dog that handles now like a dream, and the most intense dog I have ever met, Cap'n Pablo. Cap'n can best be summed up by a one mile escapade chasing a Jackrabbit at 22 sustained miles per hour. I am sure he was thinking the whole time thats not a whistle blowing, thats the wind howling through the jacks ears! Our newest addition is shared by Anna, Jimbo and me, Judith, daughter of Jack the Dog. She just made her first trip at five months old to the dusty, thorny birdless Texas Panhandle. She pointed everything that moved, including the American Flag at the hotel that we stayed in!

Buckwheat

As a new year starts and we make plans and goals for the seasons ahead, I would be remiss in not mentioning Carmen, the greatest and toughest birddog we will ever have. She made the long trip north, pointed a covey of Grey partridge just to show she still could. We will miss her everytime put a Garmen collar on a bird dog.I am sure she really hated being tracked all the time. She always saw something we didn't. She was always looking for the next horizon. I bet she found it and it was full of birds!

Buckwheat on top of the world, no big deal for him

Jack The Dog

Opie

Bobby

Hazel

Pierre

Cap'n Pablo

Judith

Carmen

Bobs and Spinners

Sweden Grain Bins

On the twenty-second of January, Susan and I were at the Rev Room in Little Rock listening to Billy Joe Shaver sing and tell his many tales of life in Texas. We were pretty much oblivious to the destruction that five tornadoes brought to a familiar area about fifty miles to the southeast. One  tornado blew through the Sweden Plantation, destroying about the only thing left there. At one time this spot had two of the most beautiful southern homes on the Arkansas River. The smaller of the pair is left and the tornado spared it. Not the granary and farm shop though. It also cut a quarter of a mile wide slice through an ancient cypress swamp. Unlike Kansas and Oklahoma, our twisters usually come in the night and are hidden by the forests in the area. It's just something else that kinda adds to the drama of storms in Dixie.

William, Susan, a lot of dogs and I were very fortunate to be able to go to an old family birdhunting spot that my uncle had designed when he owned and farmed a plantation nearby The Sweden. The farm had been laid out for agriculture and bird hunting in the sixties and seventies.  My earliest recollection of chasing Gentleman Bob goes back to that crack in time, 1968, with my uncle.  It was intimidating to hunt anything with him, much less the feathered rockets of a covey of quail. My uncle was an All American trap or skeet champion (I could never get it straight in those days) so any shot seemed routine to him. I hit the first bird I shot at and I think he thought he had a progeny.  That all turned to crap when the next covey exploded off a point by Paladin's Punk.  Pretty cool dog name for 1968.  So with a great deal of past memories swirling though my psyche, we turned loose and set free Jack the Dog, Bobby and Hazel.  Jack didn't take long to find the first legacy covey.

Jack the Dog

 About fifteen birds exploded between William and me, and we got two. William thinks he got a double but I had to remind him that in family history his genes had been diluted more than mine - therefore I surely shot one. We had a great hunt and I enjoyed pointing out the places to Susan and William where I had found quail years before. Jack the Dog, (thank Anna my daughter or the song by the Band for that name) finally nailed another nice group of birds in a plum thicket and I still don't know how I missed. William pointed out that he didn't.We had a great time on a round that twenty years ago would have produced close to ten coveys. We were very grateful to the owners of the property letting us have a fine walk on a beautiful Sunday morning behind a brace of happy setters.
Weddings, trout fishing and an end of the bird season run to the barren Comancheria lay ahead. Be curious, ask questions and enjoy good music.

Loggerhead Shrike

lucky shot

Cool Duck and Flycatcher sighting

This really cool duck was sighted in Fresno Ca. recently. I don't know where my Stuttgart Ar. duck hunters will find it on the point system!. Also in Stuttgart a bird normally found in Southern California has shown up at the old air base there. Susan and I spoke to a birder at the Arkansas Flyfishing banquet that had seen the Vermilion Flycatcher. We hope to get some pics this week-end. My new favorite nephew Hudgens is taking me on a quail hunt Thursday morning. I hope to actually see a quail in Arkansas this year and this might be my best chance.

• This image provided by the Colusa National Wildlife Refuge.
• This image provided by the Colusa National Wildlife Refuge shows visitors watching …

The refuge, one of several that make up the Sacramento National Wildlife Refuge Complex, is about 120 miles northeast of San Francisco.

FRESNO, Calif. (AP) — A rare duck normally only seen in Asia has somehow turned up in California, drawing excited bird watchers from all over the U.S. and Canada to a wildlife refuge in the state's Central Valley.

Wildlife officials say a male falcated duck, a bird common in China, was first spotted at the refuge on Dec. 8.

Since then, thousands of birders have observed it paddling among mallards, pintails and geese, said Lora Haller, who works at the Colusa Wildlife Refuge's visitor center. More than 2,000 cars packed with visitors have streamed into the refuge over the last month — double the usual visitor numbers.

"It's very exciting," she said. "It's extremely rare to see this kind of duck in California."

Most falcated ducks breed and live in China, and smaller populations live in Japan, North Korea and South Korea. The ducks can also sometimes be found in Alaska's Aleutian Islands, Haller said.

The celebrity bird has a silvery plumage with iridescent green and bronze on its head. "Falcated" or "curved and tapering to a point" refers to the male duck's long wing feathers near the body that overhang onto the tail.
There have only been a few previous sightings in California: One was spotted in Orange County in 1969 and one in Lassen County in the far northern part of the state in 2002 and 2003.
It's not known whether the rare duck somehow made it to California from Asia or has escaped from a private collection or zoo, Haller said. But the bird appears to be wild and isn't used to people, she said.
Wildlife officials say the bird has been spotted nearly every day. It likes to swim in a pond near the refuge's viewing platform.
The bird's presence, Haller said, is a rare occasion for birders, who keep "life lists" of the birds they hope to see or have seen in their lifetime. Bird watchers swarm the platform all day, awaiting the bird's arrival, she said.

©                    

© Greg W.Lasley / CLO

A spectacular and distinctive flycatcher, the bright red Vermilion Flycatcher inhabits riparian areas and scrub in the southwestern United States and southward. It perches conspicuously, making periodic flights to nab insect prey.