Spring is Back and So Is the Owl

Finally - Spring has arrived.  The pear and plum trees are in bloom.  Hopefully the apple trees will soon awaken after a fairly cold winter.  And our screech owl has returned to the wood duck box.

Each Spring we eagerly sneak up to this beautiful cedar nesting box and quietly open the side door and peer inside to see if a wood duck has found a new home.  And each Spring we find instead an adorable little screech owl that has taken up residence with plans to raise her owlets in the plush surroundings, recently filled by us with fresh cedar shavings.

Screech Owl with Eggs in Wood Duck Box

For More Wildlife Sightings Consider a Golf Cart

If you want to see more wildlife on your hunting property forget the ATV or MULE.  What you really need is a golf cart.  Slow and quiet beats fast and loud if you want to fit into the surroundings and not announce your approach.  We recently invested in a vintage golf cart that rolls along at a slow but steady pace and is so quiet that we can’t even hear ourselves coming.  We got it to help get around the property while nursing a healing knee but were surprised at an unexpected result.  We actually started seeing wildlife again!

When we first bought our property we often would get glances of wildlife, but after a few years we noticed that we hardly ever jumped a deer or spotted a rabbit or turkey, even though the cameras around the property proved that the wildlife was still around.  The first day that we used the cart to get close to a favorite spot for hunting turkeys, we saw a deer browsing in an open field.  It looked up at us and just stared, not sure about this odd creature.  We stopped, it stopped, and for a few minutes we enjoyed a beautiful sight of a deer at sunrise enjoying fresh greens. Later that morning we called in a turkey, and, although it was a hen, it was a thrilling duet of fake and real turkey chatter.  Later we even called in a turkey hunter, whose face I am sure was very red beneath his camouflage mask.

But the most amazing experience happened later that same morning when we moved, stealthily, in our cart along a fire trail and then slowly started walking toward a new hunting spot.  We spotted two deer in the open field next to us, they spotted us, we froze, they froze, and then they slowly walked toward us to check us out.  To them we must have seemed like ghosts, just materializing out of thin air.  The encounter didn’t last long, but it will last in my memory for a long time.