If it’s not too late, don’t drag your Christmas tree to the curb for trash pick-up. Recycle it. There are lots of great uses for a needle dropping tree. For starters, if you have a fireplace or burn wood, nothing makes a better fire starter than a dry Christmas trees. You can snap off the branches and twigs to get a quick blaze going and the main trunk burns hot and emits a great fragrance. If you … [Read more...]

So what if you happened upon a bear in a den? The Wildlife Division folks advise that you leave it alone. Oh really? Like I would climb down in a den with a 400 pound bear and try to wake it up? Hardly. But you never know if you’re out and about in the woods and might stumble upon a bear’s den. As cold weather approaches, animals, especially bears, feed heavily and put on extra fat to be … [Read more...]

I like to feed and watch the birds and I’m not alone. There are about 60-million of us according to a recent survey. In fact, the overall market for wild bird products is projected to reach $2.2. billion by 2021. That’s a lot of birdseed. This cursed Covid mess has actually stimulated bird feeding and watching. Compared to tending and caring for household pets, it’s relatively inexpensive and … [Read more...]

They call a group of whales a pod. A gathering of  rattlesnakes is a rhumba and a bunch of crows flocking together is a murder.  Last week I witnessed a murder -  a murder of crows. For much of the year, crows keep selected company, usually 3 or 4 birds together, often family members. Young crows stick around several years before leaving their parents as they help in babysitting chores. But for … [Read more...]

It was the middle of the day. My wife Nancy was putzing around the house when we had a visitor. A young male deer was on our carport peeking inside. “Well, hello,” Nancy said. “Can I help you?” The deer said nothing, just turned and walked away. He had one thing and one thing only on his mind. Ladies. This, you see, is the the rutting season for deer. It’s a time that hunters savor and … [Read more...]

It’s that time of year. Cricket time. The little fellows which normally find refuge beneath leaves and garbage cans somehow manage to sneak inside. If you see one, you have to catch it and let it free outside. It’s bad luck to kill a cricket and in this year of the China Virus, who needs more bad luck? Crickets are second cousins-once-removed from grasshoppers, but there are almost a thousand … [Read more...]

Not everyone is a good at landscaping. Some of us, in fact, are a little sloppy with our lawns. The Game Department says that’s a good thing, especially for wildlife. Here’s why. As the Department of Wildlife Resources’ (DWR) Small Game Project Leader, Marc Puckett explains, “Autumn is a time when birds need cover and seeds, pollinators need the last fall nectar, and insects still need plants … [Read more...]

So, will there be a good mast crop this fall or not? People who enjoy watching wildlife, and some 200,000 hunters in Virginia who enjoy eating wildlife will be interested to find out. For hunters, the availability of mast has everything to do with their tactics. If there are lots of acorns, for example, deer for one will not travel as far because they don’t need to. They’ll fill their belies … [Read more...]

  This is big news because they are not just any caterpillars, they are monarch butterfly caterpillars. Many assume if they have butterfly bushes and lots of flowers, it will draw and sustain monarch butterflies. Not necessarily true.  If the beautiful butterflies don’t have an acceptable plant on which to lay their eggs, there will be no monarch butterflies. Period. Butterflies must … [Read more...]

(An Alabama Bass) The Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries – or whatever they call themselves these days – has issued a de facto APB on a species called Alabama bass. The reason? This unique strain of black bass can potentially destroy the largemouth bass fishery in Virginia – and this is big business. Largemouth and smallmouth bass account for millions of dollars in economic terms … [Read more...]