Mayberry, March 2011

 

White front geese greeted me on the way to Mayberry. I recall seeing them at this same small pond during March of previous years – one of their last hangouts before they head north. (Click to enlarge photo.)

White-front geese near Antioch Bridge.

Another common site on the way to Mayberry in late winter is goats grazing on the levees. This levee maintainance is a necessary evil.

Levee goats 3-14-11.

Maybe the goats are early enough that the cover can recoup in time for pheasant nesting season. The levee is the only part of the property that has suitable cover for nesting.

Here's something new at Mayberry, Canada geese. Maybe they'll hang around to nest, if they can find a bush to hide behind.

 The weather was not good for photography, so I drove around the levees hoping to find something encouraging. A kildeer posed for me.

Kildeer are something else that's new.

I imagine we’ll have kildeer for a year or two, until the habitat matures. Then they look for another site with no cover.

A look at the neighboring pasture, brought back memories of the days when we had seasonal marsh.

A look at the Mayberry ponds was discouraging.

Mayberry’s ponds held a few ducks in the remaining shallow spots, but most of the ponds were deep and void of waterfowl use.

A flock of snows passed by and then a larger flock of white-fronts lifted off to the west and passed overhead.

These geese made a lot of noise.

The specs came by even closer.

White-front geese at Sherman Island

Waterfowl was evident all around, but mostly not using Mayberry.

A few sprig were using the shallowest portion of the ponds. As the skies lightened, I got a pretty good photo of one passing by.

Pintail drake over Mayberry.

Light conditions were very poor for photography of birds in flight, but the sun did come out to illuminate this pintail.

A few attempts to photograph the goldeneyes of Mayberry slough resulted in one pretty good shot.

The goldeneye live on the slough, but seldom travel over the ponds.

It’s almost time for the goldeneye to depart northward. They’ll be back again next Thanksgiving.

Cliff swallows are ever present at Mayberry.

Cliff swallows are tough to photograph in flight.

Antioch Bridge view from Mayberry.

I suppose the swallows make their nests on the bridge.

Along the Sacramento River bank, I photographed this snowy egret. He showed well on a gray day.

Snowy egret hunting.

He lifted off and the photo in flight came out pretty well too.

Things will improve at Mayberry as the habitat matures. It’s interesting to see how wildlife use changes with the habitat.

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Grasslands Hunt 12-09-09

The grasslands is a hugh chunk of natural marsh that is loaded with ducks. Of course, not all marsh is equal, and my friend Jeff has some of best. He manages most of his 300-acre club for open water and keeps it shallow flooded. Most of his club can be waded in hip waders.

Large expanses of open water are very attractive to pintail, widgeon, shoveler and teal. The mallard component is smaller on the open water ponds.

Who knows all the reasons why his club is so good, but some of them are its central location and his comprehensive efforts to manage the habitat. Good duck clubs require a lot of work if you want to achieve maximum productivity.

The amount of shooting around me at first light was amazing and the birds were flying for their lives. I managed to knock down a snow goose right off the bat, but missed five straight ducks before I got on target. I finally realized I was behind the birds.

I told Jeff that the ducks in the grassland fly faster than they do in the delta. He laughed, but with all the shooting, it does seems to me that the grassland ducks are all flying full speed at daylight.

By 10:00 AM I had added a couple pintail and a couple widgeon to the string. In order to finish up, I shot three spoonies which will become jerky meat. You know how it is, sometimes you just have to bag a limit.

With many ducks on the pond, I was compelled to finish out my limit.

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Aerial Spraying Results – 15 days after spraying

On Tuesday, June 16 2009 a helicopter spraying company hit our thick stands of cattails, tules, Bermuda and blackberries with a 3 quart to the acre mix of roundup.

Took a trip to Mayberry yesterday to view the results of the aerial spraying efforts. I found the cattails to be hard hit. Bermuda grass showed signs that it was on its way out. Tules looked sick, but not hard hit. The fragmities were somewhat hit, but may not have got directly hit by the spray so some were dying and others looked healthy. The berry bushes looked like they’d been fertilized.

Here are some photos.

This photo shows a healthy cattail patch vs one the was sprayed.

Here’s the area which we considered top priority. It looks like these cattails are done for.

This photo shows some smart weed that was not hit, tules that are sick but still green and cattails which were most affected.

Here’s some healthy bermuda grass that was not sprayed. It is a dark green.

Here’s some sick looking bermuda that was hit by spray.

My intention was to begin irrigation yesterday, but I decided to wait a few more days. I wouldn’t want to save any of the plants we want to kill. The cost of this effort was about $1,800 for the heliocopter and $3,000 for the materials. We’re hoping that the results are worth while, but the jury is out.

After we irrigate, we’ll do some disking and mowing to bring back some early stage vegitation.

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A Few Shots of Mayberry Last Weekend 2009

Rob and Wes tried to downplay the significance of killing ducks by holding a jam session.

 

If you’re  serious about duck hunting, you may be interested in some of the items that I believe are valuable in the marsh. 1.) Note that my Bennelli pump is camoflauged. I like a pump because I can stick it in the water and not worry. I like the camo for the obvious reason. 2.) The walking stick is an addition this year as my balance isn’t as good as it used to be and I was sticking the shotgun into the mud too often. 3.) The tule stool is better than a bucket. 4.) Wool shirt is the way to go. 5.) You can’t see it but there’s a ghile suit in my pack. 6.) The pack is water tight and it’s nice because I can set it in the water and my stuff stays dry. 7.) The mallard call is a Paul Kingyon double-reed call. It’s a great call, but old and it sticks too much. 8.) The cap has built in head lamp. Very nice. 9.) I carry only one or two decoys (mallard) any more. 9.) The dog is two year old Lola and she was nearly perfect during the last two weeks of the season – retrieving almost everything that went down. 10.) If you look close you can see my dog stand. It keeps Lola out of the cold water while we hunt. It is a turkey stool that you can purchase from Cabela’s for about $10 and I’ve lengthened the legs with electrical conduit to the length I need. It is very light and Lola has no problem standing on it. (Credit goes to Joe DiDonato who created this concept.) 11.)Note the red plants at the waterline behind me. That’s smartweed, probably the duck’s favorite food during the last weeks of the season, especially if it is cold.

 

Fred says, “See you next season.”

 

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More Youth Hunt Photos

Here are some shots of the recent youth hunt. These were taken by Ron Spradlin.

Darron Solero, CWA Regional Director, set up the hunt and cooked the prehunt wild game feed of mallard and honker breasts. His son, Hunter, came along for the trip.

Ron and Robbie around the camp fire.

Robbie at the ready.

Rich in the distance, Rob and Robbie on the move.

First duck, a hen pintail.

Lola does the job on a greenhead.

First drake mallard.

Ron and Robbie at the end of the hunt.

Robbie with his birds.

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A First-Duck-Hunt Jackpot

Youth hunts are supposed to be a good opportunity, but this was ridiculous.

Fourteen year old Robbie was on his first duck hunt and he must have been impressed as we headed for the pond. Thousands of ducks and geese were rising from the marsh as we approached.

Snow geese were exploding from the water with a roar of wings. Pintail, wigeon and teal were zipping about. White front geese were making their signature yodel calls.

Our first set-up didn’t work out, so we moved a little closer to the grind and Robbie made the first attempts of his life to bring down a duck. Lola and I were there to retrieve the birds and set up in the cattails behind Robbie, his grandfather Ron Spradlin and my brother Rob. After the first shot I remember hearing some chuckling as Robbie got his first appreciation for the speed which ducks travel.

And, at the same time waterfowl went airborne in all directions. Spring, teal, wigeon, they were everywhere.

Now there were plenty of targets. After four or five whiffs in short order, I began to wonder how long it would take Robbie to get the hang of it. Then a flock of ducks came in low in front of us and down came a hen sprig. Lola did her work and we were on our way.

I think he hit three in a row including a greenhead that came to our calling. After a miss, he downed another greenhead. Impressive for a first duck hunt.

As the birds thinned out, we could see that quite a few wigeon were working another part of the pond a about 150 yards away so we shifted. On the way a flock of specs appeared and headed directly for us. We ducked into the cattails and Robbie reloaded.

On his first shot at a goose he connected and now were were cooking. Shortly after arriving at the next setup, several huge flocks of snow geese appeared on the horizon. The low-flying geese passed directly overhead and with three shots Robbie downed two.

A few minutes later severl groups of Ross’s Geese decended upon us and with that Robbie had six geese. Lola and I spend about a half hour rounding up snow geese which seemed to be dropping all over the pond.

At about 11:00 AM, Ron declared that he and Robbie had enough and we headed back to camp for sandwiches. What a day. In the end Robbie had fired almost two boxes of shells and had collected four ducks and six geese. What a first duck hunt.

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The Goats of Mayberry

 

The goats are in and they’re doing their job. As many at 1,700 goats have been grazing on our duck club and they are removing much of the vegitation choking our duck ponds.

 

This is Walter the Peruvian goat herder. Talks about as much English as I do Spanish.

 

Walter says the great Pyrenees guard dogs make short work or coyotes if they bother the goats.

 

 

Here they are in action thinning down our thick stands of cattails and alkili bull rush.

 

Here’s one of our ponds as it is rising. Water shows much better after grazing – should attract ducks.

 

Not many ducks around yesterday, but a few sat on the edge of the flooded pasture to the north of us.

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Mayberry Farms Superbowl Sunday Photo Shoot

(Double click on photos to see full size version.)

Superbowl Sunday was a great photography day at Mayberry Farms. The sun was good and the birds were cooperative. These pelicans took off from the pasture next door.

The egret passed by close enough to capture him in flight.

Lola was pumped up and chased everything that moved.

Mallards were hard to see until they jumped up – often close by.

Bitterns were easy to find, but impossible to see on the ground.

White-front geese were using the pasture.

Lola finally got this pheasant up and she was quite animated.

This spoony got up real close.

Cinnamin teal and spoonies were hanging out together in the open water.

This kite held onto a branch for dear life in the stiff breeze

This pelican floated by pretty close.

As I prepared to leave this shrike caught the last rays of afternoon sun.

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Turning Farm Ground into Wildlife Habitat

After a morning of enthusiastic and exhausting pheasant hunting, with a bird each in the bag, Rob and I trudged through a final field of marsh on our way back to camp.

 

I glanced over to my brother, and he pointed skyward – above our main duck hunting pond. A large flock of mallards was circling and other flocks were appearing on the horizon. No telling exactly why, but our pond was loading up with mallards.

The last field was devoid of pheasants. Just as well, I was pretty tired and one more chase was not what I really wanted. In camp, Rob grabbed his binoculars and glassed the sky.

“You’ve got to see this,” he hollered.

I grabbed my field glasses and joined him.

From a half mile away, the sight was impressive. Dozens of mallards floated over the pond in preparation to land. Above them a second layer of mallards was circling at the base of the “grind.”  Above those birds mallards could be seen bee lining from afar, like flocks of darts pointed in one direction. The target was our main duck pond approximately 75-acres in size.

Several times I mentioned to Rob that we’d better come back out duck hunting in a couple days, but it was the satisfaction of knowing what we’d created that really hit home. This duck club was a field of corn until fifteen years ago when we purchased it. Since that time Rob, with the support of the rest of our crew, undid the “improvements” made by many men and converted the rows of crops into a shallow-water seasonal marsh that is one of the most wildlife intense properties on earth.

The attraction of a seasonal marsh to wildlife is undeniable. In California, managed seasonal marsh, such as ours, is very rare. With agriculture utilizing every acre of farm ground for maximum production, the only producers of intensively managed marsh are waterfowl hunters – and most duck hunters have tight budgets which limit their ability to work the ground, irrigate and effectively manage their property.

(Caption: Other than duck clubs, the primary occurance of managed seasonal marsh is on waterfowl refuges, which are often funded by hunters and revenue related to excise taxes on guns and ammunition throught the Pittman Robertson Act. These pintails are resting on the Sacramento National Wildlife Refuge.)

Our 75-acre pond would hold thousands of ducks by day and the surrounding 100 acres would hold even more by night as they fed on the almost endless supply of natural foods.

To think that we were largely responsible for making a home for this frenzy of wildlife activity. However, it’s discouraging to know that it is so rare.

This type of habitat is relatively easy to create, if one can escape financial boundaries. Hunting creates an economic incentive to set aside land for wildlife habitat. That’s why hunting is so important to the future of wildlife populations especially in California where wildlife habitat is the endangered species.

In addition to dozens of species of ducks (such as mallard, pintail, green-wing teal, cinnamon teal, spoonbill, widgeon, wood ducks, canvasback, redhead, golden-eye, bufflehead) and geese  (white-front, Canada, snow, Aleutian) other game birds that flourish on the property include pheasants, dove and snipe. Non-game species are far too plentiful to list.

Here’s a short list of birds we see on almost every trip to the property: Red-tailed hawks, Coopers hawks, sharp-shinned hawks, harriers, white tailed kites, barn owls, great horned owls, short eared owls, turkey vultures and kestrels. Water birds include curlews, stilts, avocets, phalarope, sandpipers, great-blue herons, American egrets, black crowned night herons, bitterns, grebes, moor hens, Virginia rail, sora rail, coots, various gulls and even white pelicans.

We have warblers, marsh wrens, black phoebes, mocking birds, towhees, doves, pigeons, redwing blackbirds and starlings by the thousands.

Mammals not as easy to spot, but always nearby are coyotes, skunks, possum, raccoon, river otters, mice, voles, mink and beaver. We once had a tule elk living on our property.

There are crayfish by the thousands, which attract the river otters, which leave their smelly markings at every corner of the property.

(Caption: Above is an aerial view of Mayberry Farms duck club, located on Sherman Island in the Delta, in late winter. After migrating waterfowl have fed here for months, this seasonal  marsh continues to provide valuable habitat for wildlife.)

All this is there, only because we decided that the property was more valuable as a marsh than as a cornfield. Interestingly enough, this could happen more often, but hunters don’t often understand how to create habitat. All it takes is fertile ground, water, money and a plan. In return, one can be rewarded not only with great hunting, but a fullfilling sense of good will.

   

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