DRY

I wish I had more to say, but since my last post the weather turned unusually hot. The chukar hills turned from a green color to dry in a short time. I took a few hikes early in the mornings in mid June but came up with no sightings of chukars. But there were plenty of insects. Since than I haven’t been out except for some short drives.

I’ve been wanting to take the drive over into the good chukar country but have decided against it, knowing that it’s too hot for the dogs and me to even take short hikes. So I’m having to rely on info from others right now. The only information on chukars has been from Mark a couple of weeks ago. He found young ones from 7 days old two five weeks. The 5 week old birds surprised me in a good way. I’ve not found birds hatched before the end of May in the past and those birds had to be breaking out of the egg in early May and survived the May rain storms. Thank you for the report Mark.

The hot weather hit really fast this year and with all the heavy growth from the Spring rains the chukar hills look ripe for a fire. Hoping everyone is very careful with off road vehicles, camp fires and creating sparks along the highways. We had a small fire caused by a flat boat tire just a week ago and luckily the fire crews were close and held it to five or ten acres.

We even had a bear show up in our front yard the third of July.

Grady alerted us to the stranger out getting a drink from the pond but he moved out into the field by the time I got my camera.

He was good size and I figured it to be a boar entertaining us and a few neighbors.

The deer and elk have moved off of the dry hills and down towards the green hay fields a little earlier than usual also. I don’t think we should worry yet but I remember a year similar to this 10 to 15 years ago. Anna, the fish and game girl in charge of the Cecil Andrus complex and I had seen a great hatch in June and by the time hunting season came the take was way below average. We guessed that the cause of loss of all the chicks was the exceptionally hot summer.

Hopefully I’ll find a reason to get into some chukar country and get some pictures of chicks soon. I’ll surely pass on any good news but until than just keep your fingers crossed.