Summer practice

Look at the form.

The flowing grace.

The fluidity of the shot.

All this can mean only one thing, it's golf time again. Now that hunting season is but a distant memory and the ducks all have their little brood to tender it is time to switch gears. The spring tour of the HOY7 hutning team has begun. In fine fashion too. The tours current leader is none other than Robert DaFolder, by a healthy margin of about 24 strokes or so. After a soggy round at the long playing Great Blue course I steped out to an early lead.

This week the tour moved to the historic Eastmoreland course (Once voted on of the best 40 public courses in the US. Now, who knows?) where we burned up the links again. I started strong but had a poor finish and allowed Fred G to creep back into the chase. After 15 it was all even but Fred's subtle mind game got the best of me and I "topped one into the water" giving him the lead. By the end of the day I was still on the top of the leader board and the money list but my domination is clearly slipping.

Let the games begin. And if you are asking just where the heck Mr. Chucker Sr. was in all this, keep in mind that we are too.

GBCH

Spring news

Spring migration is in full swing for all waterfowl during April. Events happen fast this time of year. There is a limited opportunity to get nesting, brood rearing and molting done before its time to head south again. In fact, ducks spend less than 40 percent of the year on their breeding grounds.

Northern marshes usually begin to thaw in early April. This brings the first wave of pintails and mallards onto the U.S. and Canadian prairies. They either congregate on these thawed wetlands or stand on the ice waiting for it to melt. Many begin nesting within the first week of arrival.
Impressive numbers of snow geese fly over the prairies on the way to their breeding grounds. They move north as rapidly melting snow unearths food and melting ice provides drinking water.
By the second week of April, northern shovelers and green-winged teal arrive just as pintails and mallards begin nesting. On the Atlantic coast, peak egg laying occurs in black ducks the second week of April.

Mid-April brings the main flight of migrant Canada geese - including members of the Richardson’s and lesser subspecies – to the Dakotas and Great Lake states. Interior subspecies of Canada geese arrive along the southwest coast of St. James Bay in mid-April. And farther north on the Slave River Delta, they arrive during the last week of April. At the same time, sub-arctic nesting geese are migrating north, and Giant Canada geese in the Midwest and southern latitudes are on the nest beginning incubation.
By the third week of April redheads, canvasbacks, ring-necked ducks and lesser scaup will arrive and begin their high-speed aerial courtship dances. Gadwalls are arriving on the prairies, too.

While March’s unseasonable warmth made it look like winter was long gone, a heavy snowfall like recently occurred in the northern states, or blast of cold Canadian air, stops the migrants in their tracks and occasionally sends them retreating south.

Proud to be an Amerikan