Mon, Nov 23 2009
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Eagle’s nest survives fierce Ozark winter storms They like to sit, hard to observe, on the tops of those large high branches where they are really well hidden. They have a long tail with black and white patches underneath, and a very light reddish brown back. A close relative is the road-runner, which is also a cuckoo. I think they begin nesting here in mid-June, and I don’t think they arrive here until about that time, making them the latest nesting birds I have here on my ridgetop.
Their nests are said to be poorly-made platforms of sticks in the branches of high thickets and tall saplings, up 12 to 20 feet off the ground. I have never found a nest, though at times in June and July there are several of them in the big oaks and walnuts and hickories around my home. They are valuable because they eat lots of caterpillars, the larval stage of some of our most harmful insects. This ridge top where I live is a bird watchers paradise and a wildlife haven, and I value none of the birds up here more than the fascinating, often-heard but seldom-seen raincrow. Summer goals I am still intent on catching some big flathead catfish in coming weeks on trotlines, which I will be writing more about, and we are going to be floating some different Ozark rivers, doing some smallmouth fishing, and maybe camping overnight on a gravel bar and catching some bullfrogs, if it doesn’t get too cold. Hopefully we can maintain these summer temperatures, and it won’t get down into the 30s any time soon, but I worry about that. A cold snap like that would ruin the summer, so just be hopeful we can maintain these warm days until at least September. The garden looks great, but the raspberries are done for. Nothing lasts long enough, does it. What was God thinking when he made April and May so short, and July and August so long? In summer columns, I intend to write more about the group we have formed we call “Common Sense Conservationists.” Late this summer, we will begin to form a half-dozen county chapters in the Ozarks to really begin to do something about what many of us see as corruption and of misuse of power and in the Missouri Department of Conservation. Many have asked me what is planned and we have a growing membership of 1,500 at this time. But progress will have to be made by county groups with local leaders, and we will make every attempt to do that this coming summer and early fall. Address correspondence to Larry Dablemont, Box 22, Bolivar, Mo., 65613. Send e-mail to lightninridge@windstrea.net, check the Web site www.larrydablemont.com, or call (417) 777-5227. 
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