outdoors

The reason I mention this is because the home ranges or use areas of white-tailed deer are often referred to as territories, and buck whitetails do not protect their home range against other bucks except generally during the breeding season; when one mature male exhibits threat behavior to another male no matter where it comes in contact with another male. Outside of the breeding season bucks frequently associate with each other. In areas where there is no need for a regularly used trail, but because the area is still used as a means of travel, they are often referred to as travel corridors.

Back to Home Ranges.

Since most animals are very familiar with their home range during each season of the year, and because they are concerned about security against either predators or humans they often establish or use preferred trails and travel corridors as they move between forage sites and resting / secure areas. White-tailed deer bucks, also use those on a semi-regular basis during the week to locate females the are ready to breed. Because bucks are more security conscious than does (due to their antlers) they often establish their own trails (close to and sometimes paralleling doe trails) where they leave evidence of their use by creating rubs and scrapes) that are signs of breeding rights and dominance to other deer.

If a hunter is willing to take time to understand when, why and where whitetail bucks use these trails and travel corridors. A hunter can determine where these trails and travel corridors are by looking for them during daylight hours, between the hours of 10 Am and 3 PM, when the deer are generally not using the trails, but are resting within their resting / secure areas. And by locating them - they may be able to determine where the males frequently used bedding areas are, and sometimes even the exact bedding sites.

Once the travel routes, trails and bedding areas are located a hunter can watch those areas, or use timing devices or game cameras to determine what time the animals are using those areas. And in the case of cameras, exactly which animals are using those areas. This will cut down on the amount of time it formerly or otherwise would take to scout a property. As far as I am concerned, that takes a lot of the fun out of preparing for a deer hunt. I consider scouting to be one of the most enjoyable parts of the hunt, when I can set aside all my problems, and consider only the environment I’m in and the deer sign and the deer I might see.

If you want to learn more about when where and why deer are active during the hunting season, and the best times places and techniques for hunting them, or to find out when the rut occurs in your area, log on to the Trinity Mountain Outdoors Magazine at www.TRMichels.com or purchase a copy my book; The Complete Whitetal Addict's Manual.

God bless and enjoy the great outdoors,

T.R. . .

And last month, my wife Diane saw a group of jake (one-year-old) turkeys, evident by their shorter outer tail feathers and a beard that sticks almost straight out from their chest. So add five birds to my last count.

Animal Home Ranges: An explanation of what they are and what to expect to find in them.  

After studying game animal home ranges since 1989 and songbird territories for the last few years. I've realized that most predatory and prey species, be they terrestrial or aquatic, have what scientists refer to as "home ranges".

We may call them Lifetime Home Range, Annual Home Range or Seasonal Home Range, but the fact is that many animals, (especially those we hunt and many birds) have home ranges, where they spend the majority of their time during their life, and during particular seasons of the year (those seasons being winter, spring, summer, fall). What determines if and when they use different seasonal home ranges is appropriate thermal cover and escape cover for the temperatures/windchills and predatory pressure of each season, available forage sources during those seasons and available water sources.

During cold winter months, the windchill factor makes animals seek cover that will give them protection form rain, wind and low windchill factors, usually wooded areas of large enough a. to reduce the windchill (or areas within timber on the downwind side of hill, where the animals can get out of the wind) b. to provide security cover for the animals, (which usually means ground cover dense enough that the animals cannot see into the open areas around the wooded areas), Obviously the thermal and security needs of larger animals means they utilize larger areas of woods or cover than smaller animals.

During warmer summer months, the animals may prefer more open areas, where they can get out of the heat using the shade of wooded areas (but without a lot of ground cover, thereby allowing the wind to create a lower Heat Index through its cooling effect), or areas open to the wind (so they can take advantage of its cooling effect), or damp/ wet areas, where they can take advantage o f the cooling properties of water. If animals use one areas during warm spells, they often prefer large one area, where they can see, hear or smell possible danger before it gets too close to them.

No matter what time of year it is, most terrestrial animals have to have access to water and forage.

Once the animals have found areas suitable to use for each season, they prefer to stay within boundaries of that area - meaning they sty within the area hat they are unfamiliar. If an animal leaves its known range for that time of the year, it may be entering areas where it does not know where the trails, thermal and escape cover, forge and water sources are - which leaves it vulnerable to predation.

What this boils down to is the by the time an animal is about 1 year old, due to its being shown around by its mother, and being curios enough to check unknown things out, most animals are intimately familiar with their home range, to the point that they may notice when even a small sapling or a few branches have been cut off of a larger tree. To give you an example: While I was hunting a property in Eagen a few years ago, a group of runners inadvertently ran down the lightly used nighttime trail that ran across a hayfield (grass) and right underneath my stand. After the deer smelled and saw this change, it took them 7 days to begin using that trail again.

So, when we alter the habitat for our purposes (such as the hunting season, or even ease of access) it may take the animals a few days to become accustomed to these changes. If you brush out shooting lanes, or put up a stand or a blind – let it sit several days before using it. Generally speaking, the animals will spook the first time they see or smell it. They may, turn around and go back the way they cam, or they may give it a wide birth. Or they may use that area earlier or later than normal, in an effort to avoid it. But, they probably won’t act normal for a few days. As I said, in order to be intimately familiar with their habitat, security measures demand that they get curious, and sooner or later check out this new thing in their area, or any vegetation that has been altered. And – if it offers no threat, they will begin using that area again.

One other thing we can expect to find in home ranges are preferred trails or travel routes to and from their bedding/rest areas to their forging area, and possibly other trails from the forage areas back to the bedding / rest areas.

If you are hunting one of these animals, two of the best things you can do are to 1. learn during what meteorological conditions the animals will move, and at what hours, and 2. Learn where the trails and travel routes are. Once you have done this you will be better prepared to setup in an area where you are likely to see it on a semi-regular basis, to simply observe, photograph or hunt the animals.

If you do not know the meteorological conditions when waterfowl, turkeys, white-tailed deer and elk will be active, you can p0urchse a copy of one of my books, or "Game Animal Activity Indexes", from the Trinity Mountain Outdoor Products catalog on our website at

Add that to our normal 4-6 Blue Jays, pair of Northern Cardinals, pair of Red-belliedWoodpeckers, pair of Downy Woodpecker (now Hairys) dozen or so Black-capped Chickadees,4-6 Gray squirrels, 2-4 Cotontail Rabbits, 1 Opossum, several White-tailed Deer,,family of 2-6 Coyotes (no Raccoons seen), and you have our normal year round fauna. My wife saw a pair of Bald Eagles and we saw a Red-tailed Hawk last week. So - we have a backyard bird conut of 12 so far this year.

Although we are right across from Inver Hills College, about 1/4 mile behind Inver Grove Library and 1/2 mile from Simley HIgh School, I have heard but not seen any House Finches, and have not seen a single European House Sparrow, which I consider very strange. I have not heard our Great-horned Owls this year either. But, we have heard coyote pups trying out their hight pitched howls behnd the house.  I'm hoping to see our Eastern Bluebirds, Eastern Phoebees, Wood Ducks, Great Blue Heron, Great Egret and Green Heron again this year, plus the pair of Common Yellowthroats that were here last year too.  .     

Migrating Birds

I’ve had a lot of questions about those large flocks of large birds many birders and nature lover are seeing, Here are some notes form my book Duck and Goose Addict’s Manual that may prove to be interesting.

People all over the state have been seeing flocks of unexpected geese this spring,probably due to the fact that it has been so dry, that there is very little water on the ground or in lakes rivers and ponds out west, that many waterfowl species that normally migrate through the Dakotas, have had to move east, therefore migrarting through our great state with its over 10,000 lakes, and many more ponds and marshes - or sloughs as waterfowlers are apt to call them.

The Canads Goose (Branta canadensis) subspecies we see all year long is the of the Giant Canada Goose (B. c. maxima) which is the resident goose of Minnesota. Basically speaking, if it was hatched in Minnesota, it is probably a Giant Canada. The Giant Canada subspecies was deemed extinct until 1947, when Harold C. Hanson, a biologist of the Illinois Natural History Survey, re-discovered them on Silver Lake n downtown Rochester, MN. They breed from central Manitoba to the western edge of the Central Plains, south to Kansas, they often winter in the same areas, some migrating up to 600 miles south in one day, but still wintering within the normal subspecies range. The parvipes (Lesser) subspecies may also be seen in Minnesota, It breeds in the Canadian forest from central Alaska to the northwestern edge of Hudson Bay, and winters in Washington and Oregon. The interior subspecies may be seen in Minnesota on migration. It breeds from Ungava Bay to Hudson Bay to northern Manitoba to southern Baffin Island and southwestern Greenland, wintering in the Eastern United States

The Cackling Goose (Branta hutchinsii) subspecies we are most likely to see on migration here in Minnesota, is the Richardsons’ Goose (B.C. hutchinsii) subspecies, which breeds from the Mckenzie Delta, NWT, east to western Baffin Island, south to Southhampon Island and the McConnell River, Hudson Bay and winters from New Mexico and Texas into the northern highlands of Mexico and coastal Texas to Louisiana south to Northern Vera Cruz, Mexico.

The subspecies of the Snow Goose (Chen caerulescens) we are most likely to see on migration here in Minnesota is the Lesser Snow goose (Chen Caerulescens cerulescens ).

The White-fronted Goose (Anwer albifrons) (known as speckle bellies to hunters) we are most likely to see here in Minnesota on migration, is the large, pale, gambelli, which breeds from northern Alaska and northwestern Canada, and winters in Mexico and Texas.

We also see two species of san, our resident Trumpeter Swans, which bred in the Midwest and central Canada, and many f which winter on the Mississippi river in Monticello, Minnesota. Trumkpeters Swans were basically exterminated from Minnesota until the U of M and other organizations began to re-introduce them through transplants and the hatching of eggs form the Yellowstone ecosystem and Alaska. Tundra Swans migrate through the state in the spring and fall, with many as 20,000 stopping off on migration in the fall, before continuing on east to the wintering ground on the central east Atlantic coast. Many of them breeding Alaska and north central Canada And southwestern Hudson’s Bay. One way to distinguish them n flight is if there are more than ten birds in a flock, they are probably Tundra Swans, because Trumpeter swans often fly in pair and family relate flocks, not in huge migratory flocks of several dozen to hundreds of birds.

In addition we may see families and flocks of Sandhill Cranes. The subspecies we are most likely to see are the resident Greater Sandhill Crane (Grus canadensis tabida) of which there may be 65,000 – 75,000 and the Canadian Sandhill Crane (G.c.rowani), with an estimated populatin of 450,000. We may also see the extremely rare white Whooping Crane (Grus americana) , which is now being transplanted and also recently naturally breeding in central Wisconsin. Last year two young Whooping Cranes were seen nar Dennison, Minnesota few miles east of Highway 52 south of the Twin Cities.

We may also see white American Pelicans (Pelicanus erythrorhynos), and their relative the Double-Crested Cormorant (Phalocrocorqx auritus).Cormorants nest all over the state, and often nest in old dead, large trees over water. Large populations of Pelicans may be seen on northwestern Minnesota in the summer. But, they often breed on western and Canadian waters.