Same as last year, the year before etc - the price of great hunting includes the groundwork that is put in the previous year. My involvement with the Tui Ridge syndicate will wind down now that I've found myself to not be a financial member; even so I'm happy to continue to assist the team when heavy lifting is required.
So on a beautiful sunny spring day [unlike the current atrocious crap we currently are suffering - snow for gawd's sake!] we set out to build 2 new holding pens. "Many hands make light work" - so goes the old saying and the crew ripped into it, so by day's end we had 2 quickly built pens established.
The past weekend saw the annual November working bee; the first of the 3 big swamp working days between seasons. It's an ok time to spray down noxious crap like Poa aquatica as about now it begins to grow like a frenzied mutant. I truly hate that stuff as it grows tubers so you can never truly eradicate it; although it responds well to spray it'll come back if you let it. While we worked a pair of geese honked noisily overhead in the breeze, probably a nesting pair disturbed from their daily routine. as much as I love hunting geese, i really don't want them in our swamp for a number of reasons. The guys got a heap of work done, including repairing a wash out in the dam and the first stage of rebuilding the last of our blinds that needed an overhaul.
Today Craig and Mick travelled to our game bird breader, to collect our birds for rearing. Day old birds look like cuddly balls of innocence - but as mentioned elsewhere and often they are completely brainless and suicidal and require a level of care befitting a human baby. We got some pretty cool birds in the mix - whites and a few melanistics. The spring time cycle repeats.
Photos courtesy Mick Hutchinson
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| Day olds |
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| White, mellie & 'normal' colouration |
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| Craig preparing transport cartons |
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New home |
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