Sharptails in Alaska Zombieland.... or not
I hesitated to post this because I didn't take any pictures but, oh well. Last Wednesday we had a nice day so I saddled up and flew down to an airstrip south of Fairbanks that is in the middle of a huge burn that has been hosting some sharptails for several years. I took my 24" PHE 16 along and hunted the burn and scraps of surviving forest around the airstrip. What was unique about this particular hunt is that I go here up to 25x a summer to collect butterflies, spiders and tiger beetles for the university and to pick berries and shoot my old Winchesters and sometimes just to sit and read a book, and it's generally a lively place, a celebration of everything that is wonderful in nature. There's moose, squirrels, black bears, lots of insects to collect, amorous wood frogs croaking in a pond out in the burn that can be heard for a long ways off, a number of birds sounding off - chickadees, jays, raptors, sharptails, ravens. a nest of peregrines nearby, you name it. The entire area is an explosion of wildflowers of every color, which draws in bees, grasshoppers, beetles, flies and butterflies of a huge variety. It's just a wonderful place to hang out in the sun and celebrate the sounds of the world. Well, this time of year it's more like a Zombieland. The air was cold and the absolute silence was the type that roars in your ears all day. I hit all the likely spots and the only other creatures I saw were one raven that passed over and two little flies of some sort - lace wings maybe. Other than that, it was a dead zone in every respect. All the leaves are down and I found no low bush cranberries, rose hips or any other food plants that would keep the birds fed. The real clincher though was a clearly lonely cow moose bawling, looking for a boyfriend, some hundreds of yards away in the forest somewhere and it echoed loudly as if she were only 50ft away. The frosty air amplified her bawling and made it crystal clear, shades of Jeremiah Johnson. The day was deemed a total success at that moment. This was a new one for me. I tried to call her out onto the strip but she was having none of it. I hope she finds a suitor. No sharptails? Oh well. Who cares? At least I got out and tried! More days should end as this one did.
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