NestWatch: Reporting Nesting Birds

NestWatch participation could include monitoring an oriole nest, such as this Hooded Oriole nest with soon to fledge nestlings, built on the inner side of a fan palm frond.
A beautiful clutch of eggs in a Northern Mockingbird nest (all photos by Paul Konrad).
A ground nest of a California Towhee is filled with days old nestlings.

NestWatch is looking for more information about nesting birds that you may be interested in monitoring this season, including information about birds you may find in your yard or neighborhood, such as nesting robins, bluebirds, mockingbirds, chickadees, wrens, cardinals, swallows, and more. Anyone who has monitored nesting birds knows how enriching the activity can be, and knowing your efforts add to a valuable citizen science project make your participation all the more fulfilling. Read more

Wildlife

CZ-USA’s Redhead Premier Now Available in Venerable 16 Gauge

Kansas City, KS (May 5, 2020) – There was a time when a 16-gauge shotgun was the top choice for knowledgeable upland hunters and recreational shooters.

The last decade has seen a resurgence in this do-it-all shotgun chambering, and for 2020 CZ-USA now offers their flagship Redhead Premier Over-and-Under in the venerable 16-gauge.

The Redhead Premier 16GA features auto ejectors, a single selectable trigger and 28-inch barrels with Fixed IC/MOD chokes. As with all Redhead Premier models, the new 16 GA addition is solidly built, and this strength starts with a one-piece CNC-ed receiver. Also, it features a Turkish walnut stock and forend, laser-cut checkering, solid mid-ribs, a pistol grip and a Bradley-style white front bead. The Redhead Premier 16GA feels natural and comfortable on the shoulder, comes up quickly and gets on target fast. Read more

Firearms

TrueTimber, Mossberg and Rambo Bikes Team for Shoot & Scoot Giveaway

INMAN, S.C. – TrueTimber has announced the #ScootAndShootGiveaway with partners Mossberg and Rambo Bikes. One lucky winner will receive a Mossberg Patriot Predator rifle featuring TrueTimber Strata camo in the caliber of their choice, a Rambo Roamer 750 XC in TrueTimber Viper Woodland camo and a $500 gift card to the TrueTimber online store, combining for a total prize package worth over $4,000. The giveaway will run May 1 through May 31 and one winner will be selected.

To enter the giveaway, contestants will fill out an online form hosted on the TrueTimber website. Fans should monitor the TrueTimber, Mossberg and Rambo social media channels for contest updates and reminders, to learn more about these great products and to tag their friends who would be interested. The winner will be able to choose between .243 WIN, .308 WIN, .22-250 REM, 6.5 Creedmoor or 6.5 PRC rifle calibers. The giveaway is open to continental U.S. residents who must be 21 or older to win. Other restrictions apply. Read more

Firearms

Pandemic Sparks Growth for USCCA

Record Waves of New Gun Owners Turn to Wisconsin Company for Training and Legal Protection During Coronavirus Crisis

WEST BEND, WI – It started with the record gun sales in March. But for one Wisconsin company, the surge didn’t end at the gun store counter.

Massive increases in new gun buyers also launched unprecedented demand for more self-defense training and legal protection resources from the United States Concealed Carry Association (USCCA), based in West Bend. The USCCA now boasts more than 350,000 members after experiencing its second-highest growth rate in company history last April, surpassing even the boom in membership it saw in March.

“Americans are having an epiphany about firearms ownership and what it means to be protectors and providers for the people they love,” said Tim Schmidt, president and founder of the USCCA. “As the impact of the coronavirus has spread in recent weeks, many Americans began to evaluate their own personal security. They began to consider what they would do or how prepared they would be if they were ever forced to protect themselves and their families. That is why we are seeing so much renewed interest in self-defense education and gun ownership.” Read more

Self Defense

FBI: 2019 Statistics on Law Enforcement Officers Killed

According to statistics reported to the FBI, 89 law enforcement officers were killed in line-of-duty incidents in 2019. Of these, 48 officers died as a result of felonious acts, and 41 officers died in accidents. Comprehensive data tables about these incidents and brief narratives describing the fatal attacks are included in Law Enforcement Officers Killed and Assaulted, 2019, released today.

Felonious Deaths

The 48 felonious deaths occurred in 19 states and in Puerto Rico. The number of officers killed as a result of criminal acts in 2019 was 8 less than the 56 officers who were feloniously killed in 2018. The 5- and 10-year comparisons show an increase of 7 felonious deaths compared with the 2015 figure (41 officers) and a decrease of 7 deaths compared with 2010 data (55 officers).

Officer Profiles. The average age of the officers who were feloniously killed was 40 years old. The victim officers had served in law enforcement for an average of 13 years at the times of the fatal incidents. Of the 48 officers:

    • 45 were male
    • 3 were female
    • 40 were white
    • 7 were black/African American
    • 1 was Asian.

Read more

General

Ranew’s Firminator Disc Harrow: A Plow for All Conditions

Milner, GA – If you want to do the job right you should use the proper tool. Building food plots involves several very different tasks, each of which calls for specific and quite different tools. Furthermore, each site is unique, which means the best tools will have a certain degree of versatility. The engineers at Ranew’s have all this in mind when designing the Firminator – one tool that’s the right tool for almost any job. The disc harrow component emphasizes that being designed for the specific task of turning soil but with enough built-in versatility for almost any site conditions.

For starters, there’s no need to disk the soil with other equipment first. The Firminator will do every part of the preparing and planting process from start to finish. A wide range of angle and pitch adjustments allows you to perform many different functions for a variety of site and soil conditions.

Change the pitch by shortening or lengthening the top link adjustment of the three-point connection. Shortening leans the Firminator more heavily onto its disk assembly for a deeper cut. Mid range settings give you varying degrees of disk depth while still allowing the cultipacker to maintain good ground contact and continue breaking apart clods while leveling and firming the soil. Further lengthening allows disks to be carried up off the ground so the cultipacker can roll on the soil with additional frame weight to firm up the seed bed prior to planting small seed, and provide better seed-to-soil contact during the seeding pass.

Adjust disk angle aggressiveness to suit and loosen your particular soil type and situation easily by removing a pin and sliding the pivoting disk beam to one of many holes on an arc. Adjustments allow you to choose from straight, 5-, 10-, 15- and 20-degree angle settings for almost any soil condition imaginable. Use the straight or minimal angles for lightly opening thatch and soil to perform over-seeding without disturbing existing forages in no-till seeding situations. If a minimal till operation is desired, the angle and pitch can be adjusted to slightly cut through top litter without disturbing the soil excessively. Or, for new sites that may be choked with debris or a dense layer of sod you can set aggressive disk angles along with a heavy forward tilt of the entire unit for deeper disk penetration. Read more
General

Alaska: Kayakers Rescued with No Life Jackets, No Exposure Suits, Food or Water

JUNEAU, Alaska — The Coast Guard rescued two stranded kayakers Friday when they became stranded after paddling from Juneau to Couverden Island.

A Coast Guard 45-foot Response Boat-Medium crew from Station Juneau picked up the kayakers from the northern tip of Couverden Island at approximately 10 p.m., then brought them to where they were parked near Statter Harbor in Auke bay. There were no injuries reported.

Watchstanders in the Sector Juneau command center received the initial phone call from one of the kayakers at approximately 9:15 p.m. requesting assistance. The kayaker indicated that he and another male friend had become exhausted after an approximate 9-hour, 23-mile paddle in their 10-foot kayaks. He expressed concerns about running out of daylight, having no lifejackets, no exposure suits, no warm clothing, no food, water, survival equipment, nor means of communication aside from a cell phone running low on battery.

“These kayakers made several all-too-common mistakes before heading out on the water yesterday,” said Petty Officer 2nd Class Theodore Bach, Station Juneau response boat coxswain for the case. “They were lucky to have enough cell phone battery left to call for help. As the weather begins to warm up each spring, it is very common for boaters to head out on the water unprepared for the conditions. The water temperature is still frigid and the air temperatures at night still dip into the 30s. Hypothermia is just one way that Alaskan boaters die each spring.” Read more

General

Kowa Sporting Optics Offers Free Webinar on Phonescoping

Please join the Kowa Sporting Optics team for a FREE webinar on Phonescoping – taking super-telephoto wildlife images & video with your smart phone through a spotting scope or binocular. During this webinar our digiscoping experts will cover everything you need to know to begin taking crisp images utilizing the full capabilities of the powerful magnification of a spotting scope which provides nearly 700% more zoom than most wildlife photography rigs with a 400 mm lens as example. While most commonly used for wildlife photography, phonescoping also has practical applications for industrial inspection of transmission towers & bridges, for surveillance, and at the range among other uses. Our instructors will not only cover all the basics but help you shorten the learning curve by reviewing common pitfalls and coupling errors.

Join team Kowa and the experts at PhoneSkope and learn to take the best images with your phonescoping gear! Saturday, May 9th at 12 PM Eastern time.

Click here to register your spot for this free event! Read more

Optics

Michigan: fuelwood permits are free in 2020; apply online now

Michigan residents now can apply online for a free permit to cut fuelwood from dead and downed trees in approved areas of Michigan’s state forests.

Fuelwood season will begin May 1, a month later than usual, because of statewide Department of Natural Resources office closures due to the COVID-19 virus.

DNR staff recommends that you visit the site where you plan to cut before applying for a permit. The quality and quantity of dead wood varies by location. Current maps of areas where cutting will be allowed are available online. The permit form is at Michigan.gov/Fuelwood. Print it, complete it, and carry it with you when you are cutting wood. If you have already submitted an application and payment, your check will be returned to you along with your permit. Permits are good for 90 days after they’re issued; all permits expire Dec. 31 regardless of issue date. Read more

General
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