Photo by MR+G

Have you ever need to move a deer, but could not make a sound? Many hunter use rocks or something else to try and move a deer. They may throw the rocks or try to make some type of noise to move the deer in a better direction. These techniques maybe okay sometimes, but you often need to move a deer with out a sound and little movement. A compact mirror, yes the kind your wife uses to put make-up on, is a great tool to add to your day pack. A compact mirror is light wieght and easy to carry around. With a well placed shine you can move a deer exactly where you need them to be. If you are trying to only move one deer this technique also works well because you can single them out. With rocks and other methods you often move all the deer not the one you need. A compact mirror will not work in all cases, but works well in day hunts and comes in handy during an emergency. A mirror is one of the most valuable tools you can have during a survival moment. Mirrors can be seen up to miles away and can attract much needed help in an emergency.

If you have any quick tips that you would like us to feature, feel free to contact us.

Once birds start visiting your bird feeder, you may see one that you are not familiar with.  The best way to identify an unknown bird species is with a field guide.  There are plenty on the market.  I like the ones that are designated for a specific area or region.  I have the National Audubon Society Field Guide to the Southeastern States and Stokes Beginner’s Guide to Birds of the Eastern Region.  During the migration season you may need to check out a larger field guide because you might see birds that are not native to the area and not found in the local guides.  Field guides in book form make it easy to identify unknown birds by simply thumbing through the pictures and looking for similarities.  The birds may not look exactly like the birds in your yard, but once you have pinpointed a species, you can look online for more pictures.  Birds look different in the summer from the way they look in the winter.  The juvenile bird in a species doesn’t always look like the adult of the species.  That is also the case between the male and female of a species.  The female usually has a duller color scheme to aid in camouflage, while the male will have the brighter plumage in order to attract the female.  This is a Rose-breasted Grosbeak couple.  Notice how they look like two different species of birds, but it is simply the difference in the male / female coloring.  This male cracked the shell and allowed the female to eat the inner seed.

The male Northern Cardinal is very choosy about who he shares the feeder with.  He will run off other Cardinals before perching on the feeder.  The Red-bellied Woodpecker is the same, but seems to be tolerating this Cardinal.

The female Northern Cardinal seems to be a more sociable eater.  I have seen the female Cardinal eat with almost every species of bird that has been on my feeder.  They don’t mind eating with other female Cardinals, but will usually only eat with the male if he is the mate.  Common Grackles normally flock together on the feeder, but only a pair flew down on this day. 

As I wrote before, you don’t even have to leave your house to go bird watching.  I have seen over 16 species of birds just by looking through the sliding glass door at my feeder.  I was able to get much closer to aid in identification and get a good picture.  You are also able to watch how the birds interact with each other.  By watching birds on your feeder, you will notice that bird behavior is just as different between the species as their appearance.  Each day, you see something new and interesting.  It is a very entertaining and rewarding past time.

Photo by JimFrazier 

Milkweed pods make incredible natural wind indicators. You can collect milkweed post in the Fall when they start to dry out and store them away for hunting season. Keep them in a dry area and do not store them in anything that will retain moisture. Paper sacks make a great storage place until the pods are completely dry. Before each hunt remove a few from storage and keep them in your pockets. Break them open and let nature take its course. The seeds will fly through the air like little butterflies and show you exactly the direction and flow of the air. You can also add a drop or too of your favorite cover scent and let it float around you. Milkweed pods are simple, natural, cheap, and one of the best wind indicators around.

If you have any quick tips that you would like to share feel free to contact us.

You don’t have to travel far to become a birdwatcher.  You don’t even have to spend money on an expensive pair of binoculars.  All you have to do is put out a bird feeder, fill it with seed, and sit back and watch. It may take a day or just a few minutes, but once the birds notice the seed, they will start to visit your yard.  Of course, you will have to make a few decisions before you can get started and there is some expense involved.  When I decided to put out a bird feeder, I found out that there are a lot of different types of feeders to choose from as well as different types of bird seed.  If you know the kind of birds that you want to attract and if they are native to the area, then that will narrow your choices.  I choose a platform feeder because I wanted the birds to have a lot of room to move around.  Also, it is easier to view birds on a platform feeder.  I like to watch Northern Cardinals and Blue Jays, so I found out that they liked to eat black oil sunflower seed and cracked / chopped corn.  Some stores have a wild bird mix that includes millet, but when I used it, the millet was always left on the feeder.  Since then I’ve stuck to purchasing a 50 lb. bag of each.  I buy my seed at the farmer’s supply store, because it is a lot cheaper than a specialty bird store.  It is usually fresher, too.

Cardinals like the sunflower seed.

My dad grew up in Selma, Alabama.  His father and two of his uncles worked on the Southern Railway.  At that time, Selma was a railroad town.  Now like many other places in Selma, the depot is on the National Register of Historical Places. A few years ago, we visited the Old Depot Museum and toured some of the places that my dad remembered from childhood.  We saw where he would ride his stick horse to town, where he went to high school, and where his paper route was.  We also rode past the house where he grew up, the church where he was baptized, and the cemetery where my grandparents are buried.  We couldn’t visit the one place that I had always wanted to see because it was closed to the public.  When my sister and I would ask my dad about his childhood, he would usually include a story about riding his bike to Kenan’s Mill to go swimming or how when he was older he would go with his dad to Kenan’s Mill to fish.  It always sounded like a really great place.  Kenan’s Mill is a grist mill that was built in 1861.  It used the creek running behind the mill to grind meal, grits, and corn.  The Kenan family donated the mill to the historic society in 1997 and it has been renovated so that the mill actually works again.  They now have a Kenan’s Mill Festival in the fall and the place is open to the public.  As soon as my sister and I heard of the festival, we knew that we had to go.  This year was my dad’s 75th birthday so we decided that this would be a great way to celebrate his birthday.  My dad, mom, and I met my sister and her two children in Selma and then we all drove out to the mill. 

We had a great day at the festival.  Everyone enjoyed seeing the mill, crossing a swinging bridge, going on a hay ride, listening to music, but most of all we enjoyed spending the day with my dad.We are still trying to solve a mystery about the mill, though.  My dad remembers there being a water wheel on the mill.  One year, we found a painting of the mill at the Art Festival in Foley, but the mill was minus the wheel.  My dad talked to the man who was grinding the corn and he said that the mill never had a wheel and had always used the water turbine.  The funny thing about that is the side of the mill has an opening that looks like a wheel could have been attached and the festival T shirt shows the mill having a wheel.  If anyone reading this entry can shed light on this mystery, I’d sure appreciate finding out who has the better memory;  my dad or the miller.

Photo by This Year’s Love 

How to make a cheap and reliable scent dispenser?

Take a empty glue bottle (there are many different styles and sizes to choose from) and wash it out well.  Remember to clean the top out really good so the dispenser will not clog up.  After a through cleaning, tap up all the moving parts and paint it in your favorite camouflage colors.  You can also use camouflage tape or even make a bag for it out of camouflage fabric.  One of the most inventive ideas that I have seen is using an old hunting glove to house the bottle and simply cutting one finger out for the nozzle.  After getting the bottle prepared and camouflaged, fill it with your favorite scent and tie it near the scrape, rub, or trail that you are hunting.  These bottle also will work well for cover scents that you can place around your stand.

Good luck and good hunting, I hope this Quick Tip will help you think out side the box and use items that you use everyday as tools to enhance your hunt!

As a child my Father would take me camping at least once a year on the family farm owned by my Grandfather. I always loved camping and my favorite part was spending quality time with my Dad and cooking around the camp fire. It always seemed like the coldest nights when we would camp, but as a child it did not bother me much as long as I was outside. Our version of camping was not near as extravagant or lavish as many people’s today. We pretty much roughed it with a basic tent, sleeping bag, a number of quilts and blankets, and some old pots and pans that my Grandmother did not use any more. It would have been a lot warmer with a cot or blow-up mattress, but I did not learn about those until many years down the road. I thought it was fantastic and the only way to camp.

One of my favorite part of camping was building the camp fire. My Dad and I would take turns stacking the wood different ways to see who’s fire would light and burn the best. Looking back it was a great learning experience and it also taught me how to safely build a fire. One thing that we were also careful to do was to put the fire out properly. We would never leave the camp until that job was completed properly. 

The shivers

The one camping trip that I do remember getting cold at, is probably one of the most memorable of my childhood. We must have been in a hurry packing and forgot to bring enough blankets because we seemed to never sleep and shiver all night. I remember vividly setting up camp and getting a fire going then cooking a small meal before getting ready for the night. I even remember discussing sleeping in the vehicle instead of in the tent, but I was young and thought I was invincible I’m sure. 

I must have fallen to sleep eventually, but it seemed like hours of moving around and shivering. It was the coldest time I can ever remember. I can not even imagine how cold it is up North, because I was in central Alabama and could not hardly take it. I hear people even from the North say that it is a different kind of cold down here and they too get cold here. But, when I see 0 and -10 temperatures up North my teeth tighten and I shake my head and wonder how anyone can take it. 

Staying warm with new products

As I grew older I began to camp a lot less and hunt a lot more. I would build all my own tree stand and scout out all my hunting areas. I loved getting ready for the hunting season more than the actual hunting season. I was never a great hunter because I have always had a problem with staying still and being patient. How can blame me though, when the wind chill is 5 degrees and I’m in a tree 15 to 20 feet off the ground. I use to stalk hunt many times just so I could curl up by a log and get out of the wind.

Last year I found an amazing hand warming product that I bought for my brother-in-law for Christmas. My brother-in-law is an avid hunter and outdoorsman that is always in the woods or on the water. I have been duck hunting with him once and sure wish I would have had this amazing product on the hunt. I was amazed how well it worked and how long it lasted. The product is shown in the picture below and is made by Zippo Manufacturing.

• No flame – The hand warmer uses a platinum-catalyzed glass fiber burner. I’m not fully sure what that type of burner is and neither is anyone on the internet that I can find, but it sure sounds cool.
• Hot Hot Hot – The hand warmer is much warmer than any disposable hand warmer that I have ever tried.  With out the case the warmer is quite hot!
• Long  Lasting – After the warmer is lite it last any where from 12 to 36 hours depending on the measured amount of fuel you add to it.
• Reusable – What else can you say, you can reuse it and it is environmentally friendly!

Reader Contributions

Here at Living4Outdoors we would like to invite anyone and everyone that has an opinion on our article to comment and be interactive. If you have used the Zippo Hand Warmer please let us know how you liked it or if you hated it. I also want to invite you to let us know about any amazing camping product that you would like to share or even any outdoors product that you would like to share.

Quail have always been one of my favorite bird since I was a small child.  I remember my father telling me stories about the many coveys that called the family farm home and even at a young age I always knew the distinctive “bob-bob-white” call from the beautiful birds.  Whistling the “bob-bob-white” call on my grandparent’s back porch as the sun went down in the evening is one of many cherished memories that I keep from my late grandmother.  She loved the outdoors and nature as much as anyone that I have ever know.As I grew older the quail covey sightings on the farm became less and less frequent.  Most of the farm became plots of planted pines and very little of the land was used for cultivation.  I still had fun walking around the farm trails and the occasional open areas finding a covey, but the sightings were rare.  The most important thing to me at the time though was getting outside and hiking around the farm on my own.  I was not very good at shooting them anyway and I really enjoyed getting out and finding them more than anything.  I’m sure I would have been more interested if I had a great bird dog on my side, but even today I would rather watch the dog work to find the birds.

The older I got the more interested in hunting I became and the more I started to learn about how to improve the property for wildlife.  I read a lot of information form county wildlife extension offices, books, and also met with county wildlife agent to help access the property for all types of wildlife.  I will discuss many different improvement areas in the future, but for now I will mainly focus on quail habitat.  Most of the ideas for quail are also good for your turkey population and many other wildlife species. 

One fact that you can not ignore

If you do not have any birds, no matter what you do to improve your habitat it will not help.  To improve your quail population you must first have some population.  Your best bet, if you do not have any birds, is to purchase and release some good quality and well raised ones.  Make sure that you purchase them from someone with a good reputation for raising birds that are to be released to the wild.  The birds should have been raised in isolation with little or no exposure to traffic noise, humans, dogs, predators, domestic animals, etc.

Hedge your bets

Any hedge rows, old fence lines, or uncultivated or unharvested rows you can leave on your property, by all means leave them.  Quail need nesting sites and cover from predator as much as anything else.  The lay of the land years ago was a great number of family farms split by various means, all of which created little hideaways, of fences, uncut borders, hedge rows, etc.  By leaving or creating these type of areas on your property you are allowing the quail to hatch and raise their young easier.  Reproduction is the key to increasing your quail population.  The government in many cases will also offset the loss of revenue associated with wildlife management practice, so check with you local county farm agency for details.

Giving up some short-term gains

When dealing with planted pines, giving up some short term gains by thinning prematurely will pay long term benefits to your quail population.  With normal pine thinning almost all the undergrowth is choked out by the needles.  After about five years the planted pines will shade and cover the ground with needles enough to kill off most of the weeds and other sources of food that quail must have to sustain.  By thinning your pines before the food source is eliminated the quail have a diverse and steady supply of food.  Another must for planted pines is to adhere to a good burning program so hardwoods can be suppressed and the steady build up of litter can be eliminated.  It is also a good idea to routinely disc areas around your pines, not only for fire prevention but for diverse habitat for your quails.  Young quail need soft areas to find and hunt insects and seeds.

Diversity and Food Sources

The last thing I want to talk about is diversity and the types of food sources that are available to your growing quail population.  I touched a little on diversity in the last section but here is a list that I feel you need to ensure proper diversity.

• Borders to allow hide aways from predators and nesting areas.
• Various forms of food, planted and native.  Improving and increasing the yield of your native food sources is on of the best practices that can be done easily and does not cost a lot of money at all.
• Uncultivated and uncut areas.  If the property you are working with is being cultivated, try to arrange a 15 foot border that will not be harvested or cut.  Be sure to leave areas uncut for a couple years to allow good nesting areas on your property.
• Limit the number of pesticides that are used on crops and planted plots.  By killing off the insects you eliminate a valuable food source for your quail.
• Create patches that allow your young quail to flourish.  Basically all of the above with added areas of disc or plowed soil to make it easier on your little quail.

To me the most valuable and cost effective ideas is to supplement your native sources of food.  If you have native grains, berries, or nuts on your property simply fertilize those areas to increase your yield.  Native plants are almost always more hardy than anything you can plant and are also more resistant to local insects which might damage planted crops.

I hope this article will give you some ideas on simple ways to improve your quail population.  There are many source out there, one of the best being your local county agencies, that can be found so be sure and read them all.

Photo by Elle Rigby

Living4Outdoors is a place for myself (Brad Baggett) and my father, Kyle Baggett, to express our great appreciation for outdoor living and the fun times that we have had outdoors.  Living4Outdoors is a way to promote all things outdoors including becoming closer to your family and children outdoors.  We have both lived in the state of Alabama for most of our lives and have always loved being outside and really just enjoy nature in general. Throughout my childhood I remember watching nature shows, dog shows, camping, hunting, and fishing with my Dad.  Since I started JuiceofChampions, I have wanted to start another weblog and thought that one about the outdoors would be a great project for me and my Dad.  Our whole family loves the outdoors and the tradition is being carried on with my 15 month old son, who we can hardly keep inside.  Everyday he goes straight to the back door and wants to go play outside.  The apple did not fall far from the tree because I remember countless times coming in after dark after play sports outside in the neighborhood.  My friends and I would play basketball, football, baseball, swim, and any other outdoor activity from when we got up to when we were pulled inside. We hope you enjoy the new website and really hope this becomes an interactive place for everyone to promote the great outdoors.  If you have any stories, memories, tips and tricks, or just want to drop us a line don’t hesitate and get in touch with us through our contact page.We will post articles on pretty much any thing about outdoor living.  Here is a short list of subject that we will start writing articles about soon:

• Camping
• Hiking
• Hunting
• Fishing
• Outdoor Sports
• Swimming
• Growing closer outdoors
• Outdoor adventures and stories
• Gardening
• How to tips for various task outdoors
• Property management
• Wildlife management
• Wildlife and environmental conservation
• Childhood memories and adventures