Wildlife around Sweet Spot Ranch

~ For Sale by Owner: $1,750,000 ~ SWEET SPOT RANCH The Wildlife
More "Wildlife" Living Here The Land Sweet Spot Main Page	Wildlife opportunities are unlimited around Sweet Spot ranch. We see whitetails and mule deer, elk, moose, black bear, cougar, coyote, bobcat, badger, marmot and the occasional rattlesnake. You get to see a lot more than usual in this open country. The cottonwood bottom of White Bird Creek, along with the surrounding open country interspersed with wooded draws, could not be better for hunters, photographers and those who just enjoy the land and its abundant wildlife. Predators are not always the aggressors. For example, we've witnessed some odd turnabouts—like deer chasing bobcats and coyotes, or a coyote being mobbed by magpies. This sow and three cubs spent four days in that tree, 50 yards from our house. The first morning, I went out to look at their sign at the base of the tree. I got within 30 or 40 feet before I saw more than sign as the mom stretched out of her bed. I backed out of there and we watched from farther away after that. They would come down at night to eat wild plums, sleep at the base of the tree, and climb up to catch more Zs during the day. At any daytime hour we could watch them from our living room. It was a lot of fun, and we didn't get much done, but in the end we had to run them off (Just say no to garbage bears). I blazed away with 12-gauge bird shot and Jane banged pots and pans. The last we saw of them, they were hauling.	Four days, 50 yards from our house.

Calf moose on our driveway.

This moose was laying on our driveway but I didn't see it. A guy from the Park Service took the photo and gave it to me.

In September Jane saw eight elk from our dining table—down by the creek 100 yards from the house. There were two bulls in the bunch and they were bugling. Last spring I was coming off a knee replacement and getting antsy to move around, so I drove roundabout to a place a mile or so above our home. I snuck down from there to videotape a herd of about 100 elk, then crept back out without them having seen me. After surgery like that you sometimes think you won't ever be able to do anything active again. That was a day to remember.

Wild turkeys are a big success story in Idaho. Both fall and spring hunting seasons are now offered. Besides on our driveway, like the ones in the picture, we have seen them roosting in the tree the bears were in. A caution: Hang-around turkeys make a big mess. Don't feed them—or any other wild thing, for that matter. It's a really bad idea.

The bird life here is outstanding: Turkeys, three kinds of grouse, chuker, gray partridge, pheasant, quail, eagles (golden & bald), osprey, and many hawks, falcons and owls. And a very long list of colorful songbirds. You don't need the Discovery Channel when you live at the Sweet Spot.

Turkeys, too.

Watching CNN one morning, something caught my eye out the window. It was a bald eagle flying just over the house from up the canyon. He carried something in his talons and was being mobbed by a dozen or more magpies.

We have hundreds of quail resident on our property. The hungry buggers make reseeding an interesting task. In spite of them, though, the habitat improvement I'm working on is paying off. We see more pheasants this year than ever before. I videotaped one rooster chasing another as fast as they could run, coming toward the house on the driveway.

Sometimes they all get excited.

Here's a pair to draw to.

Two or three years ago, my daughter and I encountered these fawns down by the shed you see in the turkey picture above. Sadly, they later fell victim to a disease that killed off most of the whitetails in the area. I found 15 carcasses on this place alone. It was pretty smelly for awhile—especially since the scavengers would not touch them for a long time. The malady is called epizootic hemorragic disease and is carried by gnats during particularly dry summers. The last time was back in the 60s. Oddly, mule deer were not affected.

Some sort of population adjustment had been overdue, since the whitetails were way overpopulated. But they rebound quickly. On normally healthy years about 60% of their pregnancies are twins (as opposed to around 40% in mule deer). We see the population expanding already.

This was a great year for every kind of wildlife. Previously, we had two wet springs with a mild winter in between. The resulting lush vegetation kept the critters well fed and there was virtually no winter kill. The bad news for us was that the mouse population exploded (Gus would find them in our vehicles). The good news for all predators was that the mouse population exploded. I kept track of three raptor nests that each brought off all chicks. More typically they'll fledge just one.
Caught him napping on one of my potato plants	All 3 of these great horned owl chicks fledged in a tree by the creek.	A few months later, all grown up

The whole family of great horned owls that nested on our place are still here. The babies are grown now, and we hear them talking to each other down along the creek each evening. Sometimes we see them perched on a branch looking at us (more likely at our chickens and cats, but so far so good). Living at Sweet Spot Ranch is a continual photo op. You just have to keep your eyes open and camera at hand. I guess you could consider the blur at right to be in the wildlife category, too. It's Rocky, our banty rooster. He and I have an ongoing battle, which Jane says I've encouraged (naaaah). He'll sneak up on me when my back is turned and leap up on the back of my legs, like he's training for a cockfight. If I put my foot toward him he puts his training to work.	Looks like Rocky's winning this foot fight.
You'll find more Sweet Spot wildlife scenes here, and back at Eye of Idaho.


Sweet Spot main page	The House	The Land	Living Here	The Wildlife	Around the Area	Contact Us	The Video	Back to Eye of Idaho