Vintage Video - Birds

As I was creating an index of taped stories from my time in television news, I noticed there were enough pieces on hunting, fishing, conservation, or nature to make a stand-alone category.

While working for KELO in Pierre, South Dakota I did a couple stories with wildlife rehabilitator Deborah Wall.  

She nursed song birds, raptors, and other wildlife people brought to her found ill or injured.  The local public works people provided her with road kill so raptors could stay on their normal diets.

The first story in this week's video is about a Trumpeter Swan she helped recover.  When it was time to release it, she coordinated with the National Fish and Wildlife office so the bird could reunite with its own kind and continue heading north.

While I'm not a hunter, during my time as a reporter I did lots of stories on a variety of hunts, ranging from mourning doves to mountain goat to ducks.  My vivid memory of a goose hunt was getting into a dug-out blind well-before light so we were concealed from birds flying overhead. 

My concern was what happened if a hunter successfully shot a bird and it fell into the blind?  I was told that happened some times, and if it did, it hurt.  

Pheasant were most appealing, because in South Dakota you can't hunt them before noon, so there was none of this "o-dark thirty" business and you could have a proper start to your day.  Pheasant are a big deal in that state, so big, the Governor traditionally sponsored a hunt inviting business and community leaders, plus prospective businesses to participate in one of the state's great traditions.

The last piece was fun and challenging as I had to stay in my news truck to shoot the video so I didn't disturb the eagles.  Every winter since moving back to Wisconsin, I take my camera up to the Wisconsin River to take their photos, but so far none of them match what I lucked into on this video.