One of my favorite movies is A Christmas Story, which is based on a novel written by Jean Shepherd. For about the past 30 years I have not let a single December go by without watching it several times.
The crow is actually a coyote with feathers. The two don't look the same, but they have a lot in common. Both are wary, shy and incredibly intelligent. Most important of all, both are survivors.
It was pleasant lying prone in the warmth of a morning sun while I eyed the goings-on across the valley. A prairie dog was down on all fours eating grass while another stood watch as I got an up-close view through the rifle's 24X glass.
I dared not swat the mosquito that busily buzzed my right ear. Just a stone's throw away, a woodchuck was stuffing itself on succulent green soybean leaves.
A few years ago, I packed up my worldly belongings, said goodbye to family and friends and left the land of my birth, the lush foothills of South Carolina. My destination--somewhere in the Rocky Mountain West.
Whenever I think of rabbits, I think of Realph. He was a little tricolor beagle named after my great-grandfather--a lean, rugged, son of Norway who came to central Wisconsin in the 1880s and homesteaded 160 hardscrabble acres.
I was walking along the rim of a small canyon in northern Arizona looking for elk when I saw bobcat sign up ahead in the duff under a juniper tree. It was a sun-bleached, white dropping.
Under the best of circumstances a squirrel presents an interesting target for hunters. Small and nimble, seldom prone to sit still for any length of time and alert to anything that might hint at danger, they can give you fits in the wintertime.
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