Hitchock started it with The Birds

Don’t blame Alfred Hitchcock.
I was 11 years old when I first saw “The Birds.”
It remains one of my favorite movies.
But it’s not simply the idea of crows, seagulls and sparrows attacking humans that intrigues me, it’s the shots they offer -- left to right and right to left passing shots, straight-aways and incomings, lot of incomings.
I fantasize about rescuing Tippi Hedren with my Model 12, racking a shell into the chamber and dusting the gull that attacks her early in the film.
And Suzanne Pleshette never would have died had I been there to fend off the crows.
But most of all I dream about birds flying closer instead of farther away. Therein lies the advantage of hunting birds on the fight.
The birds I hunt are seldom closer on the second shot. Rarely does the Hungarian partridge that flushes in front of my dogs come toward me.
Oh, sure, every once in a while a bird does fly in my direction, but rarely does that bird live to pass on his flawed genes.
Unfortunately, the birds that flush out of range and fly over the horizon seem to do most of the breeding.
What fun it would be to hunt ducks that didn’t flare when they spotted my poorly camoflauged carcass, but flew at me instead.
I’m sure I’d become a better shot. Give those sharptail grouse flushing out of range a few seconds to spot me and here they’d come, closer and closer until even I couldn’t miss.
And if I did.
No big deal.
It’s not like missing a shot at a charging Cape buffalo.
Even though the birds in Hitchcock’s film killed a number of folks, I think I could easily handle the average grouse in hand-to-wing combat.
At least I hope so.
I hate to think I’d turn and run, screaming like a little girl while that sage grouse I missed cleanly pecks me on the back of the head.
But who knows? The humiliation of losing a fight to a three-pound bird might send me into a comatose state like the one that befell Hedren after she was pecked and wing-slapped into unconsciousness by a swarm of gulls.
Had she been packing a Winchester pump, I like to think she’d have been able to control her emotions and pile up those birds like a dove hunter in Mexico.
But that’s just fantasy.
My reality is quite different.
It involves a lot of misses at the south end of too many fast-flying northbound birds.
I can’t blame Hitchcock for that.
Parker Heinlein is at pman@mtintouch.net

Hunting season has returned at last

Only in Montana could I have such an opening day.
First light on Sept. 1, found my son-in-law Aaron and I hunting ruffed grouse in the Beartooth Mountains south of Livingston.
The dogs put up a few singles, but I missed the only shot I took. By 10 a.m. it had gotten hot and we called it quits.
On the way back to town we slowed to watch mule deer and whitetails still in their summer coats, and surprised a young black bear feeding on chokecherries at the edge of the road.
In the distance we could see three mountain ranges, the Crazies, the Bridgers and the Gallatins. The longest undammed river in the lower 48 -- the Yellowstone -- wound through the valley below us.
Back in Livingston I hitched my drift boat to the truck, said my goodbyes and headed home to Malta. Once hunting season arrives, I pretty much give up fishing, but with a little camouflage, the boat will make a great duck blind.
The skies were clear of smoke across the middle of Montana and I watched the state’s lesser-known mountain ranges rise on the horizon likes ships at sea. First the Snowies and the Little Belts, then north of Lewistown, the Judiths and the Moccasins.
Every stock tank I passed, it seemed, held ducks and geese and a stiff wind blowing out of the west hinted at more to come.
I ate chile rellenos in Lewistown and let the dogs swim there in Big Spring Creek where it passes through town before getting back on the road.
Smoke from wildfires still burning in the Bob Marshall Wilderness drifted across the Missouri Breaks and hid the last mountain range of the trip, the Little Rockies, until I topped the hill on Highway 191 above the Fred Robinson Bridge and they appeared out of the haze.
Sage grouse and sharptails fed along the edge of the pavement, nearly invisible against the dry grass, and a pheasant flushed as the truck blew past, filling the mirror with a blur of wings.
Scattered bunches of antelope grazed across the prairie in the fading light and I slowed to watch a badger scramble off the road at my approach.
Finally I topped the last hill and the green line of the Milk River bottom bisected the arid landscape below me. I was nearly home.
I’d been skunked on opening day, but it was a day to remember nonetheless.
And it was only the beginning.
Hunting season has returned at last.
Parker Heinlein is at pman@mtintouch.net

Transforming Montana for the rich

It’s beginning to sound like a broken record -- another developer claiming his transformation of a working ranch into an exclusive second-home enclave for the very rich is a good thing.
Now a developer in Park County is asking the state to sell him two square-mile sections of public land. The acquisition will allow him to finish the “environmentally friendly” subdivision he plans there.
Wade Dokken touts his proposed Ameya Preserve in “the vast wilderness of Montana’s Paradise Valley” as “a bold new vision where nature meets culture.”
State wildlife officials disagree.
Tom Lemke, a biologist with the Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks wrote that the project “would result in loss of important wildlife habitat, reduced wildlife use of the area, and new and complicated wildlife-human conflicts associated with subdivision.”
Lemke says selling the public land to Dokken will only make the problems worse.
But Dokken, who quit his day job on Wall Street as CEO of American Skandia, is offering $3.8 million for the two state-owned sections.
Guess who’s going to win? The wildlife biologist whose priority is the land and the animals or the developer who hopes to sell home sites there for up to $1.7 million.
I’ll put my money on Dokken.
If you believe everything on his Web page, Dokken is simply doing this for the good of us all.
Like an executive for the logging industry, he writes: “Our human presence can measurably add to the health of the wilderness and the majestic fauna that depend on the land.”
Make that “wealthy human presence.”
This will be another gated community.
Kind of like it used to be.
But the gate was always open when the place was the Bullis Creek Ranch. The three generations of ranchers who lived there gave anyone permission to hunt the place as long as they walked or rode horseback.
Then the land became more valuable than the cows and the ranch sold.
First to a wealthy Texan who built a mansion high on a windswept ridge where everyone could see it and then to Dokken.
His plans include a general store, spa, art center, 39 custom-designed homes along with their accompanying roads, driveways and parking lots. All for the good of the environment, of course.
And it will be built entirely up the remote drainage instead of on the valley floor on the already-established county road where the ranch families lived.
There’s certainly no better way to preserve the land than to build smack-dab in the middle of it.
Just ask Dokken.
After all, his is a bold, new vision.
Even if it does sound like we’ve heard it before.
Parker Heinlein is at pman@mtintouch.net

An ode to Uncle Bob

My Uncle Bob spent the last three weeks of his life fishing.

In failing health he had been admitted to a nursing home by his daughters, who despite their love for their father, could no longer care for him.

He didn’t know a soul in the place, my cousin Mary Ann told me over the phone, so he would lie on his back with his eyes closed and go through the motions of casting his line.

“Did you see that one,” he would ask.

“Dad was still fishing,” Mary Ann told me.

Eventually he just stopped breathing and slipped quietly away during the night. That was Uncle Bob, never wanting a fuss made over him.

I can see him sitting in the bow of his 14-foot boat, a sculling paddle in one hand and a long bamboo pole in the other, dropping minnows into submerged brush piles in the shallow bays, hoisting out crappie and bass.

Uncle Bob had been a grocer in Indiana and Kentucky until a heart attack prompted his retirement from the A&P Tea Co. He and Aunt Betty bought a house in the woods near a TVA reservoir where they kept a bird dog, raised tomatoes, and fished the big lake just down the hill.

They had invited me for a visit shortly before I first got married and I was taken with the country. Western Kentucky was rolling and tree covered and we caught lots of fish.

My wife and I eventually moved to an apartment less than a mile from Uncle Bob and Aunt Betty’s place and I got a job at a marina on the lake.

For two years I lived in Kentucky and my mother’s brother became my best friend. We hunted and fished together, I helped him get in his firewood and we explored the wilder country in the area on foot.

We even picked mistletoe one winter intending to sell it, but instead traded our harvest for a case of beer at the A&P in Paducah where Uncle Bob knew the manager.

I moved to Montana for good the next summer and over the years my uncle and I lost touch. I knew he’d moved in with my cousin in Louisville a few years after Aunt Betty died and I saw him one last time in South Carolina at Mary Ann’s two years ago.

She had warned me Uncle Bob suffered from occasional bouts of dementia, but I wouldn’t have known. Although his hearing was about gone and his eyesight failing, he was the same old Uncle Bob to me.

“We sure had some good times together, didn’t we?” he asked. “I don’t hunt or fish any more, you know. I hope you still do.”

I told him yes, I hunt and fish more than I should and he said that was OK, nothing wrong with huntin’ and fishin.’

So I’m taking my uncle’s advice.

It served him well to the end of his days.

And he knew from where his blessing came. Uncle Bob paid an organist to play Sundays at the tiny country church he attended a few miles from the lake because otherwise the church would have no music.

No wonder he got to fish until the very end.

Opportunistic bears climbing in windows

The Big Sky area is suffering a rash of break-ins this summer.
Blame the recent hot weather.
Most residents of the tony development near Yellowstone National Park don’t have air conditioners and have been leaving doors and windows open during the record heat wave that’s baked Montana since late June.
In an effort to stop the break-ins, three repeat offenders were even put to death.
But the criminal activity continues, says game warden Joe Knarr with Montana’s Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks.
“They go house to house until they find an open window,” says Knarr, who’s investigated dozens of break-ins at Big Sky since the beginning of July.
It’s not thieves rifling through the silverware drawer, however, that have Big Sky residents on edge. Instead, it’s opportunistic black bears climbing through windows looking for food.
So far, no one’s gotten hurt, but nine bears have been trapped and three euthanized.
Like the saying goes: “a fed bear is a dead bear.”
And while the problem in Big Sky hasn’t been tied to improperly stored dog food and bird seed or a lack of bear-proof garbage containers, the solution is even simpler: lock the windows and doors.
If it’s too hot, buy an air-conditioner. This is, after all, a community of second homes. Residents should be able to handle the extra expense.
Regulations concerning garbage storage and collection are already in effect at Big Sky, but Knarr says with so many rental units there, guaranteeing a constant influx of newcomers, a lot of folks don’t understand the do’s and don’ts of living in bear country.
A similar problem in the Rattlesnake area near Missoula a few years ago resulted in the euthanization of 15 bears and the relocation of 30 others.
Efforts to educate residents there reversed the situation.
But as more and more people move into bear country and the number of bruins increases, problems are sure to persist.
Newcomers need keep their urban edge when they arrive in the last, best place. Just like at home, lock the doors and windows, don’t leave anything out in the yard untended and participate in neighborhood watches.
However, unlike at home, report any bear sightings and get to know your neighbors.
These aren’t your typical thieves and the solution to the problem lies in getting rid of the temptation, not in locking up the offenders.
Montana’s abundant wildlife, clean air and safe environment continue to attract new residents. Unless they’re careful, the Big Sky state will become a lot more like where they came from and less and less like where they thought they were headed.
Parker Heinlein is at pman@mtintouch.net

One step at a time

My father died in a fall last winter.

His demise was frequently on my mind as I picked my way across 90 miles of trail through the Bob Marshall Wilderness earlier this month with two friends.

I didn’t want to suffer a similar fate and end up at the top of the page.

Not that there was much chance of slipping in the bathroom and hitting my head on the sink like Dad did.

But there was certainly the risk of a fall.

I’m of that age group now where falls are a leading cause of death. So I watched my step and stayed on my feet. Especially when the trail crossed a particularly steep slope and the whole world, it seemed, dropped into the abyss below me.

Outdoors columnist stumbles on wilderness trail, plunges to his death

I only needed rescuing once. Foolishly crossing the White River without a wading staff near the end of a long day, I was having trouble maintaining my balance in the stiff current.

Grandfather swept away in raging torrent, feared dead

Luckily, Ben, who had crossed ahead of me, looked back and saw my plight. He dropped his pack, returned to the river and gave me a hand.

If given a choice, always hike with younger, stronger companions.

Just make sure you keep up.

After losing our way along the base of the spectacular Chinese Wall, I lost sight of Ben and Erik as we searched for the trail. Bushwacking through the sub-alpine terrain, I nearly stumbled into the excavation a grizzly had made digging up ground squirrels.

Montana man falls in hole, eaten by bear

Whistling loudly, I caught up with my companions and kept them close the rest of the trip.

Erik fell once when he stepped on the outside edge of the trail across a sidehill and it gave way. He dropped to the ground with one leg bent beneath him, gathered himself and regained his feet.

Had I taken that fall, I doubt my recovery would have been as smooth as Erik’s.

Former newspaperman crippled after trail accident

Eight days of putting one foot in front of the other, up and down switchbacks, across rivers and over deadfall, through mud and brush, hopping from one rock to another without a single fall.

I tried to pay attention even when I was exhausted, take care when I wanted to hurry and rest when I’d reached the end of my rope.

The pounding took a toll on my joints and I used half a roll of first aid tape on my blisters, but I didn’t become another statistic.

Aging hiker falls off face of the Earth

I survived the wilderness relatively unscathed. Now If I can just remember to watch my step in the bathroom.

Hike left me craving more than basics

I lack for little.
Happily married, well-fed and clothed, I sleep in a comfortable bed, turn up the thermostat when I’m cold and step into the shower when I’m dirty.
If I crave ice cream, beer or fried pork rinds, the grocery’s just down the street. An all-night convenience store a few blocks away conveniently satisfies my hunger for pizza and doughnuts at any hour of the night.
For the past week, however, I’ve been unable to satisfy those cravings. On an extended backpacking trip through the Bob Marshall Wilderness, I’m carrying everything I need on my back.
And everything I need certainly doesn’t include everything I want.
An ice cold bottle of beer would sure taste good about now. So would a bowl of Cherry Garcia ice cream.
Wilderness travel reduces life to the bare essentials. Food becomes little more than fuel, a tiny tent offers shelter from the elements and comfort comes on a long stretch of downhill trail.
A dog-eared paperback takes the place of cable television and instant oatmeal replaces bacon and eggs.
Cold? Throw another log on the fire.
Wet? Get used to it.
Come the end of the trip, there will be cravings to satisfy for sure. Fresh fruit, potato chips, milk shakes, meat.
Years ago I worked for an outfitter in Cooke City. Following weeks living in a tent high in the Beartooth Mountains I would head to the general store to indulge myself as soon as I got back to town.
However, it’s been years now that I’ve spent much time in the wilderness, years that I’ve been able to satisfy even the simplest craving, peppermint patties and bottled water seemingly always at my fingertips.
This time I want to do things differently. After a week of living simply, I hope to be able to show a bit of restraint, continue doing without some of those things I’ve found I don’t actually need.
Like an Indian mystic returning from a vision quest, I would like to come back wiser, kinder, more patient.
But who am I kidding. About now, I’d die for a cheeseburger, sell my soul for a popsicle and trade this backpack and everything in it for one night in a comfortable bed.
For sure, instant oatmeal, jerky and powdered drink mix won’t be on my menu anytime soon. Certainly not once I return to the land of indulgence, where cheese nachos and a Dove bar are seldom more than a few blocks away.
Parker Heinlein is at pman@mtintouch.net