Journal – Biking to the Wildlife Refuge

It was a gorgeous day today and I wanted to find somewhere new to ride my bike to. I looked on the map and noticed the wildlife refuge. The reviews were great and the pictures of the birds and scenery were nice. I was picturing in my mind a beautiful wildlife sanctuary where deer, birds and waterfowl peacefully lived.

As I got close to the area I started noticing a lot of gunfire. “Someone must be target practicing”, I thought.

I got to a four way intersection with a couple of dead end roads and a sign that said “Public Hunting” with an arrow pointing to the left. “Public hunting? Where’s with wildlife sanctuary?”, I thought. I took out the cellphone map and it was down towards the hunting area. (There’s a heron by the hunting sign)

I finally get to the wildlife refuge and there is a sign up ahead that said, “Paid Permit Area” I hesitate for a bit because I had had tickets before but after riding all this way I didn’t feel like turning around without seeing it so I rode on. I figured if anyone asked I could say the permit was, “On the car”, which was technically correct. (The car however was not at the wildlife refuge and the permit was expired but I figured those details were unimportant)

I pass a man carrying some nice binoculars and ask him causally, “Did you see any nice birds?”

He looked at me a bit puzzled and said simply, “No”.

So rode up to the information sign and reading it found out that the hunting season was until March. “That explains the gunfire”, I thought. Most of it seemed far away South of where I was so I figured if I went exploring towards the North West I would be okay. I remembered that some lady had got killed around here during hunting season hiking down a mountain. Apparently she looked like a bear.

I thought to myself, “Maybe I should put a little white cross on my bicycling jacket right over my heart kind of like those old time uniforms. That way if they want to shot me they can make a clean kill. I would rather not suffer for too long in a hospital.”

I kept reading the sign, it said only shotguns allowed. I thought, “Oh well, there goes that idea, maybe if I had remembered my bike helmet it would give some protection from pellets falling down or ricocheting. Maybe next time I’ll bring one of those old time military replica helmets the motorcycle riders were fond of wearing when the helmet law first went into effect.”

I figured my chances were pretty good at survival so I headed off to the North West. Right at the start I heard an eagle and watched it swooping down on something. “Wow, cool”, I thought.

There were some great views in all directions but many of the trees were dead. I’m not sure what killed them but my guess is that maybe the sea level has been rising a bit and the salt water may have killed them. Many places around here are experiencing subsidence from the sea eroding the land away.

I came across an eagle nest in a tree but it looked abandoned. There was nobody home. There was lots of gunfire to the South and hardly any birds around.

“Not exactly thousands of waterfowl around here today. Maybe their down by where all the shooting is happening”, I thought.

All of a sudden there was an extra load “BLAM” right close by me. A small bird fluttered in evasive action, another shot rang out ”BLAM”. I watched as the bird fell down. I heard the voices of the hunters near by.

“Just one bird, thats good”, I thought to myself. Some of the saddest hunting stories I’ve heard involve pairs of birds. Some of them are very closely mated to each other and when one is killed or maimed there mate may fly to it and refuse to leave.

I left the “Hunting refuge” a bit disappointed. I had taken my nice camera with the zoom lens but never took it out of the bag. There wasn’t anything really worth using the zoom for. Here’s some of the birds outside the refuge but they were kind of far away and I wasn’t in the mood for getting the other camera out. I liked the way the field was plowed and the clouds looked.

As I was riding back I came across a nice looking snake sunning itself on the street. I thought I would take its picture as proof of wildlife (POW) but then I noticed its head was flat as a pancake. “That’s not proper wildlife photography, and photo editing the gory details out would be cheating”, I thought.

I getting a bit hungry having been riding for a few miles farther than I had planned. There in the road was another tenderized morsel. “Now if I was a real survivalist I would just chew that whole squirrel down fur, bones and all and chase it with a couple hydrochloric acid pills like some giant condor or something”, I thought.

I’d spend the afternoon slowly digesting my meal like a great lion on the Serengeti and then ride back in style with plenty of energy.

More likely I would get sick as a dog, throw up everywhere and suffer with fleas and trichinosis for the next twelve years. Plus my aging amalgam fillings that need replacing might come out forcing me to pay the dentist before I’ve saved up all the money to get it done. (This might be a good thing really but the quality of posts might go down without all that extra mercury from my fillings leaching into my system) ;) Oh well, back to reality…

I barely make it home after almost thirty miles of riding. I’m seriously bonking; I’m not nearly in as good a shape as I was earlier. Next time I’ll bring some water and treats - maybe some giant hunks of dehydrated tofu, nuts or something. I’m currently not a big fan of eating meat, but each to his own.

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See more wildlife refuge pictures here
Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed my writing and odd humor.