White-tailed Deer: A Change in Tactics

Like I said, I’ve changed my tactics.  I’m not known for being that patient, but am discovering that getting a decent shot takes patience.  Normally, I just hike back to areas where I know the deer live and grab a few shots.

I’ll post a couple of before and after shots to illustrate why hiking back into their lair no longer gets the desired result.  A few months ago I found this lean-to built back in one of their hiding spots.  The picture above is what it looked like on Thursday.

 

This is what it looked like two months ago.  The forest has become so overgrown that going back to where they live no longer guarantees getting deer photos.  My change in tactics?  I’ve written about deer runs before.  Friday, I found a spot along a main deer run that looked well traveled, hid beneath a pair of trees and waited for the deer to arrive.

And they did.  As a hunter my dad used to find a pine tree with low hanging bows and hide beneath them, giving him cover from being seen while the pine bows would mask his scent as well.

White-tailed Deer: Curious Doe

While I took pictures of the posing doe last night, a second smaller doe sauntered in.  She took up a blocking position between the first doe and I.  I Like their summer coats better than their winter coats.  The reddish-brown color makes them look thinner and more graceful.

However, it offers them very little protection against all the tiny flying and biting creatures.

I changed my tactics on getting deer shots, which resulted in going from not seeing any deer to having this one walk up to within twenty-five feet.  I think if I had sat down she might have walked right up to me.

On This Day, June 13: The Pentagon Papers

June 13, 1971

“Pentagon Papers” damage credibility of Cold War policy

The New York Times begins to publish sections of the so-called “Pentagon Papers,” a top-secret Department of Defense study of America’s involvement in the Vietnam War. The papers indicated that the American government had been lying to the people for years about the Vietnam War and the papers seriously damaged the credibility of America’s Cold War foreign policy.

In 1967, Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara ordered his department to prepare an in-depth history of American involvement in the Vietnam War. McNamara had already begun to harbor serious doubts about U.S. policy in Vietnam, and the study–which came to be known as the “Pentagon Papers”–substantiated his misgivings. Top-secret memorandums, reports, and papers indicated that the U.S. government had systematically lied to the American people, deceiving them about American goals and progress in the war in Vietnam. The devastating multi-volume study remained locked away in a Pentagon safe for years. In 1971, Daniel Ellsberg, a Defense Department employee who had turned completely against the war, began to smuggle portions of the papers out of the Pentagon. These papers made their way to the New York Times, and on June 13, 1971, the American public read them in stunned amazement. The publication of the papers added further fuel to the already powerful antiwar movement and drove the administration of President Richard Nixon into a frenzy of paranoia about information “leaks.” Nixon attempted to stop further publication of the papers, but the Supreme Court refused to issue an injunction.

The “Pentagon Papers” further eroded the American public’s confidence in their nation’s Cold War foreign policy. The brutal, costly, and seemingly endless Vietnam War had already damaged the government’s credibility, and the publication of the “Pentagon Papers” showed people the true extent to which the government had manipulated and lied to them. Some of the most dramatic examples were documents indicating that the Kennedy administration had openly encouraged and participated in the overthrow of South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem in 1963; that the CIA believed that the “domino theory” did not actually apply to Asia; and that the heavy American bombing of North Vietnam, contrary to U.S. government pronouncements about its success, was having absolutely no impact on the communists’ will to continue the fight.

“”Pentagon Papers” damage credibility of Cold War policy,” The History Channel website, 2009, http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history.do?action=Article&id=2697 [accessed Jun 13, 2009]

 

On This Day

1777 – The Marquis de Lafayette arrived in the American colonies to help with their rebellion against the British.

1866 – The 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was passed by the U.S. Congress. It was ratified on July 9, 1868. The amendment was designed to grant citizenship to and protect the civil liberties of recently freed slaves. It did this by prohibiting states from denying or abridging the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States, depriving any person of his life, liberty, or property without due process of law, or denying to any person within their jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

1888 – The U.S. Congress created the Department of Labor.

1898 – The Canadian Yukon Territory was organized.

1912 – Captain Albert Berry made the first successful parachute jump from an airplane in Jefferson, Mississippi.

1920 – The U.S. Post Office Department ruled that children may not be sent by parcel post.

1944 – Germany launched 10 of its new V1 rockets against Britain from a position near the Channel coast. Of the 10 rockets only 5 landed in Britain and only one managed to kill (6 people in London).

1966 – The landmark “Miranda vs. Arizona” decision was issued by the U.S. Supreme Court. The decision ruled that criminal suspects had to be informed of their constitutional rights before being questioned by police.

1983 – The unmanned U.S. space probe Pioneer 10 became the first spacecraft to leave the solar system. It was launched in March 1972. The first up-close images of the planet Jupiter were provided by Pioneer 10.

1989 – U.S. President George Bush exercised his first Presidential veto on a bill dealing with minimum wage.

2000 – In Pyongyang, North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Il welcomed South Korea’s President Kim Dae for a three-day summit. It was the first such meeting between the leaders of North and South Korea.

June 13, 1807

Thomas Jefferson subpoenaed in Aaron Burr’s treason trial

President Thomas Jefferson receives a subpoena to testify in the treason trial of his former vice president, Aaron Burr, on this day in 1807. In the subpoena, Burr asked Jefferson to produce documents that might exonerate him.

Burr had already been politically and socially disgraced by killing former Treasury secretary and Revolutionary-era hero Alexander Hamilton in a duel in 1804. After killing Hamilton, Burr, still Jefferson’s vice president, went into hiding to avoid prosecution for murder. (The charges were later dropped.) Burr then concocted a seditious plan to enlist the help of Britain and Spain to create a separate nation in the southwestern reaches of the American continent, including parts of Mexico, over which Burr would rule. The outrageous plan failed miserably when one of Burr’s co-conspirators, General James Wilkinson, betrayed Burr and alerted Jefferson to the plot. Burr was hunted down and arrested in 1806 and indicted for treason.

Jefferson expressed in his personal papers that he felt no love or loyalty to Burr despite their former political relationship. Burr had run a close and contentious election against the republican Jefferson in the 1800 campaign. After the election resulted in a tie, the vote went to the House of Representatives. Only after Alexander Hamilton reluctantly lobbied for Jefferson did the House select Jefferson for the presidency instead of Burr. This was only one of the many grievances Burr held against Hamilton that led to the fatal duel.

Jefferson refused to appear in Burr’s defense and released only a few of the documents Burr had requested, invoking his presidential right to protect the public interest. If Jefferson’s intent was to help get Burr convicted, his refusal to supply documentation backfired. In the end, Supreme Court Chief Justice John Marshall found Burr not guilty by lack of evidence.

“Thomas Jefferson subpoenaed in Aaron Burr’s treason trial,” The History Channel website, 2009, http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history.do?action=Article&id=656 [accessed Jun 13, 2009]