Thursday, October 23, 2025

[Rich]

Happy Thursday everyone. 
Our annual pheasant hunting season started last Saturday. It is an annual event for many out of state hunters that have been coming back for many years. Back in my day of hunting, last century, our airport was packed with private planes flown in for the event. I meant to get to the airport Saturday but didn't make it. This photo is from yesterday and shows a few but many had already left.

Our airport used to be a commercial one with a few flights a day but when jet service came in we went to a small city owned airport. I remember when I was in the Navy that I came home after my discharge in 1964 on a DC3, a great plane.

[Dave]

Nice photo Rich.

My Dad used to hunt pheasant, usually quite successfully. We often had tasty pheasant dinners.

But my absolute favorite game bird was partridge. Due to the nature of their typical flight they developed large breast muscles, and as I recall the taste wasn't gamey at all - instead it was very sweet.

[Man From Ironbark]

Not having any pheasants or partridges, we used to have annual duck hunts which have largely been banned in most states these days.
I recall we had DC3 aircraft landing at our airport regularly when I was a lad.


An ancient orchid with an ancient and very venomous type of ant. Tiger orchid and Myrmecia.

[Dave]

Pretty color on that orchid, MFI. I don't remember ever seeing photos of a yellow one.

WOW! That ant sounds pretty nasty.

[Rich]

Thanks Dave! I have not had any partridge. Probably because I didn't hunt them and those that did' didn't give any away since they were so tasty!

Lovely orchid Peter and a very large ant!

[Man From Ironbark]

There are lots of yellow orchids. Yes they are one ant you don't want to mess with. I believe that at least four people have died from an encounter with them.

[Man From Ironbark]

The Diuris orchid family, which have names like donkey and rabbit due to the appearance of ears, also have names like leopard and tiger due to the predominance of yellow flowers with brown markings. There are other yellow orchids as well though our orchids are of many hues as can be seen in my Orchidaceae album.