Last year was record-breaking for one of North America's rarest birds. For the first time in more than 100 years, the population of endangered whooping cranes surpassed 200 birds. A total of 217 whooping cranes completed the migration from breeding grounds in Canada to wintering grounds along the Texas Coast during the fall of 2004.

 During the trek, 43 percent of that group appeared at Oklahoma's Salt Plains National Wildlife Refuge throughout the fall and winter, according to biologists tracking the birds.

 "That was the largest number ever recorded in one place during migration," said Mark Howery, natural resources biologist for the Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation.

 The whooping cranes had a successful breeding season this spring, and nearly 30 young cranes are expected to be migrating with the adults this fall. With 230-plus leaving Canada, biologists expect an impressive number again in Oklahoma.

 The whooping cranes should pass through the central one-third of the state between October 20 and the first week of November.

 "The cranes we see are part of the last remaining, self-sustaining population in the world," Howery said.

 The population was down to 15 whooping cranes in 1941. All cranes that exist today are descendents from this original migratory population.

 The Wildlife Department collects whooping crane sightings as part of a federal tracking program led by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Report any sightings in Oklahoma to the Department of Wildlife Conservation at (405) 521-4616. Please note date, location, number of birds, behavior (walking, flying), habitat, and physical description.

 "Oklahoma's sportsmen account for over one-third of the state's whooping crane reports," Howery said.

 Whooping cranes stand over five feet tall and are the tallest birds in North America. These cranes have a wingspan of over seven feet, are white in appearance, and have black legs and black wing tips. They have a red facial mask and long olive-drab bills. They may be seen in wet agricultural fields or along river bottoms in small groups of two to six birds. They roost at night on mudflats and are often seen with flocks of sandhill cranes.

 Keeping a lookout for whooping cranes is a high priority for Kelvin Schoonover, wildlife biologist at Hackberry Flat Wildlife Management Area in Tillman County. Schoonover tracked five birds last fall, a record for Hackberry Flat.

 "They're usually here no longer than two to three weeks, but last year they arrived on Oct. 19 and stayed until the day before Thanksgiving," Schoonover said.

 Schoonover also makes sure hunters visiting the area know when a whooping crane is present.

 "Sandhill cranes and snow geese migrate here around the same time, and they can look a lot like the endangered birds. Hunters need to be very cautious when whooping cranes are in the area," he said.

 Whooping cranes have not yet made an appearance at Hackberry Flat this year. However, sandhill cranes are beginning to arrive, which indicates whooping cranes are probably not far behind.

 A total of 341 whooping cranes live today in the wild and 136 survive in captivity. In addition to the original migratory population, there are two smaller, human-established whooping crane populations in Florida.

 From the Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation.

  We called them the "Spit and Whittle" club. The old-timers that sat around the downtown park benches in their Big Smith overalls, flannel shirts and felt fedora hats, spitting tobacco juice and whittling on sticks. Base ball caps were not the fad as of yet. You’d see them lean forward, murmuring in hushed tones, looking around to make sure there were no eavesdroppers.

  "Senility isn’t pretty!" we'd say jokingly. Who knows what they were talking about? I think I’m beginning to understand. Don't get me wrong, I'm not ready for a modern version of the "Spit and Whittle" club. But I can guess what the subject of their conversations was. Changes! Changes were much slower then, but still hard to accept for those who had lived their whole lives here.

  "What the hey!" I said as pulled off the shoulder of I-540, staring in disbelief. My sixteen year old daughter responded in just the way that 'all knowing' sixteen year olds can, "It’s called a Wal-Mart Dad, one of the many popular retail stores in the area!" I tried to ignore the sarcasm as I've learned that's usually best.

  "But I used to rabbit hunt in that field!"

  "What field?"

  "Exactly!"

  A little further down I-540, you now see a huge limestone quarry. It wasn’t always a rock quarry. When we were kids we would hike there to a cave on the hillside above a clear, meandering creek. We called the cave the "Turtle Hut" because the top of the cave was shaped like a huge turtle’s shell. It's gone now, so is the creek. No doubt the walls and ceiling of the cave now lies scattered beneath the paved driveway of some newcomers mansion.

  There’s no ignoring the boom and recent growth of the area with suburbs popping up like mushrooms , seemingly overnight. Now I'm hearing rumors of mass transportation, high rise condominiums! Makes me wanna spit! I spend a lot of time shaking my head from side to side. "Senility isn’t pretty!" I hear my daughters whisper.

  I often wonder just what the percentage of natives of North West Arkansas is now in the area. Not just the people born here, but who’s parents were born here. I mean the ones who can remember what life was like before Beaver Lake came in. Who can even remember Beaver Lake when it was new? Back then, you rarely saw another boat and at night, there were no lights from residences along the shoreline or on the surrounding hills. Now when ever you approach the lake, all you can see is a mass of bobbing boats and jet skis. "Where’s the water?" one may ask. If you look close enough, you may see a glimpse of blue between the hulls of aquatic craft.

  On the roped off swimming areas, there's such a pretty rainbow sheen of oil slick on the surface. At least now I can understand the concept of 'catch and release' fishing. If you were to clean the fish and fry them up, you wouldn't need cooking oil. The oil content is now comprisable to bacon, ….50 weight marine flavor! If you should swim, please don’t swallow any of the water! And you'll need to scrub off good in a hot shower to get the oil slime off your body.

  I am forever grateful to my great uncle who could have been a member of the 'spit and whittle' club, but instead chose to spend his time and assets researching the family genealogy and passing along what he learned to us kids. I have fond memories of the tales, all true of course, of my pioneer ancestors moving to the area before the Civil War. Of how my great, great granddad and his brother rode with the James’ and Younger’s under Quantrill, and of the places they hid, camped, had skirmishes with Union troops,…. It's a shame that many people, mostly new to the area, will never know, or even care, that behind their gated community neighborhoods, the backyards of their estate homes sits on the very sites where these events took place.

  Who knows or even cares that Rogers used to be called Bloomington? And that it was an apple orchard community?

  Who knows that Lowell began as Mud Town?

  Who knows or even cares where Bella Vista, the retirement community got it’s name? Well I'm going to tell you anyway. One of the first families to settle and farm the area had several daughters, one of which became a prominent lady of class there. Her name was Bella Vista Green, my great aunt. Her daughter, Lillian Green, became an award winning photographer and had a whirlwind romance with a baseball player known as Dizzy Dean. She turned down his proposal of marriage because she did not want to give up her career and leave her home and family. Such tales are many. What secrets and treasures are being lost?….buried beneath the pavement of progress?

  But progress is good! Change is good! Right? How do you spell it?

  So where have all the natives to the area gone? Maybe they saw the writing on the wall and could not bear to see the rape and pillage of the homeland, moved to other places, ironically becoming new comers there and adding to the demise of that place. They seem to have gone the way of the chick-a-pin. What’s a chick-a-pin you ask. Well, fire up you’re state of the art laptop and do some research. That’s the only place you'll find them now. When the red oak borers and the chainsaws of progress get through, they too may be a thing of the past. (more shaking of the head,………spit) I need a stick to whittle on,……… can’t find one.

  "Gee Dad, maybe you can pick some up at Wal-Mart!"

  I was going to call this chapter of my continuing story, My Series Of Unfortunate Hunts, 'Oklahoma or Bust'. But after surviving a week of record high temperatures, gusty dry wind and then plummeting temperatures and frost, I think I'll call it 'Oklahoma or Dust'. Or even maybe 'The Dust Bowl Revisited'.

  The weather in Oklahoma can change overnight from hot to cold, from calm to gusty winds, that can put the best domed tent on its side, all under a clear blue sky. As a friend who lives there said to me during my stay, "I see why it took the entire United States Army to make the Indians (native Americans) stay in Oklahoma." I never asked him why he stayed. Must be his love of armadillos, scorpions, wild hogs and of course the ever changing weather. For the record, I love Oklahoma. So please no hate mail.

  Anyway, you're not reading this to get a weather report on the state of Oklahoma. You can get that info from the Weather Channel. You want to hear about my latest deer hunting adventure. Well get comfortable and read on.

  I decided this year to try my hand once again at pursuing whitetails with my trusty bow and stay over for the start of the muzzleloader season. So I headed south with my Golden Eagle bow, Traditions in-line muzzleloader and a the back of my truck full of all the essentials for an eight day stay in the wilds of Oklahoma.

  I should have known that things were going to be tough when on the afternoon, Monday to be exact, of my arrival I found the camp area my host David Falconer had set aside to be directly in the ninety plus degree sunshine with nothing to offer any relief giving shade between my tent and the scorching sun. Twelve hundred acres and he picks this spot. huh.

  The hunting was tough the next few days with record high temperatures being the norm. The only relief was the gusty wind. Though it was hot it would have been much hotter without it. Thank God for small miracles.

  Not being able to do any scouting the afternoon I got there, I chose to hunt the edge of a food plot the first morning since I knew where it was at. Around 9:00 the temperature inside my blind was rising and I knew the deer weren't going to be moving so I decided to do a bit of scouting.

  Looking around the area I found a small clearing about sixty to seventy yards away from the food plot where several trails came together leading to the plot. I figured that if it was dark by the time the deer made it to the plot I needed to intercept them before they got there and it was still legal shooting time. I chose a spot for the blind on the edge of the clearing under some cedar trees with low hanging branches. I then cut some branches from nearby trees and attached them to the blind with the built on loops made for just that. It was a great set-up.

  I was really pleased when hunting there that evening when a deer came in behind me. It busted before I saw if it was a buck or doe. I guess the deer saw the new shape where the day before there was nothing and didn't like it, so off it went. No matter, it was only the first day.

  The next morning I hunted from a ladder stand I had set-up the previous afternoon again along a trail. This time about twenty yards from a crossing on a fence. Although there was great sign around, no deer showed up. No matter it was only the morning of the second day.

  For the evening hunt that day I chose to hunt from a ground blind that David had set up on the edge of a food plot on top of a hill bordered on two sides by woods. Basically a corner. This was the location where the previous year I had stuck a big doe only to lose her in the woods after hours of searching.

  I felt something big was going to happen that evening and I waited patiently. It was a bit uncomfortable sitting on the ground and kneeling since I nothing to sit on. I figured that since David had set the blind he had included a bucket or something to sit on. There was nothing. I had taken along a foam seat pad to place on top of the nonexistent bucket so I at least had that to keep my butt off the ground and to pad my knees while kneeling.

  Just before 7:00 something appeared about a hundred yards down the field. In the waning light all I saw was a huge black blob. It took a few seconds to realize it was a wild hog. It had four little piglets with her and two more big hogs not quite as big as her. I watched them as they rooted around in the field. I took a few shots with the camera using the zoom to bring them in closer. The big black sow was almost as big as my Arctic Cat four-wheeler. "I swear to God she was."

  They made their way down the edge of the field getting ever closer to me. I put the camera down and grabbed my bow hoping they would turn and come right in front of the blind offering an easy five yard shot. It was not to be. They came into the trees to my left and came right behind me. By the time I got turned around the only one I could see out the side window was this gray colored sow.

  She was facing straight at me and wouldn't turn sideways to give me a broadside shot. I held at full draw as long as she stood there which seemed like hours when it was really just about a minute. I was ready to stick her in her squeal if she gave me a shot. It never happened. She turned around and went off to my left leaving me trying to catch my breath.

  Wow! That was cool. I had never seen a wild hog before and almost getting the chance to take one was a thrill. I guess I should explain that in Oklahoma, hogs a nuisance animal and don't have a season. You don't need a license or a tag to take one. They cause a lot of damage to gardens, crops and the like.

  Okay, this is getting kind of long. I'll skip the parts about the hot afternoons laying around trying to keep cool waiting for the evening hunt or about the forty mile round trip to Wall Mart to buy a new air mattress after waking up one morning with my head and feet in the air and my ass touching the ground. I won't mention I never saw a deer until Saturday afternoon when my old hunting partner Kenny and I went to get my ground blind.

  By the weekend things had cooled off a lot. It was still windy and dry but now there was frost on the ground in the mornings. I told you the weather changes quickly there.

  Anyway back to the hunt or lack there of.

  I guess David felt a little sorry for me when Sunday evening he said I could go with him in the morning to his secret honey. Well it really wasn't a secret it was just in place where you had to cross his father-in-law's property to get there and so was kind off of limits to us outsiders.

  Things started off on the wrong foot as usual when my alarm failed to go off and only woke up when Kenny came down and shook me up. I made David wait while I got things together.

  He set me in a thicket just off a trail that had a scrape line on it. After he walked off to his spot, I dug out some snack cakes to eat as I hadn't had time to eat breakfast because of the alarm clock incident. David warned me not to move around much since I was hunting on the ground I could easily spook any deer. I kept to his advance once I finished my breakfast.

  I hadn't moved except to straighten my legs now and then when I decided to dig out my watch to see what time it was. I figured it to be a little after eight when it was closer to nine. Wow, time flies when you're having fun.

  Just before ten a caught some movement to my left. There were two does coming around my left side less than ten yards away. They kind of looked my direction but proceeded around a group of trees to my left. When they did that I brought my gun to my shoulder and aimed at a point at the right side of the trees waiting for them to appear.

  The lead deer came around the corner and stopped to look at me. A good quartering to shot so I aimed and pulled the trigger. I watched the deer run into the woods across the trail from me trying to remember details of her flight. At that range I knew that I had hit her. I just didn't know exactly where.

  It didn't take long for David to show up. After running through the sequence of events, we started the tracking. We followed the blood trail until it ran out. After a long and exhausting search we came to the conclusion that I had hit her to high at that close range and had missed the vital area. We agreed that the deer would die, just not for long time. I had the feeling of being there before. Like Yogi Baera says, "Its like deja vue all over again.".

  "Well at least you've got something to write about in your newsletter" David said. "Yup", I thought, "another chapter for My Series Of Unfortunate Hunts."

  Ah, but alas. This chapter has a happy ending of sorts. I'll relate it to you as quick as I can.

  Later that evening I took what I thought was a small doe. A great thirty yard heart shot. It didn't go very far before succumbing to the shot. "Yes! The streak has ended."I got a shock when I went to fetch my deer when I saw it was a button buck. "Oh s***, David is going to be pissed". I couldn't enjoy my success as the thought of an ass chewing kept coming to mind. The idea of throwing the deer into the bushes crossed my mind for a split second but even faster was dismissed. It wouldn't have been the ethical thing to do and I'd never be able to look David in the eyes again knowing I had this "secret".

  Later back at camp I was a bundle of nerves when David drove up to check on our progress. I reluctantly told him of my mistake. He was very understanding and said he had made a similar mistake a few years before. What a relief. I could finally start to enjoy my success.

  As it happened I was but one of two guys that had taken deer up that point. Another fellow at camp everyone called Dan-O took a nice six or seven pointer that same evening. It took several hours and four guys to track him down. It was worth the trouble when you saw the pride in Dan's eyes. It was his "buck-of-a-lifetime". Congrats to Dan.

  I headed home the following day with a feeling of success. It made the eight and a half hour ride home at little more enjoyable.

  Could this be the end of My Series Of Unfortunate Hunts? Don't count on it just yet. The deer hunting year has just begun and there is plenty of time for me to screw things up. Until the next chapter, Jim 'Button Buck' Bob

  Footnote: There are two lessons to be learned from this trip. One, when shooting at very close range, aim a couple of inches lower to compensate for the trajectory of the bullet. Like when bow hunting just not as extreme. The second thing to do, and this can be hard during the excitement that comes when a deer shows up, take an extra second or two and look at the deer's build. Is it a young deer or an old one? Can I see any bumps on it's head that might indicate it being a button buck? These are two things that just went right of my head during the heat of the moment. Try not to make the same mistakes. J B