Hiking At The Minor E. Clark Fish Hatchery, Morehead, Kentucky, August 2, 2025

After attending the Artisans Harvest event in West Liberty, Kentucky, yesterday, we decided to travel to the Minor E. Clark Fish Hatchery so I could get in a hike. I parked Candice in the van in the shade and began my hike. Shortly after I started hiking, I met a local man, (recently relocated to Kentucky from elsewhere) who happens to be a biologist employed in a federal government job. He also happens to be a very experienced birder and we struck up a conversation. I am choosing not to name him in light of the extremely oppresive and destructive nature of what is happening to thousands of federal employees all over the country. Our conversation was initially about birds and I told him about my recent experiences around the visit on our property by a large flock of Evening Grosbeaks. While we were talking, he pointed out a pair of mated Bald Eagles which were soaring over the fish ponds and told me they are nesting on a distant ridge within sight of the hatchery. This was my first sighting of Bald Eagles at the hatchery but I have to admit that I might have missed them soaring in the distance. As our conversation progressed, we got into an enlightening discussion of the ongoing decimation of the federal government by TRAITOR Trump. The man was open and honest about his feelings, stated he is just a few years from possible retirement, and might be willing to retire early if another opportunity is presented to employees in his department to take voluntary early retirement. Our conversation was mostly about the horrible attacks on government employees, immigrants, and humanity in general which is happening by TRAITOR Trump and his Criminal Syndicate which poses as a "cabinet". Yes, it was a sad conversation in many ways. But it was also honest, open, enlightening, and, in some ways, stress reducing. After our conversation broke up after about 20 minutes, I walked back to my van to let Candice know that I had been talking and would just then be starting my hike so she would not be alarmed by my lateness in returning. Then I got into an area of the hatchery property which I had never been in before, saw a large amount of birds of several species, and had a great hike in an area I had never been in before. As I was preparing to leave the hatchery, both Candice and I were able to watch an osprey swoop into a pond and capture a large goldfish and fly away with it. I suspect that a pair of ospreys are raising young somewhere near the hatchery. It was a great experience from several viewpoints: political conversation, hiking, new experiences at the hatchery, and bird watching with two great species, one of which I had never documented before, the osprey actually taking a fish. And I got my sixth sighting of Bald Eagles, a mated pair in flight.

An Unusual Sight In Nature In My Backyard!

 

Yesterday, August 27, 2023, I had one of the instances of being in the right place at the right time to see a very unusual, at least for me, sight while I was in my backyard.  For several years, we have fed birds at our house and have a fairly large flock of ruby-throated hummingbirds ever year.  This  year we have two feeders out for them and regularly need to fill one of them every two days and the other about every three days.  I have known for a while, maybe two weeks, that the young humming birds had fledged based on the sudden increase in numbers on the feeders.  

We have several Rose of Sharon trees around our house which the humming birds love when they are in bloom.  I was standing in the yard yesterday and saw a humming bird feeding on the large Rose of Sharon behind our house.  I knew the bird was either  female or a juvenile but it totally surprised me when it left the flower it was feeding on and flew to within about 3 feet of me and literally fell out of the air into the grass near me.  I knew instantly that it had to be an immature, freshly fledged hatchling, probably on its first day of flight and I was wondering if it would get airborne again.  But, after just a few seconds of lying in the grass, it was in the air again and back on the Rose of Sharon.  I had never seen this happen before although I see unusual events with wildlife at my house fairly frequently.  In February 2021, I opened my back door on an unusually cold night to see a mourning dove just sitting in the dark on my driveway.  That bird managed to fly when I walked close to it and started to bend over and pick it up in what would have been an attempt to get it to survive.  Once recently in what was a driving and freezing rain which turned into an ice storm, I saw, through my family room window,  a mink chase a rabbit around the corner of my house and into my front yard just out of my line of sight where the mink killed the rabbit brought it back across the driveway  headed back to its den.  I have had both red foxes, coyotes, and coons on my property in broad daylight and I have photographs of both deer and wild turkeys on my driveway eating bird seed.  But I had never seen a humming bird literally fall out of the sky at my feet.  This was a highly unusual sighting and well worth seeing. 

The Benefits Of Regular Exercise

Today marks two consecutive months in which I have not missed a single day of getting at least 30 minutes of fairly strenuous exercise with an hour on most of those days.  On several of those days I have done both an hour of walking at some site or other within driving distance of my home and at least 30 minutes of time on my stationary bike at home.  During the two previous months, October and November 2018, I had missed several days and become rather inconsistent despite having known for years that even two or three days of non-exercise results in a loss of previous progress in physical conditioning.  But for two complete months, I have now gotten up every day and made certain that I got exercise.  I have exercised somewhat regularly for nearly a year but this is my most consistent period. 

Today, I received what I consider to have been a reward for that consistency.  As I was walking in Old Mill Park in my hometown of West Liberty, KY, I suddenly heard another man who was walking near me yell "there is a bald eagle".  Sure enough circling about 200 to 300 feet over our heads and directly over the park which sits near the Licking River was a bald eagle with its white head and tail both clearly visible.  It circled above us for a couple of loops and flew away to the northeast in the general direction of Cave Run Lake where I have had one other sighting of an eagle several years ago.  This eagle was also only about ten miles from my home and about 8 or 9 miles from a site where I had seen another eagle eating  a road killed opossum just over two years ago.  The man who first saw this eagle today and I shared our stories of eagle sightings in the past and moved on just as the eagle had.  But, if there is such a thing as Karma, I thought that my sighting of an eagle on this two month anniversary of daily exercise was my reward for putting in that time.  If I had been sitting at home avoiding exercise, I would have had no chance to see an eagle in the city limits of West Liberty. It is also another verification that bald eagles are reproducing successfully in Eastern Kentucky and their numbers are growing and their territory is expanding.  I have now had three total eagle sightings within 30 miles of my home, 2 of them in my home county and 1 in my own neighborhood.  That is exciting. 

Republicans And Brown Headed Cowbirds

I frequently sit at my computer located in our family room window and read Internet news stories, work on research for both my own writing and my personal interests, and watch the birds which my wife and I feed outside our window on the pavement of our driveway.  Like every one who feeds birds regularly, we sometimes encounter nuisances such as squirrels, rabbits, crows, and, worst of all, brown headed cowbirds.  Recently, I was taking my daily walk at our local park, Old Mill Park, in our hometown of West Liberty, KY, and encountered a small family group having a Memorial Weekend picnic at one of the picnic tables near the Licking River which borders the park.  As I walked past on the walking path, one of the women who was sitting at a picnic table under a tree commented that a bird egg was on the ground under the tree.  I asked them if they knew the habits of brown headed cowbirds in nesting and laying their eggs.  None of the people had heard of the species and their habits.  But as I was explaining the life cycle of brown headed cowbirds, it suddenly dawned on me that brown headed cowbirds are exactly like Republicans and vice versa.  Let me explain.  

Old Mill Park Amphitheater Photo by West Liberty Tourism Commission

  

According to the Audubon website Guide To Birds page about the brown headed cowbird we can learn several things about the species and its striking similarity to Republicans both singularly and plurally.  Without a doubt, the brown headed cowbird is the most Republican of birds.   As the naturalists and writers at Audubon say, "Cowbirds lay their eggs in nests of other birds. Heavy parasitism by cowbirds has pushed some species to the status of "endangered" and has probably hurt populations of some others."  Republicans, both individually and in groups have for many years and currently endangered many kinds of people and animals species in the world.  As of today, TRAITOR & International Terrorist Trump has endangered the lives of 800,000 Immigrant Dreamers by bringing an end to the federal program which allows these people who came to America as children to remain in the country and eventually to gain citizenship.  He has endangered the lives of hundreds of thousands of Syrian citizens of all ages who are suffering under a dictatorship which is bombing them with poisonous gases which have been banned from use in war for many years.  His decision to give advance warning to Syrian President Assad and Russian President Putin that he intended to pull all US troops out of Syria gave them the green light to resume bombing with poisonous gases and resulted in the horrible attack on Syrian rebels and their children in early April 2018.  By living in a nest built by Russian President Vladimir Putin, TRAITOR & International Terrorist Trump has made it highly likely that the Syrian dictator will persist in power and murder thousands more Syrian patriots and their children.  More than 3.5 million Puerto Ricans, all United States citizens continue to suffer from a lack of nearly all basic community services because the illegitimate Russian Owned Criminal Syndicate, which occupies the White House on the strength of TREASON, has chosen to refuse to provide disaster relief services to this US owned territory simply because they are Hispanic, did not vote for the TRAITOR & International Terrorist Trump, and do not support him today.  How much more like a brown headed cowbird can you be? 

The Audubon website goes on to say this about the brown headed cowbird: "Female may lay nearly one egg per day for several weeks, up to 40 in a season, exceptionally 70 or more. Female often removes an egg from "host" nest before laying one of her own. Known to have laid eggs in nests of over 220 species of birds, and over 140 of those are known to have raised young cowbirds. Young: Fed by "host" parents. Develop rapidly, and leave nest usually after 10-11 days."  Republicans, especially those of higher wealth levels, frequently send their own children to finishing schools, residential schools, and other private schools in order to free themselves of the presence of their own offspring until they are old enough to function minimally successfully on their own.  Oakcrest School, a favorite of parents of girls who describe themselves as "conservative", has an annual tuition of nearly $30,000.  The Heights in Maryland, a conservative school for boys has a similar annual tuition.  While attending such a school for several years might not be exactly like being a bird of a different feather growing up fast in the nest of a robin, cardinal, or oriole, these children of moneyed Republican parents are being nurtured, fed, clothed, and housed by relative strangers.  

The Audubon website also delivers highly interesting information about the mating habits of brown headed cowbirds.  "In breeding season, male displays by fluffing up body feathers, partly spreading wings and tail, and bowing deeply while singing. Groups of males sometimes perch together, singing and displaying."  Now doesn't that sound an awfully lot like a Republican Congress in their continuing effort to minimize, deny, and support the ongoing damage which TRAITOR & International Terrorist Trump is doing to America, Democracy, and the world at large?  Of course we must address the opening reference to that sentence about "breeding season".  At this link, you will find a list of ten of the most egregious sexual scandals among Republican politicians who might have been "...fluffing up body feathers...singing and displaying" during the illicit encounters which brought about their public embarrassments.  How much more like a cowbird could they be??? Please note that I did not even mention Stormy Daniels.  The website allaboutbirds.org further describes male brown headed cowbirds in this manner:  "Males gather on lawns to strut and display for mates."  Somehow, that sentence instantly makes me visualize a Rose Garden appearance by the orange headed cowbird himself.