Nebraskaland

Nebraskaland July 2020

NEBRASKAland Magazine is dedicated to outstanding photography and informative writing with an engaging mix of articles and photos highlighting Nebraska’s outdoor activities, parklands, wildlife, history and people.

Issue link: http://mag.outdoornebraska.gov/i/1264601

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70 Nebraskaland • July 2020 By Gerry Steinauer CALLING IN A DONKEY An evening in early May, two big tom turkeys were gobbling and strutting in the pasture behind my mother- in-law's farm house. Having never photographed displaying toms, this was my big chance. Luckily, my camo, box call and hen decoy were still in my car from a hunt, with a shotgun, a few days prior. Early the next morning, I set my decoy in the pasture, hid myself in a cedar row, readied my camera and started scratching on my call. The turkeys were gobbling a few hundred yards away behind a rise in the neighbor's alfalfa field. I was excited – this was going to be easy. It was about an hour later, and still no turkeys, when I heard rustling in the grass behind me. Slowly, cautiously I turned my head and saw three, not turkeys, but donkeys headed directly my way. Earlier, they had been grazing, along with the neighbor's horse herd, at the far end of the pasture. Either my calling or the decoy had attracted them. Two of the donkeys stopped short, but the third warily approached the decoy and then settled into a nose-to- nose stare down with it. Not surprisingly, the Styrofoam fowl won the competition, when after a few minutes, the donkey, its curiosity apparently satisfied, slowly backed away and walked off with its buddies. The toms never did show up. When I finally crawled out of the cedars and looked, they were still in the alfalfa strutting and fanning for three hens. With real ladies present, my mediocre calling had little chance of enticing them away. My photographic endeavor, however, was not a complete loss. I did take my first ever donkey photo. THE LAST STOP PHOTO BY GERRY STEINAUER

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