Colorado Outdoors Podcast Episode 3.2: Corners for Conservation
Forrest Czarnecki
Wading through a tangle of chest-high grasses on a cold morning. Pheasants flushing underfoot, cackling on the wing as they break for the horizon. Gold and pink light waxing across the sky at sunrise. Scanning the little green county road signs, looking for just the right number. Big smiles, and plenty of miles.
In this episode of the podcast we take the show on the road. We visit some of our Corners for Conservation properties on the Eastern Plains in hopes of finding winter time roosters, and learning a thing or two along the way.
From pollinator habitat and songbird stopovers to prime cold season country for Colorado’s wild pheasants, Corners for Conservation fields are full of benefits (all year long). In the winter, they also serve as a place of exploration and learning for novice hunters, thanks to Pepper Canterbury and her hunter outreach program.
Listen along as we chase birds, explore the prairie and soak up the rewards of a successful hunt.
Pepper Canterbury waits to meet her two novice pheasant hunters in Yuma before heading out for the day’s adventure.A Late Cropland Walk In Access atlas and gas station breakfast, staples of an early morning Eastern Plains pheasant hunt.Pepper Canterbury uses Corners for Conservation fields like this one near Yuma as part of her Hunter Outreach program, teaching folks how to pheasant hunt. Corners fields like this one are prime pheasant habitat thanks to their tall bunch grasses and proximity to winter wheat and corn fields.Pepper Canterbury walks a Corners for Conservation field with her novice hunters and volunteers during a pheasant hunt near Yuma, Colo. Corners for Conservation properties provide great pheasant habitat and places for Pepper to operate her Hunter Outreach program.One of the novice hunters, Mike, and Randy Penn, a Hunter Outreach volunteer, chat about pheasant hunting as they begin the mile-long walk back to the trucks after the first hunt of the day. The group walked a large Corners for Conservation property, and kicked up close to a dozen birds, several of which were nice roosters, but none presented nice, safe shots.Pepper Canterbury grimaces in the bitterly cold wind after sharing the updated hunt plans with Randy Penn, one of her volunteers.Blowing dust from a field without cover crops or planted borders scrapes across the road on our way to the next field. When field edges are planted with Corners for Conservation buffers, the tall grasses play an important role in protecting soil from wind erosion and keeping farm fields healthy.Mike and Kevin, the novice hunters for the trip, load up before heading into another field. With the windy conditions for the day, the group opted to hunt tree rows and thick cover rather than grassy fields after the first field of the morning.Hunt Lead Phil Harbison hunches over and braces himself agains the wind as he rounds the end of the tree row. Wind speeds were between 30-40 mph with gusts up to 60 mph, which made finding and flushing birds rather difficult after the first field.Pepper Canterbury runs the Northeast Region Hunting and Angling Outreach program, where she teaches novice hunters the basics of safety, law, ethics and more for small game and big game hunting.
Podcast hosted by Regional Public Information Officers John Livingston and Kara Van Hoose. Podcast edited by Meghan Lopez. Art19 is the host platform, and people can also find the podcast online at https://art19.com/shows/colorado-outdoors
