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Barefoot In The Sand: Remembering the Waning Days of the Hopewell Community (1998) Bruce C. Gragg 114/123

VISITS BY LOCAL WILDLIFE AND NIGHT BIRDS

In the spring, summer and early fall after evening chores and supper
was over we would like to go to the field back of the house at dusk
and wait for the bats to come and fly around and feed. They are
amazing little creatures to watch darting around the sky, climbing
higher and higher, then make a dive and pullout near the ground and
make a long ’’boooooop" sound. We would often stay there until it was
too dark to see anymore. Over the years we would have at least a
couple poles with gourds on them, during spring and summer we had a
lot of purple martins around to help with insect control. But the
bats were the most fascinating to watch. They were hard to see,
unless you caught them early in the evening before it got completely
dark. Summer nights would also bring in a supply of flying squirrels
to the pecan trees. After it got dark a good bright flashlight was
the only way they could be spotted gliding from tree to tree. We had
quite a collection of various creatures visiting the trees around the
house. Owls and Whippoorwills were frequent visitors at night. Often
they would light on a post in the chicken yard and do their calling
only a short distance from the house. Then they would get spooked and
fly away. At night we could hear their calls from the many thick
wooded areas near our home, what a way to relax and drift off to
sleep. We never had to worry about the four legged critter just
visiting our yard. With a dog always around, I suppose that helped
keep them at a distance. They would visit a crop of fruits and garden
produce growing and reaching maturity and ripening. The fruit trees
and grape vine attracted their own collection of four legged
critters, fox, coons, or possums enjoyed their visits for fresh
fruit. Enough so, we had to take measures to protect our crop. So
a'hunting and trapping we would go, it helped, we harvested a
collection of them all during the fruit season. Ole Hickory was happy
with our successes in hunting and trapping.

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