The Daily Oklahoman from Oklahoma City, Oklahoma • 40

THE OKLAHOMAN NEWSOK.COM SUNDAY, DECEMBER 13, 2015 ED GODFREY'S i Growing the shooting sports, located at 1-40 and Meridian. Visit them online at HHShootingSports.com. OUTDOORS Hunting is a family affair in Calumet Holiday Antlerless Deer Gun Season Dates: Dec. 18-27 in most of the state. Season is closed in deer hunting zone one (most of the Panhandle) and zone 10 (southeastern Oklahoma).

Limit: One antlerless deer. Regulations State hunting license and Holiday Antlerless Deer Gun license required. Deer taken during the Holiday Antlerless Season is not included in the hunter's combined season limit. Unfilled deer licenses from the youth, primitive and gun seasons are not valid during the Holiday Antlerless Deer Gun Season. The harvest of an antlerless mule deer is prohibited.

Holiday Antlerless Elk Gun Season Dates: Dec, 18-27 (Private land only in open zones. Season is closed when quota is met) Archery Deer Season Dates: Currently open through Jan. 15 statewide If the tradition of hunting is going to continue, it must be passed on. The younger that kids start hunting, the more likely it will become a lifetime passion. The Stilley family of Calumet is doing their part to keep the hunting tradition alive.

McKinley, shot her first deer at age 6. Her little brother, Cale, claimed his first deer last year at age 5. While some might find it frightening to put a gun in the hands of kids that young, McKinley and Cale had a good teacher. Their father, Mike, is a firearms training instructor for the Yukon Police Department. "With me, I think it is pretty important you start as young as you can whether it is a BB gun or whatever," Mike Stilley said.

"The li-year-old is pretty salty with a 9mm Glock now." If you are going to keep guns in a home, educating everyone in the household about them is important, he said. Some gun owners teach their kids that the guns are taboo "which is good in a way, but if you make it mysterious, they might want to find out about the mystery," Mike said. McKinley and Cale started accompanying their dad on his deer hunts as young as 3. He first started teaching them how to shoot a .22 rifle when they were just 4 years old. The Stilleys have five children, but Mike never pushed any of them into hunting.

He would take them on hunts to experience it, then let them decide for 1 themselves if it was something they wanted to do. His oldest son, Baylor, is 18 and a senior at Calumet High School and an avid hunter. However, his 9 -year-old daughter, Presley, likes to shoot guns but isn't that interested in hunting. But she offered to shoot a deer for her dad if he wanted her to. "I told her, 'I don't want you to shoot one because I want you he said.

"It's just not her thing at this point." But both McKinley and Cale are passionate about it. They participate in all phases of the hunt, including scouting, preparing food plots, checking game cameras skinning and meat pro -cessing. "They don't get off easy after the kill itself," Mike said. "They help with the field dressing a little bit." In fact, McKinley will be "fly ing solo" for the first time with the field dressing if she kills a doe during the Holiday Antlerless Season which opens Dec. 18.

Hunting ethics also is stressed to Stilley kids. "They can make good hits on targets in practice, so they are not just going to wound or injure a deer," Mike said. Mike's youngest, 3-year-old Kross, is mostly interested in the deer jerky right now. Next year, Kross might get introduced to deer hunting by his dad, although Mike has only killed one deer in the last four seasons. He spends most of his deer seasons now taking his kids on hunts.

"I'm pretty much a guide processor anymore," he said. "I am good with that. I really enjoy watching the kids do their things. That is just as exciting for me. Probably more so." McKinley Stilley (top) and her brother Cale (bottom) shot these does on family land north of Calumet during the deer gun season.

PHOTO PROVIDED Annual OKC Christmas Bird Count set Saturday Christmas Bird Counts in Oklahoma On Wednesday At Sooner Lake: Contact John Couch, jrcouch60(9 yahoo.com On Saturday In Oklahoma City: Contact John Shackford, At Salt Plains National Wildlife Refuge: Contact Glen Hensley At Washita National Wildlife Refuge: Contact Levi Feltman, In Stillwater: Contact James Ownby james. In Tulsa: Contact Jo Loyd, jo.loyd(9sbcglobal.net On Sunday, Dec. 20 At Fort Gibson Reservoir: Contact Nadine Varner, At Spavinaw Lake: Contact Sandy Sullins, At Tishomingo National Wildlife Refuge: Contact Charles Brown, At Grand Lake: Contact Laura Stanfil, laurastanfil(3 live.com On Dec. 21 At Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge: Contact Michael Husak, Cameron University On Dec. 27 At Broken Bow: Contact Mia Revels, revels(9 nsuok.edu On Jan.

2 In Stephens County: Contact Roma Lenehan, On Jan. 3 In Norman: Contact Mark Howery mkhowery(9 juno.com At Chickasaw National Recreation Area: Contact Ron Parker, On Jan. 4 At Arnett: Contact Eddie Stegall, OkForbsZoho. Bird watchers will go to work this week as the 116th consecutive Christmas Bird Count gets underway around the globe. The National Audubon Society's Christmas Bird Count is the longest running citizen science survey in the world and provides critical data on population trends of birds.

The counts begin Monday and run through Jan. 5. Last year, there were 2,462 counts in the world. Many of the bird counts in Oklahoma are held the weekend before Christmas. About 20 are held each year in Oklahoma with two in the Oklahoma City metropolitan area.

The Oklahoma City Audubon Society will be conducting its annual bird count Saturday. The Cleveland County Audubon Society will hold its Christmas Bird Count on Jan. 3. Groups of birders armed with binoculars, spotting scopes, field guides and checklists comb 140 square miles in their assigned "circles" to identify and count birds. Other bird lovers will spend the day watching bird feeders and recording data.

The Oklahoma City Audubon Society formed in 1947, and its first Christmas Bird Count was in the early '50s. John Shackford of Edmond, compiler for the Oklahoma City Christmas Bird Count, has been taking part in the event for more than half a century. "I am not sure I have ever missed one," said Shackford, who participated in his first Christmas Bird Count in the early '60s. The center point for the Oklahoma City circle is NW 63 and Portland. From there, birders on Saturday will search in every direction in the circle for 7 V2 miles to find and count bird species.

Last year, Oklahoma com Birders could see mallard ducks (top) and white pelicans (bottom) during the annual Christmas Bird Counts which begin this week around the state, photos by stevegooch, the OKLAHOMAN bers, but any bird lover may participate. Howery, though, said it's beneficial if someone does have some experience with bird watching. "We don't encourage it for absolute beginners," he said. Christmas Bird Counts usually concludes with a "tally party" where each birder shares information on the number of birds and bird species they were able to document. To learn more about the Christmas Bird Count in Oklahoma City, contact Shackford at johnsshackaol.com.

For more information on the Christmas Bird Count in Oklahoma City, contact Howery at (405) 990-7259 or at mile stretch of the anadian River south of Norman. Howery said the impact of urban sprawl has been evident in Norman's Christmas Bird Count over the years. "We have just seen a slow and steady decline of grassland birds," he said. "We don't see but about half of the meadowlarks that we did 30 years ago, but the forest birds are on the increase. And few urban adaptive birds have moved into the circle, like house finches and white winged doves and Eurasian collared doves." The majority of people who participate in Christmas Bird Counts are Audubon Society mem ipated in the Christmas Bird Count in Norman for 29 years.

Most of the volunteers who take part in Christmas Bird Counts are experienced birders. In Norman, three people have participated in the count for more than 30 consecutive years, Howery said. "I think that is part of the reason we are seeing more species of bird (in Christmas bird counts)," he said. "We have more experienced birders who know where to find birds." Key birding areas on the Norman count is Lake Thunderbird and a three- City birders identified 116 species on the Christmas Bird Count. Shackford said the winters in Oklahoma often are a better time to go birding than the spring or summer.

"We see more birds in the winter than we do in the summer," said the 74-year-old Shackford. "We've got quite a number of migrants that come this far down, and they don't need to go any further because they can make a living here on food and water." The rising population of birds wintering in Oklahoma is proof to some of climate change, Shackford said. "People want to quibble with it," Shackford said. "But the data from Christmas Bird Counts has been used to suggest climate change is happening. We are getting birds we would never get before.

They would be down in Texas (in the winter) but now we are getting those birds in central Oklahoma." Key bird watching areas in the Oklahoma City circle are Lake Hefner and Lake Overholser. Mark Howery is the compiler for the Norman bird count. He has partic.