Upland Autumn

by William G. Tapply

  I know that tromping through the same string of covers behind mediocre bird dogs for six autumn weekends a year is not the most scientific method for sampling the ruffed grouse population, but we keep careful count of the birds we flush, we do not count second starts, and we do it conscientiously year after year. So do our friends. We notice patterns. And the patterns we find generally seem to match those observed by the others who hunt grouse in New England—and even in other regions.

  For most of my grouse-hunting life—close to half a century and counting—our No. 1 topic of discussion and concern has been population cycles. Up or down this year? Are the peaks really getting shorter and the valleys deeper? What causes them, anyway?

  Theories abound: weather, predators, sun spots. No partridge man would be caught dead without a theory.

  Of course, we have always been aware that the implacable loss of good habitat—highways, shopping malls, and housing developments, sure, but more importantly the maturing of the New England woodlands—is taking its steady toll. But that doesn’t account for those ups and downs that keep coming regularly and predictably, the long, slow rise in grouse numbers and then the abrupt decline.

  In the high-cycle years of the good old days—I mean 30 or 40 years ago—we’d sometimes start 25 or 30 grouse a day, and you could forgive your dog for flushing a bird wild or failing to hold a point, because there would always be more birds, and a lucky shotgunner might shoot a four-grouse limit and not feel too guilty about it. Even mediocre-looking cover would hold some birds.

  Grouse numbers haven’t been what they used to be here in New England for many decades. There’s just not much good habitat left. But Keith and I have some secret places that, in good years, produce enough birds to keep us happy. In bad years we worry whether they’ll rebound.

  It’s hard to accept the fact that those 30-bird days are gone forever.

  Even in those secret covers of ours, we’d had several lean seasons in a row, so I was feeling darkly pessimistic on Opening Day last October. Trying to interpret those grim numbers as a temporary valley in the cycle rather than a clear sign of the permanent demise of the ruffed grouse was beginning to seem like whistling in the dark. But as Keith and I drove through the crimson-and-gold New England countryside with our shotguns and birddogs in back, he was humming “A-hunting We Will Go” and drumming his fingers on the steering wheel.

  “What’re you so damn chipper about?” I finally asked.

  “Opening Day, my boy,” he said. “A brand-new season. What could be finer?”

  “The prospect of scaring up a few birds would help,” I said.

  “Oh, it’s gonna be good. Big partridge year. Cycle’s up. Mark my words.”

  “What makes you think so?”

  He turned and grinned at me. “Chipmunks,” he said.

  “Huh?”

  He shrugged. “I’ve been seeing lots of chipmunks this summer, and where you find chipmunks, you’ll find grouse. It’s gonna be a good partridge year.”

  I snorted. “How do you figure?”

  “Grouse and chipmunks. They go together. Lots of chipmunks mean lots of grouse. See?”

  “Not really.”

  “Acorns, son.”

  “Of course,” I grumbled. “Acorns.”

  Those who are seriously concerned about the health of grouse populations focus not on cycles, which are natural, and therefore acceptable, short-term phenomena, and which, by definition, include an upturn for every downturn. Nowadays, we worry about the long, slow, steady decline in ruffed grouse populations. Each downturn of the cycle seems to dip lower, while the ensuing upturn doesn’t bounce back quite as high. Biologists blame it on habitat loss—suburban and industrial sprawl, the expansion of the highway system, to be sure—but especially the loss of the thick understory that makes prime grouse cover. As second-growth forests mature, this is happening all over the northern tier of states.

  Habitat loss is measurable and understandable. It can also, at least in theory, be reversed. The Ruffed Grouse Society promotes selective clear-cutting as the most promising way of addressing this unhappy trend and restoring healthy grouse numbers.

  But regardless of the long-term scarcity or abundance of grouse, cycles will continue, and they’ll continue to be mysterious.

  I read somewhere that ruffed grouse abundance in New England fluctuates on the same four-year cycle as Atlantic salmon, UFO sightings, German pork prices, plankton yields in Lake Michigan, and cheese consumption. The article offered the cautious thesis that some of these correspondences might not actually be coincidental.

  Nowhere else have I heard of a four-year grouse cycle. Still, I am intrigued by the idea that the same forces that push up pork prices and cause people to see UFOs actually influence the reproduction and survival rates of grouse.

  Even more interesting is the possibility that eating cheese causes grouse to multiply.

  I’ve never met a serious grouse hunter who didn’t notice, worry, and speculate about their beloved bird’s erratic and dramatic population booms and busts. Duck, deer, and turkey hunters of my acquaintance don’t seem to obsess on the fluctuations in the abundance of their chosen quarry. But for grouse hunters, it’s always been a puzzling, endlessly fascinating year-to-year phenomenon.

  Perhaps if duck hunters were more observant and kept the kind of careful records that grouse hunters tend to keep, they’d notice comparable cycles in duck populations. Biologists insist that grouse population cycles are no different from the fluctuations in the numbers of other wild creatures. All flora and fauna, in fact, experience cyclical ups and downs. Maybe the real difference lies in the kinds of people who love to hunt ruffed grouse. The fact remains: Grouse hunters are constitutionally unable to engage in significant conversations with each other without sharing and debating their theories on population cycles.

  Of course, if there were a scientifically conclusive explanation, there would be no need for speculation, and much of what fascinates us about this mysterious bird would be taken from us.

  John Alden Knight, the creator of the solunar theory, noted that the population ups and downs of ruffed grouse correlated with cycles of solar radiation. Burton L. Spiller, known and beloved as the Poet Laureate of the Ruffed Grouse, often cited the periodic appearance of snowy owls as a surefire predictor of a sharp decline in grouse numbers. Outdoor writer Dan Holland observed that grouse numbers seemed to fluctuate the same as those of rabbits, except that grouse populations crashed a year or two after rabbits declined.

  For all I know, Keith is right. Maybe chipmunks and acorns and grouse numbers are synchronous.

  Still, correlation is not the same thing as causation.

  The cycle is not simply the rationalization of unskilled or unlucky hunters. The periodic rise and fall of grouse populations has been observed and studied for centuries. In 1721, grouse numbers had declined so dramatically in Quebec that the provincial governor outlawed shooting. In New Hampshire, the abrupt disappearance of birds was first observed in 1831. New York market hunters experienced a sharp downturn in grouse numbers after the Civil War, and since that time, biologists and others have observed, studied, and speculated on the phenomenon. Their research proves that grouse populations do fluctuate cyclically, regularly, and predictably.

  In his book Ruffed Grouse, published in 1947, Knight speculated at length on the phenomenon of grouse population cycles. He noted that they occurred independent of region, quality of habitat, or weather. Cyclical crashes occurred in both England and America in 1933, and in New England and the Midwest in 1944. Knight’s research showed that the cycles made one complete revolution every 8 to 14 years—11 years, on average—although within each cycle there were fluctuations and cycles within cycles.

  Gordon Gullion, who devoted his life to the study of grouse and grouse habitat, put the cycle at 10 years and found, furthermore, that the population crashes came predictably on years ending in 2 or 3: 1933, 1943, 1952, 1963, 1973, 1982. Gullion conducte
d his studies primarily in Minnesota, but the latter three of those years provided me with some pretty grim grouse hunting in New England, too.

  The graph of a grouse population cycle does not look like the classic bell-shaped curve. Rather, it describes a long, ascending slope followed by an abrupt descent. Grouse numbers increase gradually over the 10- or 11-year period, rising and falling erratically here and there, until they reach their peak. Then, in the short space of a season or two, they crash and start over.

  But why?

  Well, nobody knows. Keith’s chipmunk hypothesis holds that grouse flourish in years when the oaks produce a heavy acorn crop (which, of course, nourishes both grouse and chipmunks). But as he explains it, it’s not simply that grouse like to eat acorns. Abundant acorns, in other words, do not cause grouse to flourish. Rather, it’s that oak and grouse—and chipmunk—cycles coincide. Good mast years are good grouse years, but there have to be other, unknown variables at work, too.

  It’s complicated.

  Those of us who love ruffed grouse pay special attention to springtime weather. A wet, cold nesting season takes a harsh toll on newly hatched chicks. Perhaps such weather conditions occur cyclically, although the research hasn’t proven it.

  Diseases and parasites can create epidemics. Predators, of which grouse have many, can wipe out young broods. Hawks and foxes might ignore grouse and be content to hunt easy-to-catch cottontails as long as they are abundant. But when they’ve decimated the rabbit population, they turn to more challenging prey like grouse. That, at least, was how Dan Holland explained why grouse numbers plummeted a few years after those of cottontails.

  Several turn-of-the-century studies attempted to isolate the key variable. They postulated, among other things, poaching, market hunting, forest fires, severe winters, wet springs, dry summers, ticks, foxes, goshawks, dispersal, and migration. A report from New York state, attempting to account for the crash of grouse numbers in 1906-07, speculated that “the best bet [was] an unhappy combination of the cold wet spring, the unusual abundance of predators, and an epidemic of some disease or parasite.” The unlucky coincidence of several negative factors, in other words.

  It’s doubtful that a single variable can be pinpointed as the cause of grouse cycles. Nothing in nature works in isolation. Ruffed grouse are part of an infinitely complex web of relationships. Weather, predation, disease, food, habitat—and, yes, for all we know, sunspots, chipmunks, and cheese consumption—are all woven together. Each factor affects the others. Tug on one thread and the whole pattern changes.

  If prime habitat promotes high grouse numbers, then a heavy population of grouse will attract predators, parasites, and diseases. As these enemies feed off grouse, their numbers will grow. And when they have virtually eradicated the grouse, they, in turn, will experience a sharp downturn in their populations. This leaves the surviving grouse free to start rebuilding their numbers.

  It’s nature’s way of maintaining the vigor of the species. In times of disease, predation, or severe weather, the weak die while the fittest survive to pass their strong genes along to future generations. This is Introductory Darwin, and it works for grouse, owls, germs, and chipmunks.

  It also works for trees. Gullion discovered that during the upswings of the Midwestern grouse cycle, winter birds fed heavily on the male flower buds of aspens. These buds, Gullion surmised, provided especially nutritious and efficient forage for grouse, giving them the strength and health to evade predators, to survive harsh winters, and to procreate bountifully in the spring.

  Gullion also concluded that when grouse turn from aspen to less nourishing food sources such as hazel, birch, and ironwood, they have to spend more time and expend more energy in feeding. This, he speculated, makes them more vulnerable to predators, parasites, disease, and weather. Fewer birds survive the winter to reproduce in the spring, and newborn chicks are weaker.

  But why do these birds stop eating aspen buds? Gullion made an interesting discovery, which he suggested might explain the connection between what grouse eat and the fluctuations in their numbers. Trees have survival mechanisms, too. When aspens are stressed by overbrowsing, which occurs when grouse are abundant, they produce a chemical that grouse (and other creatures) cannot digest efficiently. But when grouse numbers decrease, the aspens are no longer stressed, so they stop producing their defensive chemical. And again, in the cycle of things, grouse resume feeding on them.

  And so it goes. Cycles within cycles. It’s nature’s way. Hunters can resent it or admire it, and we can help grouse by supporting habitat improvement projects and research, but cycles will continue, and nothing will change that.

  Keith pulled up to the gas pumps in front of a ramshackle mom ’n’ pop store where two dirt roads intersected. A young guy wearing overalls and a black beard ambled out. He planted his forearms on the roof of our wagon, bent down, and peered inside. He saw two men wearing leather-faced pants sitting up front, one Brittany and one English pointer whining in back, and, on the floor, two 20-gauge doubles, several boxes of shotgun shells, leather boots, shooting vests, check cords, belled collars, and a wicker picnic basket.

  He scratched his beard for a moment, processing the clues, and then grinned. “Bird hunting, eh? Well, lissen. You boys wanna know where you can find yerselves some pa’tridges?”

  “Partridges?” said Keith. “The hell with partridges. We’re looking for chipmunks.”

  Chapter 16

  OUR POET LAUREATE

  In the fall of 1955, when I was 15 and my father figured I was responsible enough to carry a shotgun in the woods, he made me his gunning partner. At that time, Dad’s long-time grouse-hunting companion was an elderly man named Burton L. Spiller. We became a threesome. Every October and November weekend for the ten seasons that took me from adolescence to adulthood, Dad, Burt, and I followed pointing dogs through the alder runs, briar tangles, poplar hillsides, abandoned orchards, and stream bottoms that, as Burt described it, formed a corridor from Lake Winnipesaukee in New Hampshire to Sebago Lake in Maine.

  Burt was 69 years old when I met him. He was 78 in 1964 when a fall in the woods forced him to quit hunting for good. Today, I am the only man still alive who hunted grouse with Burton L. Spiller.

  In the 10 years that I hunted with Burt, I grew to love the old guy. Our conversations were the casual kind you have with a hunting companion. Mostly they concerned the tactics and strategies of finding grouse and shooting (and missing) them. We discussed baseball, mainly the plight of the Red Sox, and the beauty of New England in the fall. Sometimes Burt told a gentle joke. We avoided heavy topics like business, politics, or religion. Hunting was more important.

  In retrospect, given the direction my own life seems to have taken, I regret the fact that I never asked Burt about the writing life. I knew he wrote, of course. I’d read plenty of his stuff, and even as a kid I had enough sense to appreciate it. But I was more interested in hunting than writing.

  In the time that I knew him, Burt was always working on a magazine story or a book. Altogether, he published seven books and hundreds of magazine articles and stories—53 in Field & Stream alone. Many others appeared in Hunting and Fishing and Outdoors, magazines that my father had edited. Many, but by no means all, of Burt’s stories were about upland bird hunting.

  A lifetime of labor at his old Oliver typewriter on the dining-room table in his modest white frame house in East Rochester, New Hampshire, earned Burton L. Spiller the unofficial title “Poet Laureate of the Ruffed Grouse.” I suspect that if the only words he ever published were those that were contained in two books, Grouse Feathers and More Grouse Feathers, his legacy would be secure.

  For those two books, Burton L. Spiller—and those of us who love his stories—can thank his editor, Eugene V. Connett. Kevin Shelly, a reporter and author who knew of my friendship with Burt and who was researching a book about Burt’s illustrator, Lynn Bogue Hunt, generously shared with me the Spiller-Connett correspondence, which spanned the years
1933-1940. These old letters offer an intimate peek into the minds of both writer and editor and tell the story of Burt’s four Derrydale books that were published, one a year, from 1935 to 1938.

  Burton L. Spiller’s very first grouse-hunting story, “His Majesty, The Grouse,” appeared in Field & Stream in the fall of 1932. Burt was 46 years old, but just a beginning writer. The following June, he received this unexpected letter:

  Dear Sir:

  I happened to read the second part of your story “His Majesty the Grouse” in Field & Stream, and I liked the way you wrote it, and the knowledge of the subject it evidenced.

  If you would care to think over the matter of writing a book on shooting, I would be glad to either talk to you about it in advance, or to give the manuscript very careful consideration when it is submitted.

  The letter was signed by Eugene V. Connett, president of the Derrydale Press, which was, at the time, the country’s most prestigious publisher of sporting literature. It was the sort of letter that magazine writers dream of receiving, and Burt wasted no time replying to it. His delight at the prospect of publishing a book is disguised, but not entirely hidden, by his typically polite, diffident language:

  Dear Mr. Connett:

  Thank you for the tribute to my grouse story in Field & Stream and the suggestion concerning the writing of a book on shooting. As it happens, I am very favorably impressed with the idea. In fact, I have been assembling material for several years with that object in view.

  What I had planned was a work taking up the various phases of grouse hunting and allotting to each a definite place in the story, illustrating each angle with an anecdote or two and enlivening the whole with humor of the repressed variety.