by Jay Cassell
Well, I have yet to “count coup” on a drumming grouse. But on that spring morning I finally saw one in action. From 10 yards away, lying flat on my belly in the wet leaf mold, I watched him tilt his fanned tail back, erect his ruff and sound off with a blur of wings—bup, bup, bup, vrooooom! I watched him drum for nearly a half hour. Finally he spotted me, dropped backward off his log and high-tailed it—God knows where.
The following fall I left him alone and hunted other coverts.
Reprinted with permission of Louise H. Jones.
No Woodcock—but Nothing to Grouse About, Either
GEOFFREY NORMAN
The gaudy red leaves of the early foliage season were down, and the worn old hills of Vermont were in yellow and gold from the last holdouts that refused, stubbornly, to fall. These were mainly ash and aspen, and they gave things a stately and vaguely melancholy look. You could feel the season, and another year, coming to an end.
But this was best time to be in the New England woods if you are a bird hunter. Earlier, the leaves were still thick enough to provide concealment for the birds, even those that flushed in range, startling you with the explosive sound of their wings. And now, in November, the weather has begun to change, and while you might hunt when the temperature is near freezing and the wind is making it feel even colder, it is a lot more pleasant when you can go in your shirtsleeves. But if your timing is right, you might catch a flight of woodcock on a gorgeous autumn day in October.
These “flight birds” were migrating down from their nesting areas in Canada to their winter grounds, some of which are as far south as the Louisiana bayou country. Woodcock fly at night, so the hunter should get out early in the morning to the aspen and alder covers where he knows they like to lay over. The birds rest and feed in these places, using their long, needle-shaped beaks to dig for earthworms. If you get into a place where a flight has come in, you can see the droppings on the ground—hunters call this “chalk”—and find enough birds to fill your limit of three in a couple of hours or less.
Woodcock are easy on dogs. They give off a lot of scent and they hold very tight. Even an average dog can perform like a star in a cover that is full of flight birds. Many hunters will tell you that, for this reason, the woodcock is their preferred bird. They are also coveted by people with a taste for game. Woodcock are strong fliers with—shall we say—a rich diet. The flesh is dark in appearance and taste, which suggests some kind of exotic and vastly improved liver. My daughter. Hadley, prizes woodcock over anything that can be put on the table.
One Sunday last year she came home for the weekend and almost missed the bus back to school when we stayed too long in a cover. There were some flight birds, but I couldn’t seem to hit them when they flew. I finally got my limit and barely had time to draw and pluck the birds and pack them in a small cooler before she left for Boston, where her roommates said no thanks—they’d stick with chicken. She ate all three birds herself and called home to tell me about it.
So we were hopeful on a recent Sunday morning when we went out to one of our favorite places. The only concern was the weather. It had been unseasonably warm, and the conventional wisdom among bird hunters is that you need a cold front to push the birds into migrating. Like a lot of hunting lore, the validity of this one is suspect. It seemed just as likely that the birds’ migrating instinct would be triggered by shorter days and less sunlight.
We parked the truck and walked up a dirt road to one of those long flats on the top of a hill that had once been under cultivation. But Vermont is not congenial to farming, and on the hill’s 200 acres, the only signs of human occupation were a few crumbling stone walls, poignant reminders of just how much labor had gone into a failed enterprise. There were a few sturdy old apple trees in one corner of the piece, but we decided to hunt this part later, for grouse, and went straight to a low spot that had been good to us in the past. We had to wait for Jeb to take a couple of warm-up laps, somewhere out of sight, while I yelled, pointlessly, for him to settle down and get to work.
“Same old Jeb,” Hadley said. Every season, we think he will have matured and settled down. He is eight, on the backside of a pointer’s prime, but shows no inclination to grow up or slow down. Eventually, he arrived, muddy and ready to hunt.
“Where the hell you been?” I said. He gave me a look, then headed for the alders and aspens and dove right in. Hadley and I picked our way through the thick cover. I looked for chalk and didn’t find any. Jeb hunted carefully but never stopped moving. We spent an hour in the low spot and never flushed a bird.
“If they aren’t here,” I said, “then they must still be in Canada. And that’s too far to drive.”
We had a couple of hours, still, before we had to be back at the house to deal with other things. So we gathered Jeb up and got him headed in the direction of the old apple trees. This ground, too, was barren. We moved on to another part of the cover where there were some fox grapes, which grouse will eat, and thorn apples, which an expert hunter and naturalist I know claims are their preferred food.
The ruffed grouse is a resident. He does not migrate and he doesn’t ever get very far from his home territory, probably flying less in his lifetime than a woodcock does in two or three days. He likes very thick cover and uses his camouflage and his legs to avoid danger, getting airborne only as a last resort. Grouse are exceedingly wary. A mature bird that has been hunted and survived the experience often seems to have learned from it. I have heard them flush, at a distance, when they heard a car door slam. They seldom hold for a dog, and when they run and the dog follows, they get up out of range. If they do hold, it is generally in exceedingly tight cover so that when they fly, you have a hard time getting a clear shot.
When we reached the thorn apples, Jeb was already on point. Hadley and I went in slowly, on either side of him, and when the bird got up, I had a shot.
To my vast surprise, I made it. Jeb retrieved the bird and Hadley said, “Way to go, Dad. You the man.”
We kicked up two more birds, out of range, before it was time to head for the truck. On the way out, we crossed a clearing that looked out on the valley that ran east and west as far as we could see. We could make out the peaks of the Adirondacks on the horizon. The valley was carved neatly into small farms and fields, and at one end there was a little town with an austere white church at its center. The hills on the opposite side of the valley were dappled in gold and yellow.
“Hey, Dad.” Hadley said, “Is this beautiful or what?” Beautiful, I agreed.
Also fleeting. But I didn’t mention that.
From the Wall Street Journal, November 7, 2001. Reprinted with permission of the author.
Convert
RON ELLIS
We were so taken with bird hunting back when we first discovered it that we suspected magic must somehow be involved to weave such an enchantment. It was especially so when the three of us, good friends and longtime hunting partners, took a week to travel north out of Kentucky and Ohio to follow our young dogs through storied grouse cover “up in Michigan.”
The October woods that season were perfect. The canopy formed by the hardwoods bordering the pines and tamaracks was quilted with intense colors, the light passing through them so pure and perfect we believed it must surely flow from a holy source.
We hunted for two days with a guide in that grand bird country and found a good many grouse. We killed only a few since most of the birds flushed from clear-cuts so dense we had to thread our guns through a spidery-maze of branches just to be prepared to imagine a shot, much less actually take one.
We reached the best spots by traveling nameless sand tracks that carried us deeper into the country. Along these roads we explored some low ground, looking for birds in places where shadows spilled out of the swamps and mixed nervously with the splashy, vibrant colors of the uplands. Edge cover, holy ground for sure, a place where grouse could be found.
While searching for grouse we unexpectedly discovered woodcock. They
were clustered together in great numbers along tiny streams that threaded through patches of twisted alders, their exposed roots clumped up on ground that was mossy and soft and mostly open beneath a low canopy. Much later we learned we had stumbled upon a classic “flight of woodcock,” or a “fall of woodcock,” a description that seems more magical, more precise and wonderful, when attempting to describe the mysterious comings and goings of this magnificent little bird.
But we were younger then and only had eyes for the quick, flashy grouse. The little tawny-colored migrants with the upside-down brains, their secret ways and mystical charms still foreign to us, had yet to become an obsession. While my strongest affections were still showered on the grouse, Lady, my orange-and-white Brittany with the smiling eyes, preferred the diminutive woodcock, from the very first time she found one hunkered in that strange scent cloud out in front of her pink nose. After discovering them she’d nearly wiggle her stubby tail out of its socket when one was near, while grouse just made her pull a routine point, the tail twitching a bit, the scent imparting no particular emotion to her motion.
Much later we learned we had stumbled upon a “fall of woodcock,” a description that seems more magical, more precise and wonderful when attempting to describe the mysterious comings and goings of this magnificent little bird.
On the third day we hunted without a guide. It was late in the afternoon when we pulled the Volkswagen van off one of those disappearing sand tracks and headed into a piece of cover that was so birdy we could almost smell the grouse. With high expectations and an eye on the lengthening shadows, I followed Lady through that perfect thicket, without so much as a flush, and came out into an overgrown meadow on the opposite side.
At the far end of the open ground we passed quietly through a long-abandoned homesite bordered by a windbreak of weathered pines. Just beyond stood a small grove of hardwoods, the ground sloping slightly upward toward its center. The light that fell out of those trees was made up of columns of pale, dusty yellow filtered through an intense quiet, and the earth was soft there, with a clear, cold-water seep murmuring nearby.
The air was thick with the promise of birds.
Lady hit scent and danced her careful dance to show me birds were near. She twisted her butt about and drifted nearly stiff-legged with the scent, until just inside the grove, she pointed—an intense, low-to-the-ground point on the downhill side of a large rock.
Not wanting to spoil the moment, I moved quietly to her; no unnecessary sounds, no yelling of “Point!” to my companions. I was alone with my dog, partners in a perfect stillness, as I walked straight into the cover past her point, my eyes raised to a single opening in the trees.
The woodcock flushed from under Lady’s nose and spiraled straight up through an autumnal canopy of many colors that were as memorable as those that danced through the stained-glass windows and spilled onto the stone floors of the cathedral where I attended mass as a child. There was the familiar motion of the twenty-gauge, and at the shot, russet feathers drifted against the evening sky. It was as close to the perfect bird-hunting experience as I had ever imagined—the place, the point, the shot—as the intoxicating scent of spent powder, mixed with Hoppes No. 9, swirled back ahead of the returning dog, like incense in the October quiet.
Lady dropped the bird close to me (a rarity). I picked it up and brushed the leaves and twigs from its feathers, and then held it in both hands. I marveled at the woodcock’s markings and subtle colors—the solid body of taupe mixed with reddish hues, dark brown, black and delicate washes of blue—before placing it in my coat. Then I broke open the gun, took a great whiff of the spent shell and lit a cigar, all the while searching for an appropriate comparison for what I was feeling.
In the end, with the sun sliding down the horizon and the cigar smoke drifting to the heavens, I decided that it felt just like religion, but without the guilt that so often accompanied the experience in my youth. Being in the spirit of things, I offered thanks, called the dog and went in search of more woodcock.
A fresh convert knows no limit to his fervor.
Green Eyes
MICHAEL MCINTOSH
“Goodbye, Miss October,” Scotty said and laid the calendar page reverently on the fire.
Mac laughed. “A one-track mind,” he said. “Pitiful.” But he, too, watched solemnly as the paper flared and blackened, leaving a momentary cameo at the center, where a stylish setter watched two woodcock rise against a screen of slender aspens.
“You’re also three days early,” Mac said, “Unless I’ve managed to lose track of time altogether.”
“So I’m fickle,” Scotty said. “Miss November’s no slouch, either.” He hung the calendar back on its nail by the kitchen door. “Never could resist brown eyes.”
The eyes in question gazed soulfully over a dead mallard.
Tom came in through the kitchen with an armload of firewood and glanced at the calendar. “Handsome Labrador,” he said. “Is it November already?”
“Only to the fickle,” Mac said.
Tom dumped the logs in the woodbox, chunked a fresh bolt of oak onto the fire, kicked off his unlaced boots, and slid a chair close to the hearth. “Scotty, you’re the only man I know whose favorite pinups all have wet noses and like to drink out of puddles.”
“Funny, Sarah says the same thing,” Scotty mused. “I suppose I’d change my mind if your average pinup type knew the difference between a vent rib and a nailfile.”
“Meeting a woman who hunts can be more of a shock than you might imagine,” Tom said. “I met one once, and I’ve never been the same since.
“It was one of those days that makes every trite, goofy thing ever written about October seem like the grandest poetry. It had poured rain for about three days and then turned clear. The English brew a special run of ale in October—delightful stuff, winey as an overripe apple. Well, the air was like that. What leaves were left had all gone gold, and the tamaracks were bright, blazing yellow. It was the sort of day you can’t even think about without getting as sappy as a kid on a first date.
“I was basically a kid myself, barely two years out of the University, the ink hardly dry on my diploma. I’d moved back here after a few miserable months in a big law firm in Minneapolis—which was long enough to find out that big-city life wasn’t for me. I was working hard to put together a practice in Tamarack, hunting when I could, which wasn’t very often.
“But I got one whiff of the air that morning and decided it was no day for wills and land titles or any such dusty stuff. So I packed up my gun, put Jericho in the car, and took off.
“We poked through a couple of coverts and flew a few grouse. I got a good shot at one that Jericho pointed beside an old log road, and by late morning I was feeling about as good as any young fellow has a right to feel.
“We had our lunch under a big oak by a pasture, lazing in the grass and watching a hawk. I had a mind to spend the afternoon in a covert about a mile to the west, one I hadn’t been in since I was a kid, and decided to walk cross-country instead of driving around to it. I’d never been in the center of that section, didn’t have a clue if there was any cover in it, but it seemed like a good day to find out.
“We crossed a couple of hills and came down to a little stream. I could see some gray dogwood on the other side, figured there might be a grouse or two close by, so it didn’t surprise me when Jericho went on point in the tag alders. When I got up closer, though, I could see he wasn’t pointing. He looked like he was honoring, which struck me as odd, since I was by myself and had only the one dog.
“But that ’s exactly what he was doing—backing a little setter that was dead serious about something at the base of an alder clump.
“I looked around, didn’t see anybody, and stood there not quite sure what to do next. The little setter was wearing a collar and bell and looked well cared-for. I’d just about decided to flush whatever she was pointing and see if she had a tag, when a voice out of nowhere said, ‘That’s
a picture to put on a calendar.’
“I almost jumped out of my boots, it startled me so. I turned around and there she stood, next to a popple tree, smiling.
“Lads, I will take that picture to my grave. I can’t begin to tell you all the things that whirled through my mind in those few moments. I’m not even sure it was a few moments. Time simply stopped moving.
“I was looking into a pair of eyes the most brilliant, astonishing green I ever saw, looking at a face framed in dark, curling hair, all lit by a smile I couldn’t describe if I tried for the rest of my life. And I have.
“For one completely irrational instant I imagined her on horseback, galloping over the moors of Scotland, all tumbled hair and flashing eyes, some wild, fey spirit whose name would be Dierdre . . . don’t even ask where all that came from.
“Actually, I just stood there gawping. How long, I don’t know, though she was still smiling when I gathered up enough of my wits to notice that she was carrying a gun.
“ ‘Uh . . . I . . . uh . . . your, uh, dog.’ I said, or something equally inane. She kept smiling at me as if I hadn’t said anything, which was basically the case. She was looking at the dogs. The little setter was still on point, and Jericho was still honoring, waving his tail slowly from side to side. ‘Bird,’ I said, with what I imagine was a grin you don’t often see outside an asylum.