High Bush

Cranberries earlier in the fall.

 A friend mentioned that a few years ago visiting bird hunters had found a parcel of grouse in windrows that divided several large rectangular fields beyond his home. His story went on to mention that the birds had been feeding on high bush cranberries. 
      Driving the rough town road that bisected some of those fields I noticed the bright red of high bush cranberries and made a mental note to give those windrows a try.
     My opportunity came along on a windy cold day when frozen snow covered the ground. My two wirehairs were wound up and oblivious to the wind chill. Big fields meant run big. A hundred yards from the first windrow I could see the red of the cranberries and headed toward it. The younger of the two dogs was two hundred yards away scouting a different line of trees.
     The windrows were made up of all sorts of weeds and trees. Some softwoods stood thirty feet tall along with maples and birch and alders and poplar. In the spaces between the larger stems grew raspberries, blackberries, and all sorts of tangles.     
     A ruffed grouse hopped up onto a branch while I was still forty or fifty yards away. My older wirehair had worked around the other side of the bushes and obviously the bird was aware of her. Then the dog froze. I hurried.

Maggie inhaling grouse scent.

     A grouse exploded out of the weeds over the dog and the one on the branch shot out right over my head. I twisted like a corkscrew, trying to mount the gun and see the bird. A late shot saluted the grouse as it disappeared into the trees.
     Breaking open the gun to replace the spent cartridge was timed, of course, with another grouse leaving out the back of the line of trees. It would have been an almost impossible shot anyway.
     By then the two dogs were working the windrow a bit downwind and I was about to move on. It was much too cold to stand still. Thinking there might be another bird hiding among the shrubbery, I took a couple of steps toward where the grouse had launched.
     A third grouse burst out the back of the trees and another twisted out over my head. Again, I gyrated and missed!
     I can shut my eyes and still see those birds flying over the wide open field, just like a painting.

 

Weather

      Bird season stayed hot for far too long. Usually there are frosts and cold mornings, often an inch or two of snow that never sticks around. Not that there aren’t ever warm days, but just not so many of them as this year.
     The past summer was dry, actually the drought started almost two years ago. As happens every year, people started talking in August about what the fall foliage season would look like. Some said the leaves would just turn brown and drop, others said the colors would be brighter than ever. Every year it is the same arguments and, honestly, nobody ever seems to know.
     What happened was the leaves turned late and then refused to drop. And the WIND NEVER BLEW to help loosen them. Two weeks into the month of October the leaves still clung to the branches, but then reluctantly started to fall.
     During the summer an unusually high number of grouse broods were seen along the roads. This excited the bird hunters and made us all optimistic. The dry spring may have wreaked havoc with the gardeners, but it certainly helped the hen grouse raise those broods. We could not wait to get the dogs in the woods.
     And in October, those birds that seemed to be everywhere in September, just disappeared. The warm weather made the dogs miserable. It made us miserable too.
     Fortunately, in the middle of the month the weather changed and the grouse came out of their hiding. About that same time the migrating woodcock showed up. Hunting became fun again. The birds were in their usual fall places.
     Where had they been the first two weeks of August? Sitting in trees watching the hunters and their dogs? It certainly was easy to imagine that. I wish I knew.

 

 

July

     Hot weather, isn’t that July? We had some up here at Camp Grouse, but most of the weather has been cool. Many mornings there has been a fire lit in the woodstove to take the chill out of the house. Today it is near seventy and much needed rain is falling.
    Early in the month ruffed grouse were often seen along the sides of the road, usually hens with their broods. Sometimes the young were as small as sparrows and the next day a brood might be seen as big as quail.
    We keep the dogs out of the woods to prevent chance encounters with young grouse or woodcock. Soon the birds will all be big enough to start running the dogs on them.
    October still seems a long ways off.

The Young Ones

 

 

    It is June, the time for young grouse to climb out of their eggshells. It actually started at the beginning of the month and maybe even in late May in some places. 
    We spotted our first brood the second week of the month. Momma grouse slinked across the road, so we stopped to watch. When she safely crossed, she called the young one. Not much bigger than bumble bees they crossed the road as singles or in pairs, eleven all total.
    A few days later I spotted another brood crossing on our own road. On the approach of my truck they all stopped in the street. The hen had two near her and three more stood frozen near the tall grass along the side of the road. I waited and waited and finally crept closer with the truck. Mom herded the crew back where they came from.
    A day or two later we spotted a hen beside the road. On our approach she flew into the woods accompanied by four or five young the size of quail.
    Not long after that I spotted another cluster with their mother, all much smaller, about the size of sparrows.
    So it is obvious they don’t all hatch at the same time, but they do grow so fast that they reach near adult size in little time. According to the Ruffed Grouse Society, baby grouse are able to walk as soon as they hatch and take off following their mother. About a week after they are born they can fly like little bumble bees.

Take the Time…

 

      There’s getting to be less and less of the old timers around, at least from my prospective. When you find one and he is willing to talk, take the time to listen. They have lived in a world that is very different than the one we live in now, and one you will never experience.
      I’ve only known one old-time hardcore bird hunter really well. I never used to miss a chance to stop by his home and listen to his stories about birds. There were tales of where to find them or when to find them. And of course dogs, there were always a stories about a dogs. And guns. He was an avid Ithaca fan, owned a 20, 16, and 12 all with the same stock dimensions.
      He always asked my opinion about the upcoming season and the weather. New Englanders always ask about the weather. Dogs were always welcome and he would take the time it rub an ear or pat a head. He worked in the woods for a logging company, which added another dimension to his tales. Eventually all of the country he worked in and hunted was laid out in my head.
      There’s been other old timers, too. A character from Fort Kent, Maine who worked in the woods since his thirteenth birthday. He was still working and sixty-five when I met him. He told how there were 18 siblings in his family and when the oldest got married there were twenty-one at the dinner table. He started young picking potatoes and seemed to always have a bag of them in his truck.
      And the sea captain that ran a boat yard down on Cape Cod, who sailed his own yawl down to Miami in 1950, jumped aboard a schooner heading to Cuba, then sailed back to Pocasset, Massachusetts to start a boat yard he would run nearly the rest of his life. I remember him standing like a sea captain, with hands clasped behind his back, looking at the Pocasset River flow by. He lived to be one hundred years old.
      Their stories were fascinating. When you find and old timer who will talk about times long gone by, listen to the details and ask yourself if you could do the things that they did. It’s a world we will never see.

Snow

    February usually means snow. By the time the month starts the hillsides are covered with a couple of feet beneath the hardwoods. Under the boughs of the softwoods there is always noticeably less. Temperatures are cold, often going for days without a temperature as high as freezing and many nights dipping well below zero.
    This February has been no different. There certainly is two feet of snow in the woods, but this year there is no base underneath. The snow is fluff all the way to the ground. This makes excellent roosting snow for ruffed grouse and tough snowshoeing for humans.
    On cold nights ruffed grouse will dive into the snow to take advantage of the snow’s thermal protection. Snow has an R value of about 1, which is nearly the same as wood. Twelve inches of snow has the same insulating value as a two by four wall filled with fiberglass insulation.
    I know of people who have been out snowshoeing and a grouse suddenly burst from the snow and startled everybody. There are stories of grouse diving into the snow and breaking their necks on hidden stumps or logs, but I have never seen that. I’m sure a predator or scavenger would clean up any evidence as the snow melted come spring.
    By the end of February the days are noticeably longer, which is a welcome change. March will bring on bigger changes.   

An abandoned ruffed grouse snow roost.

January

 

Catkins will feed the winter
grouse.

    Winter really gets a grip on the land come January. Temperatures drop often to zero or below and snow accumulates in the woods. We still run the dogs down under the softwood trees. It breaks up their monotony and keeps all of us in shape. Often we hear grouse thunder out of the trees and on rare occasions one of the dogs will point one on the ground.    
    By the end of the month our brook is pretty well frozen over. Snow has forced another batch of trees to the ground, with many falling across the stream. Song birds entertain us at our feeders near the house. This year evening grosbeaks, common and hoary red poles, and nuthatches galore are all a treat to watch. Of course there are the usual clouds of chickadees, blue jays, and woodpeckers.
    The month is a good one for hunkering down and tying flies. Spring will be here soon enough and the fly boxes are best full.

Figuring It Out

    Grouse hunters are always trying to figure it out. Why was last Sunday so good, with birds everywhere? The day before we saw none in similar cover. Oh the dogs seemed to get birdy a few times, but where were the grouse? Were they in the trees?
    Grouse are reluctant to spend a lot of time on the ground when there is snow cover. Is that because they know their natural camouflage is compromised by the white snow? Or is it only because the snow has buried much of their earth bound food?
    Sunday was great, moving more than a dozen birds in under two hours. Was it the weather? We had just finished a week of unusually warm weather for December. Warm weather means the birds don’t need the calories to keep up their body temperatures, so they may not feed as much. But the temperature dropped a little and an inch of fluffy snow fell. Did that cause the birds to come down to feed?
    Do the birds know when the barometer falls? Do they move about to feed in anticipation of a cold front? It certainly got colder.
    Most of the birds were on the ground on Sunday, where for the previous couple of weeks the birds had been content to sit in the safety of the softwood trees. I assumed they had been plucking catkins from alders and birch because the birds we saw or heard flush from the trees were all near alders or birch. We saw few tracks anywhere.
    What time of the day is best? Sunday it was late morning, but maybe it was better later. Or earlier. Who knows? This time of the year the shadows are long shortly after lunchtime and by three the day feels late and the temperature is plummeting.
    Two weeks ago a shot bird had a crop filled with fern leaves, even though a couple of inches of snow covered the ground. Where did he find those?
    If we ever figure out all of this I’m sure it would get boring.