Ruffed Grouse or Partridge?

      It is a ruffed grouse, Bonasa umbellus, but up in the neck of the woods where we now live the old timers refer to them as partridge. So is it ruffed grouse or partridge? It depends on who you are talking to.

     A couple of years ago I called up a friend who was laid up during bird season. I asked him if he wanted a ruffed grouse. He said, “A what?” I said ruffed grouse, and he said again, “A what?” I thought there must be a lousy phone connection. I said, “I just shot a ruffed grouse and I’ll bring it over for you. It’s cleaned and everything.” Again he said, “A what?” Then I remembered this gentleman always referred to Bonasa umbellus as partridge.

      It seems everyone under fifty years old calls them ruffed grouse or just grouse, but everyone over eighty calls them partridge. It’s that age group in the middle that makes for confusion.

      Up here, if you are going bird hunting, bird means ruffed grouse. If you want to hunt woodcock or ducks or pheasants you had better be specific.

Maggie says there's a ruffed grouse there.

Ten More Days

     Soon Bird season will open. For the upland hunter, it is the most anticipated day of the year. Here at Camp Grouse, even the dogs know it is coming.

     Maybe it is changes in the weather, or that we’ve been going out to run with their bells on. I guess that is a dead giveaway. Perhaps they see the hints of colors on the hillsides too, just like we do.

     Whenever two or more bird hunters get together the conversation always comes around to how many birds they have been seeing. Birds in the roads are mentioned and maybe a woodcock seen flying at dusk. Of course, everybody is delightfully vague about where they’ve been seeing birds. It is fun to see the enthusiasm of new hunters.

    The trap is out to throw clay targets, set up on the side deck. We’ve thrown a few to refresh muscle memory. The gun comes up like it always did. It would be fun to shoot at a skeet or sporting clays range if one were nearby, but we’ll settle for targets thrown out beyond the drop-off beyond the house. If a target is missed, the dogs disappear down into the tall weeds to bring it back, sort of sticking the lousy shot in my face.

     New boots are broken in. The bird hunting pants will get a new treatment of wax.  The vest will be dug out and hung by the back door. There isn’t much more to get ready, which is one of the beauties of upland hunting.

     Tomorrow we’ll be out scouting for birds and running the dogs. There’s a ridge we want to explore. We have to get in shape too.

New Country

     

        It was a few years back, I had been thinking about it since the previous year, when I drove by the gate and noticed a partridge in the road about a hundred yards away.  We were miles from anywhere on logging roads that day, so I pulled over, let out the dogs, and grabbed my gun to see if the dogs might point that bird.  

        It had taken some doing to just find it, the little guy walked farther than I thought it might.  Chara, my older wirehair, pointed staunchly, I walked in, and then the bird burst into a thicket of softwood trees never to be seen again.

      That road went on around a long bend to the left, apparently following the edge of softwoods growing in a boggy area.  On the other side of the road was a cutting, probably ten years old, maybe younger, gently sloping uphill.  It was late in the day, the last day of our week-long hunting trip, so we didn’t go far, but I knew there was country to explore.

      Often during the next summer I studied the area on Google Earth, looking for softwoods, streams, and fitting the topography into the cuttings.  Frequently I would measure distances to get everything in prospective, trying to plan hunts that would explore the most productive looking country.  Finally, fall arrived.

      I parked in an abandoned logging yard not far up that road and let the two wirehairs and the young shorthair out.  Three dogs?  I love pandemonium.  Light rain fell and the temperature wasn’t much over freezing.  Wherever the ground appeared flat, water puddled from the almost steady rain of the previous week.  But it was the first day of my annual hunting week and life couldn’t have been better.

      We worked the edges of the softwoods and mixed cover, working the high side of the logging road and heading up further into the forest.  No birds.  A couple of miles or so from the truck, and starting to get quite wet, I convinced my girls to hunt the low side of the road back toward the truck.

Well down the slope and far from the road, Chara, the older wirehair, started to get birdy among a mixed stand of mature fir and red maples.  A woodcock bolted up the hill.

          We followed, hoping to find that woodcock again, and soon Chara’s tail started to blur as she sorted out the scents.  Colby, the younger wire, picked up the scent too, while Georgia, the young shorthair, dashed about further down the hill, unaware what the other two dogs were up to. 

Chara at her best. 

          Chara froze.  It didn’t look like partridge country, not on a rainy day anyway, with tall maples and yellow birch trees, so I thought she must be marking the woodcock we had flushed before.  I did my best to hurry over the squishy ground.  Colby noticed Chara and stopped in her tracks.  You got to love that dog.

          A partridge rocketed into the air and flew diagonally up the hill, gaining altitude all the way, launching far ahead of the dog and well out of range.

          By that time water had found its way into various inner parts of my clothing and my legs ached from trying to find footing on the lumpy water-logged ground.  We hunted back up toward the road, with its easier walking, and headed toward the truck. 

          It certainly was rugged country and we would be back.  

The Thunder of Wings

It's that time of the year.

     Two days ago, while walking to the compost, a young grouse exploded out of the weeds beside our field, startling me and brightening my day. On the way back to the house two more thundered to the air, catching the attention of Maggie, our youngest German wirehair. For the next twenty minutes she hunted that patch of woods hard, but found no more birds.

     It is the time of the year when the young grouse are exploring their world. The young birds are not always the brightest and either they learn quickly or end up as somebody’s dinner. Often they appear dazed at a roadside and would make easy pickings for hawk. By October they are a different bird, wary and wild.

     Fortunately, at this time of the year, there is a smorgasbord of things to eat. Blueberries are abundant and soon raspberries will follow. Insects are everywhere, to supply much needed protein. All sorts of plants are going to seed,

Her young were hiding in the weeds.

     Two weeks ago, a short distance down our gravel road, a grouse stood like a statue while her brood hunkered down in the roadside weeds. Before we could get pictures, she strutted into the brush to vanish.

     A week before that the same experience happened on a logging road miles in the woods. That one sat for a picture.

     On the way to a blueberry patch this morning we saw a woodcock standing on the asphalt of a winding back road. Before the camera could come out it leapt into the air to fly away in the classic erratic flight of a woodcock. A friend had asked only a day or so ago if I had seen any woodcock lately and I had said no.

     Is it going to be a good bird hunting year? Only a fool will make a prediction. In the meantime the brookies are biting and there are blueberries to pick. 

Headed for a pie.