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.

Two Inches of Snow

The cover looks so different with the leaves
gone and snow on the ground.

     Temperatures dip into the teens at night. Snow cloaks the ground and distant hills can be seen between the gray trunks of bare trees. Winter is sneaking into the woods and the world is changing.

    Our favorite coverts on the hillsides are empty. Woodcock are nowhere to be found. Most of the old apple trees have shed their apples, but a few trees still cling to their fruit. In the cuttings high bush cranberries glow red and can be spotted from a distance. Mountain ash that were so easy to spot a month ago seemed to have disappeared.

Sometimes the birds are hard
to find.

     Bucks have rubbed the bark off of small trees. Deer and moose tracks crisscross the snow. Turned up leaves and soil mark scrapes where testosterone charged males attempt to attract the opposite sex. It is a different world than a month ago.

     Down in the stream bottoms, where softwood trees edge the cuttings, grouse will be found. Often the dogs will point with confused looks, uncertain of where the grouse are, only to have the grouse launch from a tree, sometimes from unbelievably high. Occasionally birds will be pointed on the ground, but most of the birds have seen a hunter or two and will try to sneak away. The savvy dog will learn to deal with the runners, cautiously pinning them rather than flushing the wary birds.

Maggie pointing a ruffed grouse.

Mid-December

     A warmish weekend and settling snow tempt us into the woods. A snowmobile packed trail makes it possible. Off the trail the snow is up to the dogs’ shoulders. Determined, they struggle, but then lose their resolve.

Snowmobiles packed a trail.

    The trail dips into a hollow filled with catkin loaded alders. A stream meanders, leaving patches of bare ground at the turns. Thick spruces and fir trees shoulder the alders, with a few wild apple trees crowded in. Everything about the place looks like grouse country. The dogs taste the air and test the snow. It’s tough going.

     Does grouse scent waft in the air? Are the birds in the trees and watching us? Probably. The dogs venture into the woods and then return to the packed trail.

Catkins

     Up the road further, where it divides hardwoods on the low side to the right and mixed growth to the left, a grouse rockets across to safety in a thicket of young softwood trees. The dogs and I fight our way up to the tangle of fir trees. Colby, the older dog with arthritis issues, stops in chest deep snow and waits. I hesitate a step or two beyond, then the thunder of wings.

     Maggie, our youngster, flies through the snow into the firs. Her tail is a blur as she sorts out the scents and hunts hard. The snow is not so deep under the thick boughs and she is a joy to see.

     Eventually she comes back to me, admitting the bird has gone. We turn back toward the truck.

     Back in the hollow, Maggie plows through the snow beneath the alders. Grouse tracks meander and droppings color the snow. A squirrel has shucked a mountain of spruce cone scales. Deer tracks snake through the woods. No grouse are on the ground.

     The snow has tired us all. It is time to head home.