A couple of windy hunts with not much bird action but lots of pretty stuff to look at. Leslie’s photos add spectacularly to our videos, I think, and to this blog.
I’m grateful she wants to go chukar hunting with me, even though while we’re out I almost totally ignore her. To use my friend Peter’s phrase, it’s symptomatic of how hunting underscores “the strangeness of being who one is” (see his excellent book, Making Game). In one of the rare moments during a hunt when she and I are actually walking together (she stays behind to minimize the chances of me shooting her), Leslie asked me if I think about other things when we’re chukar hunting. I said, “No, that’s probably why I like hunting so much.” It’s not that I think much when I’m not hunting, but that it’s the purest form of doing something I get to do frequently. Playing music comes close, but the ear often interferes by letting you know when it’s unforgivable crap, and then the musicking becomes a vehicle for self-loathing. But that’s another, super fun, story.
Anyway, here are some of Leslie’s lovely photos from our past couple of hunts.
Speaking of strange, we experienced an unprecedented moment on our hunt yesterday when a coyote we flushed flushed the only covey of chukar we saw in five miles of hiking. Leslie got it on video (see below; you might have to replay it a time or two to see it unfold).
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