Not just for the birds

Category: Outdoors

Things that happen outside of buildings, usually away from “it all”

  • Not just for the birds

    Not just for the birds

    It’s not at all “just” for the birds. It’s not “just” for any one thing.

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    It’s for Angus, whose rapturous pursuit of birds expresses the epitome of equivocal desire: his instincts draw him toward birds, but he knows I’m also interested and – because he checks on where I am, even when he’s birdy – wants to involve me in his game.

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    It’s for Leslie, who does not hunt and does not kill but is drawn by her awe of Angus’ abilities (athletic, olfactory, instinctual) and her love of connecting with landscapes unavailable any other way, despite her abhorrence of watching birds getting murdered.

    The easy part

    It’s for the getting-lostness of it, for the forgettingness of it, and what I get from that mental negative space in spectacularly positive physical space.

    It’s for putting meat in the freezer.

    It’s for what’s possible.

    It’s for dealing with unmet expectations.

    It’s for beauty.

    It’s for practicing grace in an imperfect world.

    And it’s for a lot of other stuff, good, bad, and unknown. It keeps us all going.

    We wish you peace, luck, and joy, and not just for 2015.

    Enjoy the video…

  • Landscapes

    I prefer winter and fall, when you feel the bone structure of the landscape – the loneliness of it, the dead feeling of winter. Something waits beneath it, the whole story doesn’t show. 
    -Andrew Wyeth (1917-2009)

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    Andrew Wyeth, Turkey Pond, 1944, tempera on panel.

    Some of Leslie’s chukar hunting landscape photos from this fall and winter…

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    Have a wonderful holiday. Peace on Earth.

  • A difficulty of chukar

    The Chukar
    Alectoris chukar: a difficult bird, to say the least

    A comment I just responded to made me think of the interesting collective nouns for groups of creatures: a murder of crows, a school of fish, a congregation of alligators, a shrewdness of apes, a memory of elephants, a superfluity of nuns (?), a pride of lions…  Chukar need a collective noun. I think they’re feeling neglected, which might account for their behavior. I know some refer to them as “devil birds,” but calling them “a devil of chukar” doesn’t work for me because there is only one devil, and his name is Vanilla Ice.

    I’m thinking of something close to the collective noun for ravens, an “unkindness,” but a bit stronger. “Pain in the ass” is, I think, too long. “Jihad” might work, but I’d rather it be an English word, although given the native lands of chukar might it be appropriate?

    An expletive might do the trick, for I’m fairly sure every chukar hunter has uttered a string of such one or a thousand times during a hunt: a “f*&king of chukar”?

    Perhaps naming them after a reviled but nonetheless admirable person? How does an “O. J.” or a “Cheney” or a “Kaczynski” of chukar sound?

    Or maybe naming them after a method of torture might be best. A castration of chukar? A tasering or a waterboarding of chukar? Or maybe just something much broader in scope, which could encompass the entire endeavor of chukar hunting and the prey themselves: a “difficulty of chukar.”

    What would you call them?

  • The time is nigh

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    The Chukarhunting.net Sea Runner is ready

    Getting close. We’ve taken to sitting in the boat in the evenings now, imagining, strategizing, speculating, expectorating, and imbibing IPA.

    Chukar have serenaded us during every fishing trip this summer. Angus has filed away their crowing coordinates.

    We took a hike last weekend through a favorite late-season spot (which is the same place we took photos for an earlier post), which is bone dry now – I just wanted to walk and get Angus some hill work, and didn’t expect to see any birds or sign. I didn’t. There’s nothing for partridges to eat there yet. I did notice a plant (see photo below) that looks like cocklebur spread everywhere the cattle have been, but as far as I can tell it’s not cocklebur.

    What's this plant?
    What’s this plant?

    Anyone have any ideas on what it is? I’d never noticed this plant here before; if it is a cocklebur, we’ll avoid that area in the fall because Angus has a real talent for collecting them, which adds an unpleasant hour or two to every post-hunt ritual.

    Finally, I bought a new domain for this blog (decaled on the boat: chukarhunting.net). It shouldn’t affect how you get here, or anything else. Just shorter.

    Hang in there, I tell Angus and Leslie. It’s almost time. But I’m really talking to myself. It happens a lot this time of year.

  • Pirouetting Chukar Hills

    As we turn off of the highway and onto the dusty dirt road heading towards the chukar hills, our bird dog stands up in the back seat of the pickup and sticks his nose out of the crack in the window, snorts, and wags his stubby tail in excitement. The last time we turned up this road we were heading out for a bitter cold January hunt. Dogs have a keen sense of memory. Does he remember the turn, the smell, or something else?

    The chukar hills are always turning with the seasons. Bright red Indian paintbrush, brilliant yellow arrowleaf balsamroot, deep pink sweet pea, purple Rocky Mountain penstemon, multi-colored wild lupine, verdigris sagebrush, and spring green grasses are now flourishing after a long winter. The reward from the snow melt is habitat and food for wildlife and a new batch of chukar that soon will be hatching in these hills.

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    We all wandered in different directions across the hillside covered in wildflowers blanketing the ground in a blaze of yellow and red. It was a short walk to admire the views and to collect some arrowleaf balsamroot seeds for our own wildflower garden. We eventually met up and sat down on some flat rocks in the warmth of the setting sun to quietly take a moment to reflect on the last time we hunted on these chukar hills.

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