My stress doesn’t come close to the stress wildlife endured this winter, but it’s been there daily, mainly in the form of wonder and hope. In a phone call with my dad earlier this winter, I lamented the tough conditions for chukar and the rest, and he reminded me of this wonderful Emily Dickinson poem:
Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune without the words,
And never stops at all,
And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.
I’ve heard it in the chillest land,
And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me.
It doesn’t cost us anything to hope, and we did plenty of that this winter. On a recent bluebird day we got a chance to look for the birds whose mere existence warms our collective souls.
It felt amazing to walk uphill, and reminded us of the abbreviated season and what we missed in its last month, and what the dogs missed. To say they were gleeful would be an understatement. We ascended up a two-track for a couple of miles, and then climbed off the road and circled back through some terrain I’ve seen plenty of birds on over the years, but I wasn’t expecting to see anything.
I kept a close, hopeful eye on the dogs, though, and they began getting birdy in the stiff wind. And then Angus pointed, and Peat picked it up with a classic low-rider high-speed creep up to a steady backing position. Not having a gun, I enjoyed the rare chance to capture this beautifully addicting dance with a camera. A covey of 10 chukar busted. A short while later, my bird gods pointed another covey of about 10 chukar. And just a few minutes later, they pointed a covey of 5 Hungarian partridge. On the short walk along the creek on the way back to the truck, Angus dislodged a large grouse (couldn’t tell if it was a ruffed or dusky). All of the birds we saw looked sizeable and healthy. 4 miles, a couple hours, and a result greater than the hoped-for. We’ll steer clear of birds now so as not to disturb their mating, but I do feel relieved to have seen more survivors than expected.
The Kid and I set out to bag his first chukar. This is the fourth season he’s come along. He has never complained. He’s always been right there. If I ask his opinion on route options, he’s always up for even the hardest one. And when the hunt’s over and our bags are empty there’s not a shred of disappointment in his aspect, while I try my best to hide mine. I joke with him and his folks and grandparents about my being the World’s Worst Chukar Guide, and I actually get a little more nervous each time I bring him back without a bird. It’s starting to become less amusing. At least to me. He still says he wants to keep trying, and I’m grateful for that.
Sidehilling Splendor
On opening day we hiked 7.5 miles and climbed 2100′, my longest hunt ever. The dogs got birdy a few times and actually pointed twice. But the wind was fierce and the points were off. Near the end of the hike, down near the creek, the dogs ran into and scattered the biggest super-covey I’ve seen. We got to watch, from a slightly sad distance, nearly a hundred chukar run and scatter up a long scree slope. Despite bumping them a couple more times, separated by brush far too dense to traverse, we never got another chance. As I drove the curvy road home, while he ate his peanut butter sandwich (which might have contained Cheetos), he said he’d get one the next time. I’ve gotten to know this fairly quiet kid fairly well by now; he doesn’t say things he doesn’t mean.
He couldn’t come with me the next day, which – history will tell us – means I’ll be in some chukar. We saw plenty, and had a few good points and got a few birds. Don’t say “jinx.” It’s not funny anymore. I’m trying not to have this complex, and don’t want him to develop one (unlikely), but it’s going beyond whatever. You know?
Anyway, we had a typically hot and – atypically – humid second day. We took the boat and went to a favorite spot which, we learned – not too surprisingly – soon after disembarking that several folks had been there earlier that morning and probably the day before as well. But I’d always found birds there so we moseyed along, albeit with slightly lowered expectations.
For once, though, my guess or reasoning or instincts or whatever you want to call it was right and the birds (at least the ones we found) were quite close to the water. Angus was well above me, though, accompanying my friend and Leslie, and busted a decent covey which I only saw as they sailed past me, several in range. Lucky. They could have gone anywhere. I hit one. Peat scurried to it, and brought it right back, no questions asked. Last year, he ate the first six chukar he got close to. Lucky again.
A while later, both dogs pointed solidly at the edge of a cliff near the water. I managed a double, but Angus could only find one bird. The second was a long shot and, although I couldn’t see where it landed, I thought it might have made it to the water even though it was a ways away. We looked and looked with both dogs. Peat suddenly headed straight down a steep rocky slope to the water. I thought he would find the bird, but he kept on going, swimming straight out into the wide river, leaving a trail of broken surface algae blooms in his wake. Yes, it was hot. After a good 20 or 30 minutes we gave up looking.
The little white speck heading out to sea is Peat.
Back at the boat, we decided to cruise past the cliffs to see if the second bird had made it to the water. More luck: we spied it on its back on a ledge of the cliff just above the water. Wanting to spare the tired dogs, and me, some effort, Cam generously made the retrieve, demonstrating his rock-climbing prowess. After his unprecedented retrieve we discovered that Angus had taken advantage of our collective distraction and eaten Cam’s roast beef sandwich on Oat Nut bread (his favorite).
Maybe Angus should have eaten the wrapper, too.
So my dogs and I, and our mutual friends, survived a long opening weekend in great form, and we’re eager to head back out in a few days.
Oh, and a warning: we saw two big rattlesnakes. Look into the rattlesnake shot you can get your dogs, and make sure you carry Benadryl and plenty of water in case of a bite. Luckily, Angus and Peat missed both reptiles, but it makes you think.
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.”
It seems my complaints did the trick. We found chukar everywhere and anywhere last weekend. I have never seen so much chukar poo, and rarely if ever have I encountered so many chukar in two straight days. We worked for them, sure (about 5,000 vertical feet in two days), but they were high, low, and middle. Angus even pointed two in a tree near the water. I’ve never seen chukar in a tree. I shot like poo, but ended up with a good amount of birds. The best thing, though, was seeing so many birds; after hearing them all spring and summer and having a tough time finding them this fall, it’s nice to know they’re out there in big numbers. One covey consisted of at least 75 birds.
It’s days like this which, despite the snags, make the rest worthwhile.
I shot horrendously. I tied up the boat after a 12-mile trip in the chill morning air to discover I’d forgotten to put my boots – the most important piece of equipment – in the boat (so I motored back to the dock, and got ’em, adding an hour to the endeavor). Leslie and Angus waited patiently.
But oh, the birds. In just two hours of hiking (very hard hiking) we saw over 100 chukar in at least four coveys. I haven’t seen this many coveys of this many birds in quite a while, maybe ever. I bagged only one bird (no excuses, but man, that is hard to take), and my friend Dan (who hunted elsewhere this day) thought it was the largest chukar he’s ever seen (he’s a retired US Fish & Wildlife bird biologist and lifelong upland hunter).
