A cold December day, walking for pheasant in western Idaho. We hunted three spots. The only real action came in the second spot, when the videographer was sitting in the truck trying to thaw out from the first spot. Like many of my other videos, this one hopes to show what the bulk of bird hunting involves, which isn’t killing birds but working with dogs trying to find them.
Leslie (the photographer) again chose the music for this video, from “The Harry Smith Project.” Although the song, “House Carpenter” sung by Todd Rundgren and Robin Holcomb, has nothing to do with what you’re seeing, we think the mood matches the weather and the dilapidation of pheasant habitat in the west.
The virus from hell took one to the jaw yesterday and I escaped the domicile for the first time in way too long with gun, mutt, wife, and good friend. Impossible to pass this up.
Cold, bright, dusty snow, shivering dogs, numb fingers. Crops long down. Cover at a premium. Roosters and hens out picking frozen greenup in the middle of big plow, blessed with long vision and leisurely 200-yard flushes into no-permission land. Walked two miles admiring and doing my best to imagine life at the prey level, but, of course, failed miserably at that. Thank goodness. Still, their feathers marking their takeoffs and landings in the snow made their way into my dreams. Thank goodness for that, too.
Pheasant tail mark in the snow
Next farm. Angus gets 40 yards in front of me along a nice ditch with lots of weeds. Not too birdy, but suddenly stops cold. Before I could close the gap he pounces and the Chinese feathered kaleidoscope vectors to safety. I’m still confused about the pounce.
But he gets birdier, and I stay closer. 30 minutes and no birds. We come to the Interstate and I’m worried he’ll find a hole in the hog tight fence, but his nose is Hoovering crazy eights across the snow still. Then he stops and a rooster elevates toward the freeway until I bring it straight down inside the fence, wondering about the pellets that escaped the bird; hit any cars? Probably not, but I don’t like the road.
Snowbirds
Back to the ditch, and another rooster blasts from the brush and I miss all three shots, semi-conscious of the butt of the gun somewhere near my armpit. WTF? Is it just the cold? Twenty yards farther, another rooster. Butt cheeked, bird down. And that was it. Pheasant 2012.
With the epidemic of clean farming in the “Treasure Valley” around Boise pheasant get more beautiful every year. I’m lucky to have a friend with long-standing relationships among the older farmers in some of these places, but these guys are beat up and old and either converting to cleaner farming, selling or parceling, or handing it to their heirs who don’t want strangers shooting up their cattle or nephews. All understandable and not altogether lamentable in certain lights. How much longer do we have?
Angus and his pheasant, an instant before the collision
“Next morning I got up and it did not.” — Philip Larkin, “The Mower”
Well, just in case we’re all toast tomorrow I thought I’d make a shout out to express some thanks. No Chinese Doomsday escape pods here, just a few images and words about a Chinese ditch parrot (thanks to the scribes at Mouthful of Feathers for this appellation).
After the collision
Last weekend I was treated to a rare flat-ground, private land pheasant hunt with a good friend, and was able to connect with a rooster. Angus caught up to the wounded bird just before it escaped over a big irrigation ditch. As it was still quite alive Angus apparently knew he daren’t release it to readjust his grip so he might see where the heck he was going. I watched with a mixture of intense pride and mirth as he serpentined his way back to me, and I called repeatedly to give him a vocal beacon. I assumed he would stop when he got to me. Instead, he ran smack into my boots at full speed, snapping the cock’s neck in the process, relieving me of the dispatching I dread doing.
The bird, a yearling, had his world end almost a week ago. I don’t know where his soul is, but his body has been hanging in my shed out back, and is scheduled to serve as the honored ingredient in coq au vin tomorrow night for my parents’ holiday visit arrival meal.
Aging pheasant
Bird souls. I did no big game hunting this year. Avian life’s been bigger to me as a result. Bigger in lots of ways, but largest in the soul category. Bird spirits. I’ve ignored these, trivialized them deliberately to distance the remorse I’ve learned to reserve for larger prey like deer and elk. That seems wrong to me now that the winged are all I’ve killed this year. I remember the first birds I killed years ago, before I began hunting big game. I wept on their feathers. It’s a penance I regret losing and aim to recover.
Sometimes I think the paradox of hunting is its main attraction. Trying to kill something you love and value is an irresistible hook, but I need to remind myself of this sometimes. I think the game of bird hunting with a great dog sometimes obscures the fact that it centers on wanting to kill. The days I “get” nothing, get skunked, tend to shift the meaning away from hunting – which is the pursuit of prey with intent to kill, and not strictly the killing of it – and toward an ethic where success is measured in relation to the bag limit. Don’t get me wrong, I am thrilled when I bag birds and have no illusions about the day’s goal of limiting. I’m just saying that I want to remember to appreciate the losing side in this “recreational” activity. It recreates me, but uncreates the bird. I get up the next morning (or have thus far). It doesn’t.
