Upland Birds
The more I see of the people’s representatives, the more
I like my dogs.
COMTE ALFRED D’ORSAY (1850)
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Your heart grows tired of waiting, and suddenly—but only sportsmen will understand me—suddenly in the deep stillness there comes a special kind of whirr and swish, you hear the measured stroke of swift wings—and the woodcock, with his long beak drooping gracefully down, comes swimming out from a dark birch tree to meet your fire.
This is what is meant by “waiting for the flight.”
IVAN TURGENEV
A SPORTSMAN’S SKETCHES (1852)
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The idea is not to look for pheasants, plural and abstract, but pheasant: a singular, particular, concrete cock pheasant. You have to find them one by one, not collectively. Consider it a kind of big-game hunting.
DATUS PROPER
INTELLIGENCE (1991)
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There are only two times of year in Montana: bird season and all the rest.
E. DONNALL THOMAS, JR.
“AUTUMN QUARTER” IN BIG SKY JOURNAL
(FALL 2000)
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Isn’t there a time or two you can remember when somehow an animal you’ve hunted has done something to make you let him vanish in the woods? … Isn’t there a bird or covey that somehow always manages to catch you with your gun on safe—even when you know it’s there? I think we all know times that for almost certain we gave the hunt to the quarry.
GENE HILL
MOSTLY TAILFEATHERS (1975)
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She was struck more and more powerfully, more and more definitely, by their scent; suddenly it became perfectly clear to her that one of them was right there, behind that hummock, five steps in front of her; she halted and her whole body grew rigid. Her short legs made it impossible for her to see anything in front of her, but by the smell she could tell it was not more than five steps away. She stood there, more and more aware of its presence and enjoying the anticipation. Her rigid tail was outstretched, only its very tip twitching. Her mouth was lightly open and her ears pricked up. One of her ears had got folded back while she was running; she was breathing heavily, but cautiously, and she looked round her still more cautiously, more with her eyes than with her head, at her master. He, with his familiar face, and eyes that were always so terrifying, came stumbling over the hummocks, it seemed to her extraordinarily slowly. It appeared to her that he was walking slowly, though he was running.
LEO TOLSTOY
ANNA KARENINA (1877)
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A few fallen woodcock may be located without a dog, but to shoot those delightful little birds other than over a pointing dog would be like drinking Château Haut-Brion from a paper cup.
GEORGE BIRD EVANS
AN AFFAIR WITH GROUSE (1982)
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The land comes alive through its wild creatures. I come to know the land through hunting the birds. Hunting has opened the earth to me and let me sense the rhythms and hierarchies of nature.
CHARLES FERGUS
THE UPLAND EQUATION (1995)
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Dogs, even the most cross-grained, will tolerate all manner of liberties on the part of a pup. He is the privileged character in any kennel—until he attains his maturity. Then the others expect him to put away childish things.
HAVILAH BABCOCK
“WHEN DOGS FIGHT” IN
MY HEALTH IS BETTER IN NOVEMBER (1947)
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After all has been said and done, when it comes to native wariness, individual daring and resourcefulness, power, cunning and all those things that place one creature above another, physically and mentally, then we must turn to our native pa’tridge. I should say our native grouse, as known to those who have seen him at his best. He is the king of American game birds and so those who have hunted them all will attest.
WILLIAM HARNDEN FOSTER
NEW ENGLAND GROUSE SHOOTING (1947)
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The woodcock is a living refutation of the theory that the utility of a game bird is to serve as a target, or to pose gracefully on a slice of toast … Since learning of the sky dance, I find myself calling one or two birds enough. I must be sure that, come April, there will be no dearth of dancers in the sunset sky….
ALDO LEOPOLD
A SAND COUNTY ALMANAC (1949)
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But what was lovely was the fall to go hunting through the chestnut woods. The birds were all good because they fed on grapes and you never took a lunch because the peasants were always honored if you would eat with them at their houses.
ERNEST HEMINGWAY
A FAREWELL TO ARMS (1929)
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If there be two things on earth, which, to be done well, must be done young, they are to shoot on the wing, and to ride across-country. They cannot be learned old, more than it can “to speak the truth.”
FRANK FORESTER (1807–1858)
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For all that I, for one, am never overeager to visit him, and if it were not for the grouse and the partridge, I should probably have dropped his acquaintance altogether.
IVAN TURGENEV
A SPORTSMAN’S SKETCHES (1852)
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I hunted with Dad for two years before I took my first shot at a flying grouse or woodcock. Just about every autumn weekend I trailed behind him through the thickest, muckiest terrain in New Hampshire, following, literally, in his footsteps, as I would metaphorically through much of my life. I did not carry a gun. I watched and learned, and while he did all the shooting, I did hunt.
WILLIAM G. TAPPLY
SPORTSMAN’S LEGACY (1993)
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We can kill a big male sage grouse and feel his improbable weight (there is no better definition of specific density than a brace of mature sage roosters, three or four hot miles from a pickup), and smell his acrid blood, like railroad ties on a hot day, but the birds will always remain strangers. No, let me correct that. We will always remain strangers in their land.
JOHN BARSNESS
WESTERN SKIES (1994)
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The fact that the improvement of my health coincides with the advent of quail season doesn’t mean that my ills during the rest of the year are imaginary. For outdoor pursuits have a recognized therapeutic value. Especially quail hunting.
HAVILAH BABCOCK
MY HEALTH IS BETTER IN NOVEMBER (1947)
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Though I have flushed many a covey of quail I have never become used to it.
AUSTIN L. RAND
AMERICAN WATER AND GAME BIRDS (1956)
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What I wanted, what I demanded from my dog, was the loving, savage partnership of the hunt.
CHARLES FERGUS
A ROUGH-SHOOTlNG DOG (1991)
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I would not lend my dog to a better sportsman than myself—because no two sportsmen hunt their dogs, as I have observed, exactly alike, and I wish my dog to hunt as I want him to hunt, not better than he does, nor worse.
FRANK FORESTER (1807–1858)
• • •
Whatever the unquestioned merits of the auto-loader
and the repeater are in other branches of shotgun work,
they are too clumsy, poorly lined and generally too
heavy to be given place in the class of real grouse guns.
WILLIAM HARNDEN FOSTER
NEW ENGLAND GROUSE SHOOTING (1947)
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Among all the upland gamebirds the sportsman rates the ruffed grouse as “king.”
AUSTIN L. RAND
AMERICAN WATER AND GAME BIRDS (1956)
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A friend once burned up three boxes of shells to bag one [pheasant] rooster. To put it mildly, he found that frustrating. Just into his fourth box he missed another rooster at eight paces. Uttering a sulphurous oath, he whipped his expensive cowboy hat into the sky and touched off a shot. And wouldn’t you know, he shredded the hat, which was a tougher shot than any of those roosters that got away.
STEVE GROOMS
PHEASANT HUNTER’S HARVEST (1990)
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My observations led me to believe there is nothing about the human figure that will alarm a ruffed grouse as long as the figure is motionless.
BURTON SPILLER
MORE GROUSE FEATHERS (1938)
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I am aware that a number of staid and conservative citizens in my community look upon me as a fit candidate for an asylum. They argue, and perhaps rightly, that any middle-aged man who spends two months of each year in chasing a bird dog around through the woods has something far more serious the matter with him than mere eccentricity.
BURTON SPILLER
MORE GROUSE FEATHERS (1938)
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While they [the shooters] were both talking, Laska, pricking up her ears, looked up at the sky, and then at them, full of reproach. Now’s the time they’ve found for chattering, she thought, and here they come flying … yes, there it is, they’ll miss it, thought Laska.
LEO TOLSTOY
ANNA KARENINA (1877)
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The prettiest thing in the art of shooting, and that which is the result of the highest skill and practice so that it may be regarded as nearly the perfection of sportsmanship, is the killing double-shots accurately, cleanly, and in fine dashing style.
FRANK FORESTER (1807–1858)
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It is the ruffed grouse (and its migratory sidekick, the woodcock) that makes dedicated wastrels of so many hunting men in the mixed hardwood forests of the Northeast.
JOHN MITCHELL
THE HUNT (1979)
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Old gun dogs have stood the test of time and event and circumstance. They come now, slowly, and lay at foot or close to side, jowls flat, eyes faded with the fog of cataract, their muzzles and paws white or speckled salt and pepper. But they come. They want to be close. They are great treasures, these old dogs. For they are more than themselves lying there. They are us.
BILL TARRANT
IN FIELD & STREAM (1983)
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There are covers I don’t like to hunt except with certain people.
CRAIG WOODS
“THE ENDLESS COVER” IN SEASONS OF THE HUNTER
EDITED BY ELMAN AND SEYBOLD (1985)
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In the morning we were in the covert, first thing. The wind had dropped in the night. Frost sparkled on the brambles, and the creek’s steamy breath had whitened the willow boughs. The earth sucked at my boots. The shotgun hulls slipped in easily. I stuck the whistle between my teeth …
CHARLES FERGUS
A ROUGH-SHOOTING DOG (1991)
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The successful hunter of any game is not necessarily the best marksman, but rather one who thoroughly understands his quarry, and I learned to know grouse in those days as but few of the younger generation will ever have a chance to know them.
BURTON SPILLER
MORE GROUSE FEATHERS (1938)
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I love to kill those pheasants and eat their savage breasts.
JOHN BARSNESS
WESTERN SKIES (1994)
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As forecast, the night brought a slight layer of snow. Today will be my final hunt for grouse this year: the gamecover is skinny, its feed depleted, and the scent’s worse and worse in the cold. Of course, I have the flu.
SYDNEY LEA
HUNTING THE WHOLE WAY HOME (1994)
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I may shoot fifty dove a season; guests sometimes shoot two hundred more. That sounds like a lot until you learn that more mourning dove are shot each year in the United States than all other migratory game birds combined.
GEORGE REIGER
HERON HILL CHRONICLE (1994)
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I dream about my dogs, but recently the dreams have been turning to nightmares.
GUY DE LA VALDENE
FOR A HANDFUL OF FEATHERS (1995)
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Each time we kill a bird, we die a little ourselves, and in that death renew our love for what we’ve killed.
ROBERT F. JONES
IT WOULDN’T BE THE SAME (1996)
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The gardener … complains of its [the pheasant’s] depredations on a wide variety of truck crops and growing corn, but in view of this splendid game bird’s widespread popularity some disadvantages must be tolerated and local remedies sought.
AUSTIN L. RAND
AMERICAN WATER AND GAME BIRDS (1956)
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He knelt beside the dog on dry ground at the edge of the alders and put his arm around the dog’s neck. Take it slow and easy through here. Work it good. They hold tight this early in the season, most or em will. They haven’t been hunted yet. All right?
ROBERT F. JONES
DANCERS IN THE SUNSET SKY (1996)
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“Shoot ’em,” says the girl, with a good laugh under a tossing head. “They like to hang in the stubble beyond the barn, by that culvert over there.” … The swirls of pheasant tails are everywhere in the snow, the little foot scratchings, like white tattoos … Call me Ishmael, we eat blubber tonight.
STEVE CHAPPLE
CONFESSIONS OF AN ECO-REDNECK (1997)
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Sweetzer was having REM dreams in the bunk after her day’s work, eyes rolling back in her head, legs twitching, nose working, muscles rippling beneath her sleek coat. She was probably still hunting …
JIM FERGUS
A HUNTER’S ROAD (1992)
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