Tag: ruffed grouse

A little winter’s help

It’s 5˚, and with a healthy northwest wind there’s a -15˚ wind chill, or “feel like” temperature as the weather folks like to say these days. No matter the shrill chill chasing 5 inches of new snow, the corn delivery must go through. You see, it’s this point of winter when I worry about game birds—pheasants and ruffed grouse to be exact—as they take a survival test in the snow, cold and wind.

So I’m taking corn and bird seed to the pheasants and grouse I have seen along my snowshoe trail, where I wind through the meadow grasses and next to thickets along a field. These spots hold birds, and I have seen them flush from one brushy spot to another many times, escaping the perceived threat I present on snowshoes.

A couple of winters ago five pheasants got up from the narrow thicket bordering a corn field. The birds flew northward a couple of hundred yards. It happened again at the start of this winter—not five birds but a single colorful ringneck. It flew to the same spot. So I headed that direction, to a confluence of meadow, creek, brush and fallen trees on the edge of a woods.

I was drawn to a downed tree in a tangle of brush. It was a foot or so off the ground, with pheasant tracks going back and forth from it to where long grass was deposited by the creek’s high waters. The thick clumps of grass are hung up on fallen branches, creating tent-like shelters, perhaps perfect for the wintering pheasant. By the log there was little snow, so the next time I came I brought shelled corn to the sheltered patch and also cleared a plot spot by the first thicket.

The trips are nearly daily now. The corn and seeds keep disappearing. There are bird tracks in both spots. I hope I’m helping both species; maybe there will be one more brood of each this spring because of my deliveries.

The grouse caught a break this week with 5 inches of fluffy snow falling. They now have the 10 inches of snow required to burrow into for warmth. The snow’s insulation factor provides the birds conditions 30˚ warmer than the air temperature. I’ll never forget the first time I scared a grouse from its snow roost. I had stopped to rest while cross-country skiing when suddenly the snowbank next to me exploded with feathers and snow. A grouse winged away into the blue winter sky as snow softly settled on my skis.

I worry more about the pheasants now as, like turkeys, their scratching for waste grain is limited by snow depth. They feed on what they find, even the seeds of the dead and bronzed tansies, goldenrod and thistles in the meadow and at the edge of the field. Of course, “my pheasants” are also feeding on shelled corn delivered via snowshoe express.

I stand between the food plot and field, letting the February sun find me fully as I turn my back to the wind. I see pheasant and grouse tracks leading to the gift of corn and sunflower seeds. It all disappears by the next day, only to be replenished. For now, these birds are well fed. So, too, is my soul.

A shutter flush

I tried this for fun. A camera, not a gun. It was mid-September, before the leaves got deep into painting by species. I went looking for ruffed grouse.

I have hunted grouse for years with a camera slung over my back, the telephoto lens precariously swinging into branches and bumping against my back as I crossed uneven ground. On my back the camera is of no use for taking photos of grouse on the fly. The flush happens in an instant, without notice. The camera was for the occasional deer that appears or bittersweet burning orange against autumn’s blue sky.

So I went hunting with a camera to get that first ever—which I find hard to believe—photo of a grouse in flight. If you think targeting a grouse on the fly with a shotgun is hard, try it with a camera. Autofocus is sometimes too slow, or for the person behind the camera it’s too hard to get the focus dots on the rapidly fleeing target as the lens line swings across branches and brush.

I have only a handful of live ruffed grouse photos over many years of pursuing the woods chicken. They are wary, hiding before whirling away in an unnerving racket of pounding wings. Every now and then you can sneak up on one, perhaps on its drumming log, or see a young one on the road. But photographing one in flight? That’s hard.

I wanted to “shoot” the grouse by raising my camera just as I would my shotgun. So I held the camera ready and stepped into the woods. I soon flushed a grouse, but the bird was immediately into too much brush. I moved forward for the reflush, now on high alert, my eyes darting back and forth, my finger on the shutter. I kept walking slowly to avoid the pause that will send the bird into nervous flight too far ahead.

Suddenly the bird burst from the ground. It was close but immediately put a tree trunk between me and my camera. Gone again. And then the scene repeated throughout the afternoon with other birds in other places.

I had given up, but had to walk down a narrow road back to my truck. Suddenly, in the ditch with scattered low bushes and tall, tan grass stems bending with the breeze, I saw movement. My camera came up just as the grouse did, curving away over the field. Click, click, click, click. One of those clicks captured the bird in focus. Finally, I had the photo.