Feathers That I Have Ruffled

A unique achievement

It is winter right now, temperatures are frigid and snow is coming down burying all cover, bird season – the wild kind – is over for all practical purpose, and to cope with that I mind travel to times and places where I had the opportunity to ruffle some feathers and these are the top birds and places that I visit while daydreaming.

I cannot say that I am an accomplished shooter since I never experienced the gentlemen’s circuit of grouse in Scotland or driven pheasant in England or red-legged partridge in Spain, and considering the cost associated with driven game it is unlikely that I ever will. But although not an accomplished shooter, I am an enthusiastic bird hunter and have done my fair share, again probably much less than many, of rough shooting after great, and many times not so great, bird dogs. And although I will not be talking much about dogs today I am the first to recognize that the heart and hopes of passionate bird hunters ride on the nose a bird dog.

It is just fair that the first bird that I revisit should be the South American perdiz or codorna. Some of my earliest memories send me back to some pasture or stubble field in northern São Paulo state in Brazil following my father’s footsteps and occasionally being censored by Diana, the English pointer, by making too much noise while she held one or more perdiz under her nose. After the shot and while Diana retrieved I would collect the fired 28 gauge waxed paper hulls and bring it to my nose with its inebriant fragrance.

 

Sugar cane, soybeans and other changes in agricultural practices along with “liberal laws” that outlawed hunting decimated the perdiz population where I grew up, but I would finally reconnect with them in Uruguay where I have been going to Uruguay since 2008. In Uruguay I hunted in all kinds of weather, from a balmy windless day where a T-shirt is more than adequate to gale force winds that provide a good excuse for missing easy shots (the shot pattern was disrupted by the wind), to deep killing frosts and a day after a veritable deluge that sent some of the local rivers up over twelve feet and left the fields half submerged for several days.

 

The perdiz and the grassland of South America are made for pointers, English, shorthaired, setters or my personal favorites Épagneul Bretons. Early in the season you will find mostly singles, but birds start to form couples there are the opportunity for memorable doublés. As the right barrel folds the first bird there is a smooth swing towards the second, and this one also crumbles under the left barrel before the first perdiz touches the ground.

 

Next in line is probably the most beautiful of all upland birds in what is for me probably the most emotionally charged place in the world. The first time I went pheasant hunting in North Dakota I was taken by surprise by the landscape, at the same rough and delicate, settled by somewhat unconquered. The vision of my first tumbleweed drove me back to my childhood as I watched cowboy movies with my grandfather. And I was absolutely unprepared for the savageness of the pheasants. They may or may not be related to preserve birds, but their soul is wild and free, and their flashy colors and tormenting cackle mock the naïve hunter.

 

Tupã, my black lab, flushed and retrieved the first wild pheasants that I shot. We were exploring PLOTS and this one was removed from the road, maybe an acre of unkept prairie grasses and vines crawling upon the once upon a time fence that surrounded a decaying homestead. I could only but imagine which dreams could have led people to the desolated and unwelcoming Dakotas and what they may have endured. But eventually perseverance failed their bloodline and the homestead was abandoned, left for their ghosts and pheasants. A hen flushed under Tupã’s nose, I called him back and he continued to push the brushy fence line and at the very end, from under a thorny apple tree came the thundering cock, and down he came like a rock. The second bird came out of the other end of the fence with nothing but the cold blue sky to disguise him and I botched it. I shot his landing gear out and he flew a good quarter of mile before collapsing.

 

Then one morning we stopped our trucks near a marsh, maybe to eat a snack, maybe to find out where we were (not lost, of course. We knew we were in North Dakota!), and at the slamming of a door pheasants started flushing in droves, blackening the sky. They did not flush at once, but in groups, large and small, almost as if flushing and cackling of a group would energize the others. We watched all that mesmerized, guns cased as we did not have permission to invade pheasant heaven.

 

A rather short time ago I experienced the most frantic bird hunting so far. I took a break from a week of bow hunting in the Limpopo and spent a day shooting. Waterfowl in the early morning, then decoyed pigeons and doves, followed by upland birds with point dogs after lunch and again waterfowl in the evening. Well, I thought I had seen everything and was I wrong!

 

We had four dogs and six guns on the field and we just could not circle the guinea fowl in any way, shape or form. No matter what we tried they would run and flush out of range, so we did the unthinkable. We run, and run, until we barely got into shotgun range when the huge polka-dotted birds would take to wing. This may not be the most orthodox way to hunt birds, but it worked.

 

The thorns took their share of the action. My chaps took a beating, my shell bag was almost ripped apart, I was bleeding from both arms and just this weekend I noticed that the shirt I was using that day is well ventilated in the chest. I hate exercise, but I will sign up for another guinea fowl hunt anytime. I just need a ticket to fly 8,571 miles!

 

And from all those faraway places we end up back at home, hunting the forests of northeastern lower Michigan during the greatest month of the year, October for two birds that are so different and that cannot be hunted apart – Ruffed Grouse, the darling of my palate, and the darling of my heart, Woodcock.

 

After I moved to Traverse City it is almost impossible for me to go anywhere else during October. The days may be balmy or may be frosty, sunny or rainy, still or blowing, still fall is in the air, the grouse are doing what they do, making us believe that they only exist in our imagination and then exploding from under our very feet or from a branch where they should never be allowed to be, and the woodcock, local or migrating, fill our days with joy zigging when they should be zagging or the other way around.

 

No matter what year it is, it appears that grouse are always at the bottom of their cycle, and every bird is a true trophy, at the field and at the table. Last fall was even worth as there was little or no fruit to gather the birds, but I can replay the shots of each of the three birds I shot.

 

Oh, but talk about a fall of woodcock! The lite, delicate and brave birds abounded. For me nothing compares to hunt woodcocks where the trees give way to the ferns, and when the ferns are just starting to die and the trees are bursting with colors.

 

I will never forget a woodcock that I never shot but that almost impaled me after it flushed coming within inches of my face before it veered away. And I will never forget the true double that I shot on 9^th October. The right barrel of my old Laurona hit the first bird going straight away and then I swung on the second bird that took to my right and dropped it with the left barrel. And yes, I had witnesses: Mr. Bill Berghuis and Mr. Del Whitman, Jr. Now, whether or not you consider them reliable, that is your call.

Death by Perdiz

Dead Tired

Last Saturday I returned home from a great week of perdiz (Nothura maculosa) hunting with JP Cacerias in Trinidad, province of Flores, Uruguay. As always João Paulo da Costa and his beautiful family welcomed us in a delightful way and we felt truly at home at El Solar del Cazador.


This was a week to renew and strength some friendships, create others, exchange experiences, stories and lies, commune around good food, common memories, a glass of local red wine or just the right amount of a long traveled Macallan.

In his fantastically provincial speech my friend Eloir superbly describes some highlights of our latest hunt in his own blog “Contos de Caçada”, and I talked briefly about it on the previous post “An Exercise in Self Control”, but I do feel that there is more to talk about.

The first great surprise is that I finally found a great airport restaurant! At Montevideo’s Carrasco International Airport surprised us with a refined black olive and honey tapenade, a delicious Bife Ancho (Rib Eye) accompanied by a refined chimichurri and papas al libro, an oven roasted potato that is thinly sliced, but not all way through, so it reminds a book. The desert, a crêpe with local dulce de leche was also freshly prepared. A bottle of Don Pascual merlot highlighted the excellent and reasonably priced meal.

The second surprise that I also already talked about was the increase in the number of perdigões or martinetas (Rhyncofus rufensis). By the end of the week I would have had the opportunity to shoot at ten of the Queen of Upland Birds, but of course no shots were taken, and we can only hope that in the near future we shall be allowed to hunt these great game birds.

There is also a substantial increase in the local duck population which had been seriously impacted by years of draught, and it is recovering to levels that may justify the re-opening of duck season in the region.

Although not a surprise, the bad news is that, like in other parts of the world, changing in agricultural practices are the real danger for sustainable perdiz populations. Perdiz needs native grasslands, and although it can adapt certain other covers and agricultural crops like millet, sorghum, corn and wheat, its two worth enemies are encroaching the Uruguayan landscape in a seemingly unstoppable way, soybeans and eucalyptus.

Soybeans and eucalyptus create green deserts that bisect the pampas. The chemicals required by soybeans kills not only weeds and insects, but also the perdiz and other wildlife, and nothing in South America eats eucalyptus, except fire ants.

On the positive side, João Paulo tells us that the recent rains that made our walking the Uruguayan fields so much more difficult will also boost the coming perdiz hatch, and we should expect a very health population next season.

Talking about rain and difficult walking I really missed my Muck boots in this hunt, by my chaps saved the days. And walking was the price to pay for every bird we collected. It may not be the mile a flush for ruffed grouse during the bottom of the cycle, but it was close. And a lot of the places we found birds this year was on e edge of water, with the perdiz only moving to drier higher fields during the warm hours of the day.

At the end of a long day at Durazno, which included a parrilada with more than one bottle of Don Pascual, I was so tired as to almost consider death by perdiz!

After this great week in a distant and pleasant country I brought home memories and sore feet, and an ardent desire to do it again.

An Exercise in Self Control

Rhynchotus rufenses

Yesterday we had our first field day on a new hunting expedition in Uruguay. We have many of the usual suspects, Bill, Jim, Eloir and myself, and a couple new friends that joined the group, Pedrinho from Caxias do Sul and José from Americana.

As usual, we come to Uruguay for the fantastic upland hunting, and Perdiz (Nothura maculosa) is our main goal, along with a couple half days of dove shooting and the odd invasive European hare (Lepus europaeus) that hides among the rock outcrops in the fields.

Last Friday and Saturday we had a lot of rain and the hunting and walk has been hard as there water just about everywhere taking a heavy toll from our (or mine) sedentary legs, but that does not stop the birds from flying hard. The brutal wind is a different thing and challenges the best dogs in locating and flushing our birds.

However, rather than the shots we made, what made the first day memorable were the shots we did not make!

The field that Pedro and I hunted had a small stream bissecting it, and prety heavy cover, which besides perdiz is also home for the Perdigão or Martineta (Rhynchotus rufenses), a protect bird in Uruguay, which is the true "Queen of the Upland Birds."

As the German Shorthair, Uma, got in her first point the cover looked a bit suspect to us, and after some great dog work a perdigão flushed with the same subtleness of a Huey helicopter. I held my shot and told Pedrinho not to shoot. Perdigão generally live in pairs, and a couple minutes later another heavy bird took to the air, this time at Pedrinho's point. Again, no shot was taken.

We started hunting in some higher drying ground and shot several perdiz, and decided to cross the stream to the other side of the field, and of course as we walked through the heavy cover Uma went on point again and a third perdigão flushed from almost under Pedrinho's feet. Not five minutes later, another perdigão took the air, right in front of Uma's nose.

All four birds presented perfect shooting opportunities and although we were both disheartened from not being able to bring home the greatest game bird of South America, we were both equally proud of our painful exercise in self control.

In Uruguay...Once Again

The author and Ray Cato

Once again I am having the opportunity to hunt in Uruguay with JP Cacerias (jpdacosta@netgate.com.uy), and this afternoon my friend Ray Cato and I hunted perdiz (Nothura maculosa).

We had a most enjoyable afternoon, and besides watching some excellent dog work, we also got some birds and sent many more off with “two-gun” salutes.

The perdiz is the princess of the upland birds, and they occur in very high numbers in Uruguay, even this late in the hunting season, while the queen (at least in South America) is the much larger, but very similar in appearance, Martineta or Perdigão (Rhynchotus rufescens), but the later bird is protect in Uruguay and unhappily cannot be hunted.

Today I used a Stoeger/Boito/ERA 28-gauge side-by-side, and shot Spanish made ¾ ounces 7 ½ shells to shoot a 10 bird limit on perdiz, and for an inexpensive Brazilian made shotgun, it performed amazingly well. All birds that I hit fell hard, and the many that I missed were entirely my fault.

Hunting perdiz with a side-by-side 28 gauge shotgun is almost a soul searching experience, as this is what my father used to do. I probably will never come close to his 82% hit ratio, but just being able to enjoy the same bird with what is my opinion the best balanced gauge for upland hunting is a great reward.

By the way, JP Cacerias offers some of the greatest and most affordable upland bird hunting anywhere in the world, even if you include the airfare to come down to Uruguay. This trip was a last minute arrangement and I will only be here for three days, but the afternoon was so pleasant that it was worth coming.

The day could not have been prettier, and tomorrow morning we will go after doves and we will let you know how we did.

Never to be matched

Bird hunting is one of my greatest passions, the other is story telling, and it is very nice that one passion leads to the other.

Some of the best and most affordable upland bird hunting in the entire world is to be found in the Uruguay, and I do my best to hunt perdiz (Nothura maculosa) there at least every other year. Perdiz or codorna (as we say in Brazil) is one of the greatest of all upland birds, and it is a real pleasure to hunt them over dogs in the almost flat Uruguayan grasslands (Pampas).

I have many good memories of my hunting trips with JP Cacerias (jpdacosta@netgate.com.uy), in Trinidad, province of Flores (see “Last Bird, First Bird” the oldest posting in this blog). João Paulo or JP is a great cook and a better host, knows where the perdiz are, has a cannel with some great dogs, and a fantastic family and staff to make you have a good time and feel really at home.

The picture above is from our trip of May 2011, when again I had the pleasure of having Ariel as my secretário. The secretário will handle the dogs, carry your birds, water and extra shells, will always compliment you for a good shot and find an excuse for miss. But Ariel is much more than that, a true gentleman, and if not a great photographer, a very lucky one, as I don’t think that this picture that he took can be matched.

Perdiz are generally solitary birds that do not covey, and having the opportunity to shoot a true “doublé”, while not rare, is unusual; and as many expert hunters say that shooting a true “doublé” is the apex of the art of bird hunting I am very happy that Ariel could capture this unique moment on a still photo.

Please, pay attention to the details as in this fantastic photo you will be able to see all the elements of the art of bird shooting.

The hunter and dog are very obvious. I was shooting an AyA 16-gauge side-by-side gun with side locks, but no ejectors, which represents the typical game gun of Southern Europe and South America. If you follow the barrel line you will be able to see the wad already open and quickly slowing down. Continue in the same line and you will see the perdiz closing its wings, just prior starting to collapse.

But, if you pay attention to the dog path, you will notice that he is charging to a direction to the right of the bird mentioned above.

You will need to look really carefully to a point that is just at the skyline and to the right of the right most tree. There is a brown spec there. That is the first bird of the “doublé”, already folded and falling to the ground.

Even a rather mediocre shotgunner like me deserves perfection once in a while, and no automatic shotgun in the world can deliver the conclusiveness of right and left barrel shots and two birds down.

Note: In case your eyes are aging like mine, I have the same picture below, with the three “flying elements” clearly marked.

1. First bird (right barrel) falling

2. Second bird (left barrel) starting to fold

3. Shot wad

Last Bird, First Bird

                                                  In memory of Antônio Roberto Junqueira Meirelles

There is no sweeter fragrance than the inebriant essence of a fired shotgun shell, and that same aroma transports me in time and space to my earliest memories, following my father’s steps while hunting perdiz over our English pointer Diana in our farm in Brazil, and retrieving the spent 28 gauge paper hulls.

Unhappily, from those early years, I probably can count in the fingers of one hand the times that I hunted birds with my father. There was one bright mid-year afternoon in Goiás state, central Brazil, when a very smart perdiz made fools of a nice looking English pointer, my father who was carrying a 12 gauge trap gun, myself bearing an old 28 gauge side by side hammer gun, and the rest of the family that was following the hunt.

Then a couple decades later, there were some preserve pheasant hunts in Michigan. Not many, perhaps three or four times over a five year period. In the first of those hunts in the fall of 2002, my father was still very sharp with a shotgun, and shot eight of the eleven birds bagged, including a true double.

The only memorable fact about the second hunt, that had a bad dog, a worst guide, and when my father did not shot a single pheasant, was that it was the only time in which three generations of my family hunted together, my father, my son Daniel, at the time seven, and me.

Even with other birds at hand, the desire to hunt perdiz, the queen of upland birds, kept burning strong inside me, and with hunting closed and outlawed in Brazil, I booked a five day bird hunting trip in Uruguay, during June 2008.

I did not really invite my father to come along, I just asked my mother to get him the tickets to Montevideo and pack his clothes.

The first morning we shot doves, just to dial in the leads with unfamiliar rented shotguns. We both were using side-by-side hammerless, the accepted game gun in “our world”. My father was using a 12 gauge of obscure origins, and I had a 16 gauge AyA, side lock non ejector. After lunch, always a feast in Uruguay, he took the afternoon off to rest from the pounding of the 12 gauge, while I had my first perdiz hunt solo.

The second morning’s memories are bitter sweet. We hunted a stubble field and then a river bottom of “Estância Mirador”, over the best dog that I ever saw working birds in my life, a small Epagneul Breton named Popó.

Popó is one of those few precious dogs that combine a love of hunting with unique hunting abilities, including superb nose and bird sense. I believe that Popó could produce a perdiz in your living room.

The unspoken code of ethics for two hunters shooting over a single pointer in that part of the world is to shoot on alternate points. This is not only safer, but allows the bird a more sporting change following a double gun salute.

I knew for some time that my father was not the healthiest person in the world, but his dismal shooting performance should have warned me. I am not sure if it was excitement or fear, perhaps a really uncomfortable gun, but he could not hit a bird that day.

On the other hand, I could not miss. We were hunting together, but that was not how it was supposed to be.

On his fifth or sixth point, and with as many birds to my credit, my father hurried towards Popó and stepping in an armadillo hole he fell very hard, hitting the ground over his shotgun. For a split second I feared the worse.

Ariel, the secretário and dog handler, and I helped my father up as one of his legs began to swell, but he wanted to keep on hunting.

Just as we crossed the fence that separate the stubble field from the river bottom, Popó went on point and in a second a perdiz flushed right between my father and me. I can no longer remember whose point it was supposed to be, but we both hit the perdiz in full.

After the retrieve my father said that he was tired and we just hunted back to the car. Neither of us could realize that at the time, but that perdiz was to be my father’s last bird.

On February 28^th 2009 I received a message that my father had just entered the intensive care unit at our hometown hospital, in Brazil. As I entered that room the next day, and saw my unconscious father in bed, tubes keeping him alive, I saw that his hunting injury was not totally healed eight months later.

After recovering conscience, my father once told my mother that he thought that he would not be able to make it to Uruguay that year.

We buried my father on a Saturday morning, May 16^th, and my son was one of the pallbearers. As we led him to rest the sun shone for the first time since his last coma.

By mid-afternoon I could not stand to be indoors any longer, so I called a friend, and drove to the farm where I was raised, with Aluísio, Daniel and my nephew Gustavo. Daniel decided to go horse ridding while Aluísio and I went dove shooting. The big white-wing doves were coming to roost, but neither of us was doing great.

Towards the end of the flight, Daniel joined us and I asked him to shoot one bird. I was using my father’s Beretta 28 gauge side-by-side and told my son that his grandfather would be both happy and proud if he used that gun to bag his first bird.

I had three shells left, but Daniel picked only one, loaded the right barrel, and locked his eyes on a big blue white-wing that had just come past a certain avocado tree. He flexed his knees, mounted the gun, and that dove stopped in mid-air as it hit the shot wall.

The worst day of my life was over. A week later I landed in Uruguay headed for a certain stubble field.