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.

Pigeon Safari

Patagioenas picazuro and the Cricket

Meanwhile, in an undisclosed South American country, I was reacquainted with the joys and challenges of long range air gun hunting.

My friend Aluísio took young Gustavo and me on a brief late afternoon outing for one of my favorite game animals in the world, Patagioenas picazuro, also known as White Winged Pigeon, in an almost urban environment.

We parked the car under a shade tree to avoid detection from the ever watchful eyes of the incoming pigeons and we started scouting to find a suitable bird concentration that would soon provide us with some outstanding memories.

The pigeons were in the center of a large field, clearly visible over the short grass, but keeping quite a safe distance from any potentially dangerous predators, including us. We started walking on a more or less parallel path in order to avoid spooking our prey, and assumed a prone position almost without cover, but about seventy meters from the group of pigeons.

Resting the forearm of the Kalibr Cricket Tactical 22 on the edge of a wooden plank and ranging the target at 75 meters I selected the first target and put the proper Mil-Dot where the wing joins the body. The shot departed almost noiseless and after flapping the wings for a couple times the pigeon rested not to move again. The surrounding birds showed almost no reaction and continued to pick in the recently watered grass.

In the next several minutes we had unstoppable action and the downed birds acted as decoys attracting other passing pigeons.

Gustavo was then introduced to the gorgeous Cricket and on his first shot connected with a pigeon at around sixty meters. Quite a feat!

But pigeons exist in large numbers because they are not fools and apart from the downed birds, no other would come in range. But eventually I located one lonely bird almost across the field, quartering away from us, form right to left, at a pigeon's pace.

I adjusted the scope to have a sharp view of the unsuspecting pigeon and picked the lowest Mil-Dot to give maximum elevation, and put it just ahead of the top of the breast and gently pressed the trigger. After what I felt was half of an eternity, the 18 grains JSB pellet struck home, and the pigeon was quiet with no more an a flap.

Aluísio and Gustavo walked to pick up this last pigeon and using a laser range finder clicked me from my shooting position at exact one hundred and thirty meters!

The following photo session helped us preserve the memories of a fantastic afternoon, the first blood bath of a new hunter, and celebration of friendship and the love of the chase.