[ad_1]
AS I WAS DOZING over the Sunday paper, in that blissful state of semiconsciousness that follows an lively day and a superb dinner, the telephone rang. A brisk female voice needed to know if this was my residence. I assured her that it was, and he or she mentioned: “Maintain the road, please. Ellsworth is looking.”
Now who the satan do I do know in Ellsworth, I puzzled. Then a drawling voice mentioned: “Whats up, Hank, is that you just? That is Raymond. Say, pay attention, if you need a few of that woodcock taking pictures we had been speaking about final summer season, you higher get down right here tomorrow. I simply got here in off the Air Line Street, and I noticed three flights in lower than an hour. They’re transferring on the complete of the moon, and the covers will likely be stuffed with birds within the morning. How early are you able to get down right here?”
I knew then who was speaking and what he was speaking about. I recalled an argument we had had early in the summertime and a few rash predictions that Raymond had made on the time. He had promised to indicate me some heavy woodcock flights, and now, it appeared, he was able to make good. I made some hasty psychological calculations earlier than replying.
“Nicely, let’s see,” I answered. “Dawn is about quarter previous 6. I can pay money for somebody on the airport and have the aircraft omitted tonight. I must get away by 6:30, and that ought to get me to Trenton by 8 o’clock. I feel it’s about 110 miles.”
“That’ll be quickly sufficient. Arthur don’t prefer to stand up too early, anyway. And say, you higher carry loads of shells—you’re going to see a variety of woodcock,” he promised.
I bought in contact with Ed on the area and instructed him to tie the Voyager down exterior so I may get it early within the morning. Then I known as the Climate Bureau. I used to be instructed I may anticipate an excellent day.
Whereas I used to be laying out shells, clothes, digicam, and movie for straightforward assortment within the morning, I reviewed our dialogue about flight woodcock which had resulted in Raymond’s telephone name. I remembered that we had been evaluating experiences when he had mentioned: “Why don’t you come down East subsequent fall and get some actual taking pictures? I’ll telephone you when there’s a flight on, and you’ll wind up that hedge-hopper of yours and be down there in an hour.”
“SORT OF an interception flight to bust up an evening invasion,” I’d noticed. “Nicely, it sounds simple. The one bother is, we each know there isn’t one probability in 100 of forecasting a flight that shut. Certain, I’ve hit flights, and I anticipate to once more. I’ve seen the birds so thick within the alders that the canine practically went loopy. I’ve stood virtually in my tracks and shot the restrict of 4, and I’ve seen the spaniels stand up two and three woodcock at a time. However nobody ever instructed me beforehand when these issues had been going to occur.”
“Nicely, you metropolis fellows who hunt these little half-acre covers can’t be anticipated to know a lot about woodcock. Come down East the place we increase ’em, and you might study one thing. I’ll name you subsequent fall when the flight is on,” Raymond drawled.
It was true that I had by no means hunted woodcock a lot past the bounds of my very own Maine neighborhood. I didn’t should. I may go away the home at dawn, hunt one or two small covers, and get to my workplace by 9 o’clock. Often I’d get a pair birds, not sometimes the restrict of 4.
It simply occurs that I stay in good woodcock nation and may hunt as usually as I want in the course of the season. The distant covers had by no means attracted me. I couldn’t see placing in two or three days, greater than half of which might be journey time, to shoot 4 woodcock after I may do the identical factor inside a radius of fifteen miles from house.
I MIGHT HAVE KNOWN that Raymond may, and would, make good on his promise. He’s a chief warden whose territory consists of all of japanese Maine, which is acknowledged to be the best woodcock area within the nation. I ought to have realized, too, that his work regularly stored him on the roads at night time and that he would know when the woodcock had been transferring.
This night time was an instance. He had been driving over the Air Line Street, which bisects Washington County, and had seen the birds flying throughout the freeway, simply seen within the brilliant moonlight. He knew there had been a freeze-up and that the birds he noticed meant that the woodcock had been starting to maneuver southward.
The long-billed whistlers are nonetheless considerably of a thriller to ornithologists and hunters alike, however it’s common information that they’re strictly nocturnal of their habits. They feed at night time and migrate at night time. In the course of the daytime they relaxation, within the sidehill birch and alder covers, transferring solely when disturbed.
There are quite a few theories that try to elucidate the motivating explanation for their fall migration. Some hunters say they all the time transfer on the complete of the moon; others will inform you that the birds by no means begin south besides in entrance of a north wind. And I’ve recognized males to swear that there could be a flight in the course of the week of the twenty-first of October. The one reliable trigger I do know of is frozen floor. When the earth crusts over in order that woodcock can’t drill holes within the floor and probe for angleworms with their lengthy payments, they transfer alongside to hotter areas.
Perhaps they sense the approaching of chilly climate, however I favor to consider that they keep of their native northern covers so long as they’ll get meals. Anyway, I’ve seen huge flights in mid-October after an early freeze-up, and I’ve seen woodcock linger on within the north till mid-November, in years when the mercury stayed above freezing.
The rationale it’s so tough to come across flights in the course of the brief open season is that the birds, as soon as they do begin migrating, don’t appear to remain in a single place greater than a day I’ve discovered a canopy that was stuffed with birds within the afternoon to be utterly barren the following morning. If you do discover them bunched that manner—effectively, it’s one thing to recollect for a very long time.
I ought to have recognized sufficient to return to mattress for one more hour of sleep after searching the window subsequent morning. The bottom was white with frost. However I hurried alongside, intent on attending to the airport quickly after dawn. I caught an early climate broadcast whereas driving in, and the announcer confirmed what I had been instructed the night time earlier than.
Right now, he mentioned, quoting a regional forecast, could be an Indian summer season day, heat with clear skies and typical horizon haze. He defined, in nice element, that the northeast part of the nation was within the heart of an enormous high-pressure space which couldn’t fail to carry clear skies for the following two days.
WHEN I ARRIVED on the airport and seemed on the aircraft, a Stinson Voyager, I cursed myself for being a inconsiderate idiot. It was coated with 1 / 4 of an inch of laborious, icelike frost! Why hadn’t I anticipated that after I noticed the white blanket on the bottom at house?
The aircraft was unflyable in that situation. The frost wouldn’t solely create a terrific drag but it surely modified the camber, or form, of the wings. The ailerons had been inflexible, and I couldn’t transfer the elevators. Moreover, there was nothing I may do about it, however wait.
Ed confirmed up at seven o’clock, and we turned the ship round, tail to the east, in order that when the solar had risen excessive sufficient, it might strike the frosted surfaces. When the icy coating started to soften, Ed helped the method together with a window brush.
I phoned Raymond and defined why I might be an hour late in arriving. I figured I may make Trenton in an hour for the reason that winds-aloft chart indicated a 25-mile tail wind at 4,000 ft.
I pulled up right into a cloudless sky at precisely 8 o’clock, circled the sphere, held the nostril at 78 levels, and began climbing throughout Casco Bay, leveling off at 4,000 ft over the Harpswell shore. The wind wasn’t fairly on my tail, and I needed to appropriate my compass heading to 74 levels after making the following checkpoint, a freeway and a small pond southeast of Tub.
It was a type of uncommon mornings once you didn’t must fly with a chart in your lap to observe a wierd course. Regardless of the climate forecast there was no haze and on the fifty-mile level I may see Cadillac Mountain, ten miles southeast of Trenton airport. The air was so clean the aircraft would fly hands-off, and the temperature at 4,000 ft was noticeably hotter than it had been on the bottom at Portland.
FIGURING GROUND SPEEED, I discovered that my estimate of arrival could be shut. I used to be making virtually 100 miles an hour on the midway level and would choose up extra relative velocity from there on, since I had sacrificed about 15 miles an hour whereas climbing to 4,000 ft.
I puzzled, as I handed Camden a pair miles to the south, if John and Curt had been within the covers that morning. They had been those who initiated me into the fraternity of timber-doodle chasers, years in the past. I fell to fascinated with Dime, John’s rangy pointer of these days, an enormous canine with the blood of the well-known Frank pressure predominant in his veins. John used to hold a small cowbell on Dime’s collar and when the bell stopped clanking it meant just one factor: there was a woodcock not removed from the canine’s nostril.
The course throughout Penobscot Bay took me over the southern finish of Isleboro, virtually over Lime Island the place, as a high-school child, I bought my first style of duck searching and located it good. The island was then owned by my uncle, and I used to be a frequent customer there every fall. I used to be on the bottom at Trenton at 9 o’clock. Raymond and Arthur and Raymond’s pointers, Queen and Jack, had been ready. They had been impatient to get began on what Raymond mentioned was to be an illustration for the town hunter. Arthur mentioned he needed to fly again with me that afternoon.
“The place are you taking me for this demonstration?” I needed to know.
“What d’you care? You’re in no hurry,” Raymond countered.
“No, I’m in no hurry now, however I’ve bought a 25-mile head wind for the time being, and it might be greater than that earlier than midday. I’ve to get again to Portland earlier than sundown,” I defined.
“Need to hunt a few of these half-acre covers tomorrow, I suppose,” my information mentioned.
We turned off the Bangor–Bar Harbor freeway a number of miles south of the airport, and ten minutes later Raymond drove the automobile off the highway right into a area. There was a blended progress of alder and birch on each side of the highway.
“Take Jack into that nook, and I’ll go within the path,” Raymond instructed Arthur as we crossed the sphere. “Hank, you keep exterior,” he instructed me.
Raymond was hardly out of sight within the alders when Queen’s bell stopped tinkling. He spoke, telling me to be careful. He would flush the chook, however wouldn’t shoot. Giving me a straightforward one, I believed.
I heard the woodcock whistle earlier than Raymond yelled, “Mark!” The chook climbed out of the duvet, appeared to hold within the air a break up second (which was after I ought to have taken the shot), then got here straight towards me in a fluttering glide. I couldn’t shoot with out the cost going into the duvet, so I turned to take the shot going away. However the woodcock, sometimes unpredictable, sideslipped all the way down to a delicate touchdown not ten yards from my ft.
I knew higher, after all, than to do what I did then, however the temptation, as all the time, was too sturdy. I took two steps, and the chook went away from there in a tightly banked flip a couple of foot above the bottom. I missed with each barrels.
Queen got here out on the photographs, noticed solely me, a stranger, and went again into the alders. Then Raymond got here out.
“Get each of them?” he inquired casually.
I checked out him a minute earlier than confessing. “No,” I mentioned. “I missed one—twice.”
“However two birds bought up,” he insisted. “You higher are available right here with me. There’s a flight on this cowl; the bottom is peppered with contemporary droppings.”
What occurred in the course of the subsequent two hours satisfied me, as Raymond had predicted, that I may study one thing about woodcock taking pictures down East. There could have been twenty or fifty birds in that cowl, I wouldn’t hazard a guess. All I do know is that’s that they had been in all places, typically 4 or 5 in an space no bigger than a baseball diamond. Then the canines would fan out and discover a single, or a pair, or hit one other bunch shut collectively. It was the type of woodcock taking pictures each veteran timber-doodle hunter stumbles onto a few times in a lifetime, besides that right here there appeared to be no finish to it, besides the four-bird restrict for every of us.
Raymond counted first after Queen pointed behind a scrub hemlock. Then I linked with one over her level in a clearing. Jack got here up and honored Queen’s subsequent level, and I missed, however Arthur bought one other chook which flushed on the similar time. I bought my second over and my third after Raymond kicked one out from below Queen’s nostril in a miniature jungle.
Raymond’s subsequent tally was a banded chook, the primary both of us had ever killed.
“There,” he mentioned, “is proof of a flight, should you want any.”
It was. We realized later that the chook was one in all three banded the previous spring some miles east of the duvet the place it was killed. Whereas we had been analyzing the banded chook, Arthur fired and some minutes later shouted: “Convey the canines over right here, I’ve misplaced a chook.”
Neither Queen nor Jack favored to retrieve woodcock. Queen, nevertheless, would carry a chook gingerly, as if afraid of the lengthy invoice, if Raymond wasn’t round to select it up when she pointed “lifeless.” However neither of the pointers may find Arthur’s misplaced woodcock which he had flushed and shot with out help from the canines. We scoured the realm with out success till Arthur stepped up on a blow-down and yelled: “Come have a look at this!”
The lifeless chook was on the thick department of a fir, six ft above the bottom!
We shot and missed, shot and counted, till at 11:30, we had our restrict of twelve and went again to the automobile to eat lunch.
The sky didn’t look good. The ceiling had modified from limitless blue to closely overcast grey, and it gave the impression to be dropping. I considered what the radio annonucer had reported that morning and made a comment about climate forecasts typically. By 12:30, the sky started to look threatening, and I insisted that it was time for us to maneuver towards the airport.
The Coast Guard climate observer on the area was giving 3,000 ft over Trenton, and the 12:30 teletype sequence confirmed 2,500 at Portland. The wind was from the southwest, which meant it might be virtually on the nostril going again, and the rate was 20 miles an hour on the bottom. Farther south, at Cape Cod, that they had 34 miles an hour, a sign of what I’d run into on the best way again.
I didn’t tarry lengthy over farewells. I had anticipated that Arthur would change his thoughts about going again with me, however he didn’t. He reasoned that I needed to hunt woodcock once more as badly as he did, and if I believed it was secure flying climate that was ok for him.
We had been off the bottom at 1:30, climbing quick into the top wind. I held the aircraft all the way down to 1,500 to Little Deer Isle, then took one other 1,000 ft for the twenty miles throughout Penobscot Bay. It seemed dangerous to the west, and my ideas about climate forecasters weren’t complimentary. The ceiling was dropping, though the visibility remained pretty good. I figured we may make Rockland, anyway, and land on the naval base there, if obligatory.
right here could have been twenty or fifty birds in that cowl, I wouldn’t hazard a guess. All I do know is that’s that they had been in all places.
It was no worse once we hit the coast but it surely nonetheless seemed questionable within the path of Portland. So I headed somewhat north of the course with a purpose to keep over land all the best way. Over Tub I knew I may make Brunswick, and over Brunswick I figured we had time to make Portland, or flip again to Brunswick, if the ceiling ought to drop a lot beneath 1,000 ft.
It did, and we got here in over Casco Bay at 700, touchdown at Portland at 3:30, precisely two hours after leaving Trenton. It was simply twice my time happening, however the common of an hour and a half for every leg wasn’t too dangerous. The spherical journey would have required seven or eight hours over the highway.
“Assume we should always name Raymond and let him know we arrived safely?” I requested Arthur, after we had put the weapons and birds in my automobile.
“What for? He received’t fear a minute about both of us. He’s most likely out searching for poachers by this time,” Arthur answered.
I used to be simply ending a late supper when the telephone rang. It was Raymond.
“What time d’you get in?” he requested. “About 3:30,” I instructed him. “Why, had been you nervous?”
“Gosh, no, however a fellow simply known as me up.and mentioned there was an enormous bunch of birds transferring into a canopy down in Sullivan. I believed perhaps you’d like to come back down and—”
I minimize him brief. “Yeah, I do know—and study one thing about woodcock taking pictures down East,” I completed. “Pay attention, mister, if this metropolis hunter wasn’t satisfied at this time, he’s too dumb to take one other lesson tomorrow. And moreover, Arthur desires me to indicate him a pair half-acre covers within the morning.”
This story initially ran within the October 1946 difficulty as “Winging for Woodcock.” Learn extra OL+ tales.
[ad_2]
