This headline has been bandied around recently and seems to have some substance. Anyone who does not see evidence that there is climate change is missing the obvious. As a bird hunter who has pursued American woodcock all his life, the change in migration dates is clear. Here in Massachusetts, the third week of October was always the time slot when you would be most likely to find a flight of woodcock in local covers. Woodcock migrate south and you can suddenly find you are flushing several woodcock in covers that days earlier were devoid of the diminutive migrants. Since there is a local population as well, you find birds in suitable habitat early in the fall, but the local birds also migrate, and abandon covers as they move south.
Oftentimes, flights of the nocturnal woodcock drop into the same covers where local birds are found. Like native birds, they seek places where there is the moist soil that holds the preferred food, earthworms. Alders along streams and near pastures are great resting spots. If you talk with veteran woodcock hunters, they will recall a time when they were leaving a cover as the day ended and observed woodcock pitching in as the day waned. Invariably, the hunters would head to that spot first thing in the morning, expecting a bonanza. In most cases, all that is found is the telltale white woodcock droppings, called chalk or whitewash.
This past Tuesday, the truck was loaded with recyclables and trash at 10:15 a.m. when it was necessary to stop the truck on the Orange landfill entry road to allow a woodcock to cross the road. If you have ever watched a woodcock walk, you will understand what I mean when I say I almost laughed out loud. The bird was bobbing and wobbling as he slowly made his way to the far side.
After finishing my landfill business, Dinah and Laney were summoned from their naps on the sofa and easy chair to join me and we found a flight in the first local cover we visited. It is easily the thickest and most impenetrable that I hunt, anywhere, and the multiflora rose, briars, autumn olive and glossy buckthorn made it a struggle as Laney found and pointed eight woodcock. The thick cover made it tough to get to the birds and two actually had a hard time getting airborne and were out of sight by the time they cleared the vegetation. We were able to bag one and then it was Dinah’s turn in the next cover. She was soon solid on point and not one, but two woodcock escaped without a shot being fired. The old dog is really doing well for 14 and she did a great job. Two points later, a second woodcock was slipped into the worn L.L. Bean vest as the warm temperatures finally ended our hunt.
That followed Monday’s drive to the Birch Hill Wildlife Management Area, where this writer spent every Saturday of his teenage Octobers. Back then, the sprawling 7,400-acre Birch Hill WMA was a series of open fields created by National Guardsmen who were heavy equipment operators. The result was pheasant hunters’ heaven. Each stocked area had its own followers and the Roches and our Irish setter staked our claim to a spot off New Boston Road. Then, as now, hunting on a wildlife management area begins at sunrise and ends at sunset. That differs from other lands where hunting is legal one-half hour before sunrise and concludes one half hour after sunset. So, the hunters would wait impatiently for the start of legal shooting and then en masse would enter the fields in search of stock ring-necked pheasants. Now, 50-plus years later, most of those fields are grown over and are mature stands of trees. There is an on-going effort to do management work to create openings and early successional growth to benefit a broad range of wildlife. My main reason for taking the half-hour drive was to hunt some of the WMA where the habitat is mostly overgrown fields, which are ideal pheasant habitat. That open cover is also ideal for hunting Dinah as she can see where I am and is less likely to get “lost.”
As we headed in, a single hunter, without a dog, was heading out. We chatted, and I asked him if he wanted to join me and the two dogs. He did and we talked as the two French Brittanys coursed the cover. As we proceeded, another dogless hunter, who I recognized as Mark Watson, was on a similar course. Mark spends a lot of time walking the Birch Hill WMA and is a serious Quabbin fisherman, having landed a 16-pound lake trout last summer. After greeting him, we asked him to join us and off we went on a beautiful fall mid-day. Unfortunately, the girls did not find any live pheasants, but Laney got us excited when she pointed what turned out to be the feathers from a recent pheasant kill, most likely by a coyote or fox. Having the two hunters join in made the hunt much more enjoyable.
Later, we ran into Steve Johnson and his lab, Katie, and she flushed a cock pheasant that will be the main ingredient for a pheasant pie. Woodcock season concludes Nov. 20 and it would appear that the woodcock hunting should continue for a bit as the flights move through but eventually they will, sadly, be gone for another year until they head back north in the early spring.
Our forays bird hunting have provided evidence that the whitetail rut is underway. Rubs or hookings on saplings are common and now ground scrapes are appearing. Both are signs that the bucks are moving around looking for receptive does and are left as communication. Does will come into estrus and can be bred for a 24-hour time frame. Does will cause bucks to chase them prior to becoming fertile and allowing a buck to breed her. If not bred, does will usually come back into estrus in about a month. Usually around Nov. 11 rutting activity will peak and there will be lots of deer running around. That activity offers opportunities to hunters and Massachusetts bow hunters have been out in full force. Firearms season in New Hampshire opened Thursday and Vermont firearms rifle season opens Saturday. All the New England states have healthy whitetail populations and weather and luck will determine the collective and individual outcomes.