There are Two Ways of Shooting

Today I did something that I will probably regret for a very long time; I shot a spruce grouse. My regret does not stem from shooting the bird or having to sluice all four birds I harvested: as you can tell from my recent article about sluicing (pdf). I also didn’t feel bad that I had to walk within three feet of the birds to get them to flush, and yes, every one of them flew straight up to a nearby tree limb. I even had to back up a significant distance with one of the birds so my shot did not ruin the meat.

Here was the issue. With the first birds I came across I wish I had taken a picture instead. Let me explain. It was raining and snowing on and off in the area I was trying to find my first spruce grouse so the birds were out of the wet vegetation on the edges of logging roads and trails. In the higher elevations the leaves are changing, the colors are vibrant and magically varied. I came across my first spruce grouse strutting for all he was worth in the midst of some leaves painted with bright reds and yellows. These bright colors contrasted with the surrounding greens, browns and the gloomy day but could not overshadow the rich red eye stripe and the brilliant array of white and black in the tail and neck of this little bird. It was a perfect setup for a photo shoot. I do not think I could have designed it better. Until today I had not even seen a spruce grouse in the wild or captivity. Now, back to the regret. My first sighting of a spruce grouse was of this adult male strutting around numerous females. It was beautiful. Truly a moment that should have been captured on film instead of or at least before getting lost in my quest to harvest a couple of the birds.

I think part of my thought to take a photo was that I recently purchased a Panasonic digital camera with a 12x Optical zoom. The issue with the camera is it is as large as most 35mm cameras and I have to carry it in my backpack or have it take up room in the bag of my hunting vest. Neither situation allows for quick access. I used to own a pocket size Sony Cybershot, which lived in the front pocket of my hunting vest, readily accessible for this kind of situation. Because my current camera is not quickly accessible while I’m hunting I do not think about taking pictures as much.

I did stop and watch this male strut, lost in the show, and I’m sure with a half-cocked grin on my face. But my heart was also racing, here was my quarry, part of the grand slam; and after two hours of driving, a pissed off dog since she was left in the truck, and then walking in the rain and snow I was anxious to make sure I put a bird in my hunting vest. After a few minutes of watching I moved closer to the male to see how close I could actually get to these “fools hens”. Ten feet, five feet, three feet and then the hens started to flush but the little male did not stop with his display until all the females had flushed.

The tail fans and wings from today’s hunt are spread and drying. I ended up with an adult male and female and a juvenile male and female. The differences in their tails fans are dramatic. Most of the feathers from the four grouse are in Ziploc bags. The meat is in the freezer. Interestingly the adults had real dark breast meat and the juveniles’ breast meat was much lighter, more like a ruff grouse. Three of the 4 birds had crops filled with needles from the surrounding trees; the fourth crop was empty. I know I will look at the beautiful tail fan of the adult male from today forward with the thought that what I missed by not taking my camera out of the pack was the real treasure of the day.

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