AS I WAS DOZING over the Sunday paper, in that blissful state of semiconsciousness that follows an lively day and a very good dinner, the telephone rang. A brisk female voice wished to know if this was my residence. I assured her that it was, and he or she stated: “Maintain the road, please. Ellsworth is looking.”

Now who the satan do I do know in Ellsworth, I puzzled. Then a drawling voice stated: “Hiya, Hank, is that you simply? That is Raymond. Say, pay attention, in order for you a few of that woodcock taking pictures we have been speaking about final summer time, you higher get down right here tomorrow. I simply got here in off the Air Line Highway, and I noticed three flights in lower than an hour. They’re transferring on the total of the moon, and the covers might 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 point out me some heavy woodcock flights, and now, it appeared, he was able to make good. I made some hasty psychological calculations earlier than replying. 

“Properly, let’s see,” I answered. “Dawn is about quarter previous 6. I can pay money for somebody on the airport and have the airplane omitted tonight. I should 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 wish to stand up too early, anyway. And say, you higher deliver loads of shells—you’re going to see plenty of woodcock,” he promised. 

I obtained in contact with Ed on the discipline and advised 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 advised I may count on an excellent day. 

Whereas I used to be laying out shells, clothes, digital camera, and movie for simple 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 stated: “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 may 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. “Properly, it sounds simple. The one hassle is, we each know there isn’t one likelihood in 100 of forecasting a flight that shut. Positive, I’ve hit flights, and I count on to once more. I’ve seen the birds so thick within the alders that the canine almost 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 advised me beforehand when these issues have been going to occur.” 

“Properly, 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 could 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 need to. I may go away the home at dawn, hunt one or two small covers, and get to my workplace by 9 o’clock. Normally I’d get a pair birds, not sometimes the restrict of 4. 

It simply occurs that I reside in good woodcock nation and might hunt as typically as I want throughout 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 dwelling. 

I MIGHT HAVE KNOWN that Raymond may, and would, make good on his promise. He’s a chief warden whose territory contains 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 often stored him on the roads at evening and that he would know when the woodcock have been transferring. 

This evening was an instance. He had been driving over the Air Line Highway, which bisects Washington County, and had seen the birds flying throughout the freeway, simply seen within the vivid moonlight. He knew there had been a freeze-up and that the birds he noticed meant that the woodcock have been starting to maneuver southward. 

The long-billed whistlers are nonetheless considerably of a thriller to ornithologists and hunters alike, however it’s common data that they’re strictly nocturnal of their habits. They feed at evening and migrate at evening. 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 reason for their fall migration. Some hunters say they all the time transfer on the total of the moon; others will let you know 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 throughout 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. 

Possibly they sense the approaching of chilly climate, however I want to imagine that they keep of their native northern covers so long as they’ll get meals. Anyway, I’ve seen large 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 troublesome to come across flights throughout 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 subsequent morning. Whenever you do discover them bunched that method—nicely, it’s one thing to recollect for a very long time. 

I ought to have recognized sufficient to return to mattress for an additional 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 advised the evening earlier than. 

At the moment, he stated, quoting a regional forecast, could be an Indian summer time 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 a giant high-pressure space which couldn’t fail to deliver clear skies for the subsequent two days.

WHEN I ARRIVED on the airport and regarded on the airplane, a Stinson Voyager, I cursed myself for being a inconsiderate idiot. It was coated with 1 / 4 of an inch of exhausting, icelike frost! Why hadn’t I anticipated that after I noticed the white blanket on the bottom at dwelling? 

The airplane was unflyable in that situation. The frost wouldn’t solely create a terrific drag nevertheless it modified the camber, or form, of the wings. The ailerons have 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 could 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’d 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 right my compass heading to 74 levels after making the subsequent checkpoint, a freeway and a small pond southeast of Bathtub. 

It was a type of uncommon mornings once you didn’t must fly with a chart in your lap to comply with 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 easy the airplane 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 decide up extra relative pace 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 have been within the covers that morning. They have 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, a giant 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 obtained 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, have been ready. They have been impatient to get began on what Raymond stated was to be an indication for the town hunter. Arthur stated he wished to fly again with me that afternoon. 

“The place are you taking me for this demonstration?” I wished to know. 

“What d’you care? You’re in no hurry,” Raymond countered. 

“No, I’m in no hurry now, however I’ve obtained a 25-mile head wind in the meanwhile, 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 stated. 

We turned off the Bangor–Bar Harbor freeway just a few miles south of the airport, and ten minutes later Raymond drove the automobile off the street right into a discipline. There was a blended progress of alder and birch on each side of the street. 

“Take Jack into that nook, and I’ll go within the path,” Raymond advised 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 chicken, however wouldn’t shoot. Giving me a straightforward one, I assumed. 

I heard the woodcock whistle earlier than Raymond yelled, “Mark!” The chicken climbed out of the quilt, appeared to hold within the air a cut 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 quilt, so I turned to take the shot going away. However the woodcock, usually unpredictable, sideslipped right down to a delicate touchdown not ten yards from my ft. 

I knew higher, in fact, than to do what I did then, however the temptation, as all the time, was too robust. I took two steps, and the chicken 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 pictures, 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 stated. “I missed one—twice.” 

“However two birds obtained up,” he insisted. “You higher are available in right here with me. There’s a flight on this cowl; the bottom is peppered with contemporary droppings.” 

What occurred throughout the subsequent two hours satisfied me, as Raymond had predicted, that I may study one thing about woodcock taking pictures down East. There might have been twenty or fifty birds in that cowl, I wouldn’t hazard a guess. All I do know is that’s that they have been all over the place, 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 form of woodcock taking pictures each veteran timber-doodle hunter stumbles onto a couple of 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 obtained one other chicken which flushed on the identical time. I obtained my second over and my third after Raymond kicked one out from beneath Queen’s nostril in a miniature jungle. 

Raymond’s subsequent tally was a banded chicken, the primary both of us had ever killed.

“There,” he stated, “is proof of a flight, when you want any.” 

It was. We discovered later that the chicken was certainly one of three banded the previous spring some miles east of the quilt the place it was killed. Whereas we have been inspecting the banded chicken, Arthur fired and some minutes later shouted: “Carry the canines over right here, I’ve misplaced a chicken.”

Neither Queen nor Jack preferred to retrieve woodcock. Queen, nevertheless, would carry a chicken gingerly, as if afraid of the lengthy invoice, if Raymond wasn’t round to choose it up when she pointed “useless.” 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 world with out success till Arthur stepped up on a blow-down and yelled: “Come take a look at this!” 

The useless chicken 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 seemed to be dropping. I considered what the radio annonucer had reported that morning and made a comment about climate forecasts on the whole. 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 discipline 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 could 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 wished to hunt woodcock once more as badly as he did, and if I assumed it was protected flying climate that was adequate for him. 

We have been off the bottom at 1:30, climbing quick into the pinnacle wind. I held the airplane right down to 1,500 to Little Deer Isle, then took one other 1,000 ft for the twenty miles throughout Penobscot Bay. It regarded unhealthy 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 vital. 

It was no worse once we hit the coast nevertheless it nonetheless regarded questionable within the route of Portland. So I headed a little bit north of the course in an effort to keep over land all the best way. Over Bathtub 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 unhealthy. The spherical journey would have required seven or eight hours over the street. 

“Assume we must 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 gained’t fear a minute about both of us. He’s most likely out on the lookout 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 advised him. “Why, have been you apprehensive?” 

“Gosh, no, however a fellow simply known as me up.and stated there was a giant bunch of birds transferring into a canopy down in Sullivan. I assumed perhaps you’d like to come back down and—”

I reduce him brief. “Yeah, I do know—and study one thing about woodcock taking pictures down East,” I completed. “Hear, mister, if this metropolis hunter wasn’t satisfied as we speak, he’s too dumb to take one other lesson tomorrow. And apart from, Arthur needs me to point out him a pair half-acre covers within the morning.”

This story initially ran within the October 1946 problem as “Winging for Woodcock.” Learn extra OL+ tales.