Earlier, with the sun up and warming the earth (pa'tridge and timberdoodles don't demand a crack-of-dawn presence), the springer and I had finished a ritual of tailgate sitting and listening to the woods come alive. For an active dog--good springer spaniels define "active"--he tolerates and, perhaps, takes his own measure of enjoyment from tailgating. At the least, he has accepted that that's the way life is when we hunt without partners. But when I toss the cold coffee, he's up and waiting for his bell collar. Then a finger snap, and he's off the truck and ready to hunt.

By any measure, ruffed grouse are the quintessential bird of New Endland cover. Without grouse, “the whole thing is dead.”

After a couple of casts into roadside cover, mainly for the dog to leg-lift and get his head straight, we worked through a sun-dappled aspen stand where grouse often soak up morning warmth and gobble autumnal fare offered by the light ground cover. I heard a grouse flush wild well in front at the same time the springer's windmilling tail signaled game, woodcock judging from his erratic, nose-to-the-ground trail.

Sure enough, up went a bird with the dog nearly lifting it into the air. The woodcock leveled off, then dipped down the aspen slope to an alder run and creek edging the cover near the red maple, where shortly I would bungle my crack at the red-phase grouse before the dog and I dropped into the alders.

The springer flushed six more woodcock and I took one (my self-imposed limit), a bird that led the dog on a long chase and whose evasive repertoire included short-hopping flights and long scoots--yes, woodcock do run--over the damp earth of the creek banks. The dog stayed on the bird until the end, until the twittering flush that was high and swift, corkscrewing back on itself before straightening and heading out above the alders. To top off his bird work, my springer made a nice retrieve--he had no more than a glimpse of the woodcock's forward tumble.

Less than 30 minutes later, as the dog and I took a break, several stringers of Canada geese passed overhead, low and talking plaintively to themselves. The springer glanced at them, then flopped in a clump of cool ferns while I admired the brace of grouse I had just knocked down several hundred yards from the creek.

They were young-of-the-year, two of eight birds clustered together--not uncommon in October--drawn by the bounty of lingering berries. The birds were on the slopes of a shallow ravine gouged by one of the trickles that fed the alder run's creek. I had hunted up the ravine hoping the dog would move a few more woodcock, for no other reason than I liked to watch him work the birds. Then he started making game with on-fire action that screamed grouse.

One bird had jumped wild on the ravine's far lip, when the springer went into high gear and flushed the first of my brace, going airborne himself and snapping at tail feathers. I marked that bird's fall and released the dog from his sit just as two more went out to the side. I took a flustered poke at them but reloaded in time to focus on the other half of my pair that the springer shoved skyward. Three more flushed at my shot, then the slopes were quiet. Feathers floated with the breeze as the springer fetched both grouse.