Even if you can’t migrate like a duck when winter’s icy grip takes hold, you can change locales and hedge your bets when hunting your favorite upland species. The only question is how far? A few miles? A few hundred yards? Or is it sometimes more a “mental migration?”
Just like us, birds need three things: shelter, warmth, and food. But trees are bare skeletons, wind shrieks, and groceries are scarce. Armed with those criteria, a savvy hunter can find a starting point in almost any habitat. Or can they?
The good news is, this time of year, your own priorities are often similar to a game bird’s. Start by looking at the spot where most of your brag-worthy pictures are taken. In the balmy days of October, you know where cozy roosting cover beckons and food sources are abundant. If you’re wearing granddad’s plaid wool coat, check for fruit hanging on bare limbs, weed seeds, and grain under the snow. Is there still vegetative or topographic structure to shelter them from wind? Drop the tailgate and go hunting!
Finding areas with cover is key to winter upland hunting. (Photo courtesy of Scott Linden) Look for Thermal Cover Right, yeah, it’s seldom that simple. So, start at your favorite place and think in concentric circles. Widen your search for each component, thermal cover being the priority. A bird can go hungry for a day or two, but might freeze to death overnight. If your life depended on it, where would you go once the snow flies? Then drill again—this time literally—kicking up snow to see what the ground offers in the way of seeds, forbs, and grains. Look to bare branches for remnant berries and buds. The closer to good cover the better, as birds don’t want to get too far from comfort and safety. One of my hunts has an ancient apple tree, gnarled branches reaching for the sky and holding fruit long into January. I send the dog under it on every visit.
Find Their Food Still not working? Remember that some game birds have evolved over the millennia to adjust to food sources by the season. (Gut bacteria change in some grouse so they can digest fir needles in winter.) We talk a good game about opening crops of shot birds, but face it, nobody does it often enough. In winter, it can make the difference between a birdless day and a personal limit (however you define that).
Changing or temporary conditions—from wind sneaking up your pant legs, to hard freezes that turn snow into an impenetrable barrier—affect bird behavior. Just like you, birds will move to the lee side of a hill, drop into a gully, or hunker close to sheltering rocks to conserve a few precious degrees of warmth. For a critter that can’t just layer-up, thick pine needles or a snow burrow are matters of life or death. Ask yourself: where is the warmest, driest, safest place I can see from here? Go there. We hunkered under a cliff in a downpour that would float Noah’s Ark; eventually the chukar deeper in the cleft lost his nerve and flushed.
Look on Warm Sunny Slopes Still not finding them? Slide downslope to clear ground, nearer to favorable cover in riparian zones. South-facing slopes (big and small), warm earliest and the morning sun’s rays are your best friend after a frigid night shivering next to your covey mates. Boulders and rocky cliffs retain heat longer into a wintry night. A field of softball-sized, sun-soaked rocks held an entire covey of Huns on a recent hunt. We each shot a single from that bunch.
Okay, now that you’re thinking like a bird, let’s chase a few popular species.
When hunting pheasants, find areas that offer shelter from the wind and weather. (Photo courtesy of Scott Linden) Late-Season Pheasants In most of their habitat, a slight dip in terrain ameliorates the wind a bit, but can also grow cattails. Along with brushy thickets and shelterbelts (hence the name), the ground is often snow-free while the vegetation forms a roof overhead. Cattail analogs include draws, swales, and gullies with thick vegetation. In a blizzard in North Dakota, we bumped a fat whitetail buck and pair of ringnecks loafing under a canopy of snow-covered brush.
Find the food that quail feed on when hunting in the winter. (Photo courtesy of Scott Linden) Winter Bobwhites In their northern range, bobwhite quail will seek weedy forbs, sunflower, and ragweed. I like plum thickets and evergreen stands with bare ground so birds can run. Desert quail live the life of Riley, worried about sunburn, not frostbite. But their valley counterparts battle blizzards like most other game birds. They likely won’t go far from their cozy tree roost unless pressed by scarcity of their favorite foods: weed seeds, green shots, and forbs. No luck? Search out oaks (they’ll eat broken-up acorns).
Sharptail Even more so than quail, will be in big flocks with a lot of paranoid eyeballs looking out for predators. Seek sheltering draws with thickets or isolated bunches of chokecherry, plum, or buffalo berry—yum, food and cover.
Wintering Western Ruffed Grouse Ruffed grouse will roost in snow, creating their own microclimate insulated by the white stuff. They’ll hide under snow-covered shrubs, especially if there’s fallen fruit underneath. Thick conifer stands hold warmth and thwart goshawk attacks; buds of aspen and birch nourish ruffies, as do mountain laurel, white oak acorns, and even clover further south. A massive pear tree dominates a gully on one of my hunts, and always has a bird or two underneath picking at fallen fruit.
Chukar are covey birds that like hillsides with less snow so they can reach their food. (Photo courtesy of Scott Linden) Chukar and Huns Late in the Year Chukars are hardy birds from the slopes of the Himalayas, but they only survived there (and here) by adapting to the harsh conditions. One cliché is they’ll move below the snow line. Who wouldn’t? But if there’s reason, they’ll waddle up into the white stuff—light cover they can scratch through for green grass, or leftover seeds. I tracked a bird uphill to a snow-covered sagebrush. When I remarked to my friend how counterintuitive that was, he flew. A freeze-thaw cycle that makes snow crunch when you step on it forces birds down below the snowline, but until then, they can be found almost anywhere.
So, if you can see your breath when you shrug into your hunting vest, think like a game bird. But also get in touch with your own feelings (about physical comfort—leave the rest for your therapist). Finding good winter hunting is easier if you think like your quarry, know their habitat and how it changes with the calendar. Just don’t forget your long underwear.
