The Wonder of a New Covert

A vet appointment for Thicket's booster shots kept Emma and I out of the coverts until 11:00 today. We headed for a covert that I had just found last year in the late season that I named the Heifer Lick covert. A beautiful looking piece of cover with a diverse variety of trees it looked like it had everything a grouse could want. Emma and I hunted it hard but moved no birds.

 

We moved up the road about a mile to the Bennett Cemetery covert. A small patch of mostly aspen, rare in my southern coverts just a couple of miles from the Maryland border.  I thought I heard a grouse flush as I let Emma out of the truck and she proved me right with an empty point 20 yards inside cover. We made several passes through this covet but found no other birds.

 

 

With the day looking bleak I remembered a creek bottom that I had always wanted to investigate but never found the time. The bottom is thick with barberry, multiflora rose and goldenrod with a good number of downed trees that made for tough walking.

 

 

 

Just off the truck Emma went on point. It proved to be a running woodcock that flushed out of range, but it was a good sign. The next bird she found used a tree to it's advantage giving me no shot and shortly thereafter I walking up a big woodcock that I let fly. Soon she was pointing in some barberry and I flushed a woodcock that flew away after I had emptied both barrels at it. Her next point was a repeat with me missing badly with both barrels. Finally Diana the Hunting Goddess smiled on me and I brought down the next two birds that she pointed for me. I decided two was enough and we made our way up to the old dirt road that led back to the truck tired but experiencing  that wondrous feeling of finding a new covert that held some birds and just maybe would hold some the next time we decided to give it a try.