with the stars up above in your eyes
a fantabulous night to make romance
’neath the cover of October skies
and all the leaves on the trees are falling. . .
—Van Morrison, “Moondance”
Something stirs in the souls of hunters and gatherers starting with the emergence of the harvest moon in September, followed on its heels by the hunter’s moon in October. No matter how civilized we humans become, a glimmer of our primitive past, dormant for most of the year, emerges. Like squirrels storing nuts in a stonewall, we horde vegetables in our cellars, split and stack firewood, generally stock the larder and batten down the hatches in preparation for a Maine winter. For bird hunters, the arrival of the celestial hunter’s moon rekindles a love affair that leads them back to the places they dream of all year.
Anyone who has lived or traveled in Maine has seen a small chicken-sized bird pecking gravel on the edges of country roads
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If you listen carefully, especially in the spring, you may hear a distant rumble like a thunderstorm approaching or, more so, a cranky lawn mower struggling to start. You’ll feel it in your chest more than hear it. That is the king, perched upon his mossy log throne “drumming.” He steadies himself with his broad tail and flaps his wings so rapidly they create a mini sonic boom. Spring drumming asserts his dominance to rival males and entices lithe hen grouse to investigate and join him for a romp in the bushes.
The ruffed grouse is a precocious and crafty bird that sports a rakish topknot when alert. He wears a collar, or “ruff,” of ebony or rich burgundy, and his body is richly plumed in a tapestry of earth tones, mimicking the boreal forests that conceal him. But his most prominent feature is his broad, fanned tail with a distinct dark band along its outer edge. Like a buck’s antlers, it is a sought-after trophy often displayed on the mantle atop a grouse hunter’s hearth.
Grouse hunters’ homes become shrines to his majesty. Entire libraries are overflowing with tomes describing his habits down to the most miniscule detail. Shelves are lined with bird dog training manuals and books on the right shotgun, the right load, the right vehicle, even the right boots to wear that might better the chances a hunter will bag a grouse. Walls are festooned with fine sporting art with grouse as the subject matter, and gun cabinets are filled with custom-made shotguns worth as much or more than the SUV parked in your driveway. Backyard kennels are filled with purebred bird dogs with pedigrees reaching back centuries to English aristocrats. Grouse hunters travel thousands of miles and spend ridiculous amounts of money on lodging and guides all for the opportunity to work their dogs and swing a shotgun on this game bird.
What creates this reverence and sets the ruffed grouse apart from other game birds such as the gaudy, nonnative pheasant is the challenge he provides for the wing-shooting bird hunter. His near paranoid wildness enables him to outwit the most highly trained and experienced bird dog. He isn’t exceptionally fast, but his startling flush, combined with his ability to bank and weave through thick woods aided by that rudder of a tail, is what makes him so darned hard to hit. You would think a couple hundred bird shot swarming like bees and sent in the general direction of a flying bird would bring him to bag. But no, his majesty wins out more than he loses and leaves us scratching our heads and muttering profanities.
In the final analysis it isn’t about how many birds are brought to bag or even the ruffed grouse itself. It’s that he draws us out of our comfy lives for a short spell and we follow him into wild places we would never have explored otherwise—in a time of year brush-stroked in glorious colors and pungent with the aroma of decaying leaves and fermenting apples.
As the hunter’s moon peaks over the eastern horizon, grouse hunters willingly worship at the altar of his majesty the ruffed grouse. After all, they have a Moondance card to fill.
