Habitat loss and declining bird numbers — it’s a sad story that’s being played out across North America. It’s also a story that involves woodcock. Eahc year, as forests mature and housing developments expands, these birds loose more of their home turf. The Woodcock Task Force is fighting to stop this.

Fight for the American Woodcock!

Read more about their efforts here and find out what you can do to help. When you’re done, check out the video below for some great footage of woodcock and woodcock hunting in South Carolina.

Here’s a little video about how drought and habit loss is impacting  bobwhite quail populations in Texas. Not too cheery. I hope it starts to rain. almost as much as I hope people stop ruining quail habitat.

I saw this on a great blog called Uplandbirdhunter.com. Check it out. I’m sure you could use the same technique to a grouse.

OF course, you need to do something with those quail once they’re cleaned. You could even bring the ingredients along with you and do this in the field:

Enjoy.

www.dogsanddoubles.com

Here’s a quick little video that shows Ann Jandernoa of Northwind Enterprises explaining some things to look for when you’re trying to find grouse.

Ann is a grouse wizard. Puck and I hunted with her in the fall of ’04 and she really knows her stuff. If you want to learn more about grouse, grouse hunting, a great dogs, I suggest getting touch with her.

I was doing a bit more research into winter time grouse foods when I came across this: Winter Food Habitats of Ruffed Grouse in Young Aspen Stands. This paper is based on finding from a 1972-1973 study of 10-15 year old clear cuts in Oneida County, Minnesota.

The researchers found that the top ruffed grouse foods were Aspen bud and Hazel catkins. The grouse also were also feeding heavily on a species of ferns, as well as on wintergreen and goldenthread.

Check out this quick little video of some folks hunting for grouse and woodcock in Maine. It’s pretty well done. (FYI – turn you audio down before it gets going. The music is a bit much.)

BTW: Do you think he popped that first grouse out of that pine tree?

I’ve always been told that grouse switch to Aspen buds as cold winter moves in and the ground freezes up. This string over at Upland Journal proves that that’s not the whole story. Some bird’s diets are a bit more diverse.

Ruffed Grouse crop, stuffed with ferns & buds

The bird was shot in late December. Check out the content of it’s crop (and just how full that crop is) to see what it has been eating.

I think that green, leafy stuff is Toothed Wood Fern.

Ferns & buds from a Ruffed Grouse's crop

Back in the late 1960′s, Pennsylvania was the South Dakota of pheasant hunting. Sportsman harvested over million pheasants a season from this eastern state and in 1971 over 1.3 million of them were taken by Pennsylvania hunters. But by the mid 1990s these numbers had crashed and fewer than 255,000 pheasants were being killed a year.

South Dakota, 2012

In 2006, South Dakota hunters killed over two million pheasants. I hunted out there last fall and while the birds numbers are down, there were still plenty of pheasants around. But this may not be the case in the future.

StarTribune reporter Dennis Anderson filed this story on changes going on in  South Dakota and how these changes are impacted one of America’s favorite upland birds. Here’s an excerpt:

“Anyone who thinks South Dakota can continue to produce the pheasants, ducks and other wildlife it has in the past just doesn’t know what’s going on here. You’re quite possibly witnessing the end of an era. Some of the nation’s last, best prairies and potholes are going away.” Read the full article now.

Happy 2012.

Well, another upland season has come to an end for me and Puck – our seventh season together. December was a good to us. We saw quite a few grouse each time we went out. Our last time out hunting was the day after Christmas. The weather was in the mid-30s and there was 2″ – 3″ of snow in my covers – not too much to put the birds off of feeding on the ground. We hit a couple spots and got into 6-8 birds.

But while the birds were there, they weren’t holding for points. I think some were on the ground and others were roosting/feeding right off the ground. Either way, they all flushed well before I made it to Puck. Here are some shots from the day. Enjoy.

Merry Christmas and happy holidays to everyone out there. I hope you’re having a good time and the cheer is spreading.  I wish great health and even better luck in 2012.

Here at Dogs & Doubles were getting ready to do some upland hunting. I should be in central Maine for the next few days, wrapping up my grouse season. If the snow stays away, we should have a good time.

BTW: here’s a few things that were on my gift lis. Once again, the fat man in red didn’t come through. Probably out of his budget.

1. This pair of W.W. Greener sidelock shotguns from Sportarm.com:

A pair W.W. Greener 12 gauge Double Barrel Shotguns

You can see more pics of this guns here, here, and here.

2. This place in Montana where I could take full advantage of them.

3. And six of these guys. Those puppies are from Autumn Memory Kennels. My girl is from there, and they turn out great English Pointers.

English Pointer puppies from Autumn Memory Kennels