Pennsylvania Game News - October 2011 - 13

grouse and other smaller animals. Adult fishers are three feet long; this one was maybe two feet long, so probably it was a juvenile born this past spring. I turned the carcass over with a stick but could find no obvious injury, nothing that might have caused the fisher’s death. And so — a mystery, not a hundred yards from the dirt lane down which we usually walk. The dog and I hunted onward. Thudding wingbeats told me that a grouse had heard us coming and beaten its retreat. I glimpsed a gray-brown body vanishing into the brush off to our right. Not wedded to a preordained course, we turned and followed. We didn’t reflush the grouse, but our meandering took us into an area of dense young birches, aspens and maples, where the ground was spongy underfoot and a small stream made a bright tinkling sound. As I threaded my way between the crowded, slender trunks, I noticed pale ends sheared off sharp, six inches above the ground. There’s an old beaver pond on our farm that hasn’t been occupied for several years; we were upstream from it by a couple hundred yards. Although I kept listening for a grouse or a woodcock flush, and did my best to keep an eye on the dog, I also noticed a beaten-down, muddy furrow where saplings and branches had been dragged along the ground. A network of these paths branched throughout this section of woods. Clearly, the beavers were working on a new dam. The spaniel swerved, forged ahead. No grouse or timberdoodle flew up. Instead, we found ourselves staring at a chocolate-brown muzzle and black shoebutton eyes. The beaver was about 10 feet away. Slowly it stood up on its haunches. Next to the hefty rodent, the trunk of a 6-inch aspen was chewed halfway through. The beaver’s blackish brown, leathery tail pressed flat against the ground. Solid and
OCTOBER 2011

big-bodied, the beaver looked as if he would outweigh my dog by 10 or so pounds. The rodent bared its big orange incisors. It came to me that we had cut off the beaver from water and safety. Fortunately, my dog is not one to fight; even so, I gave her an emphatic command to heel. Then I spoke to the beaver, telling it not to worry, we were just hunting for birds and not portly, outsized dam-builders. The dog and I backed off, and then resumed our wandering. And so I chalked up another astonishing find that had nothing to do with game birds. We were hunting, certainly, but there was no telling what we would bring home. Memories of wild creatures seldom seen, of landscape views from new angles, of sounds and smells that are rarely experienced. I have precious memories of unfamiliar birds met with while beating through grouse coverts: a harrier, surprised on the ground in the act of killing a vole. A wren, not much bigger than a shotgun shell, that cocked its tail while scolding me roundly. A wood turtle trundling along as if in another world altogether. My spaniel sniffed the turtle, wagged her tail, looked up at me quizzically. A tall-racked buck snuck away through the brush practically on his knees, avoiding my hunting partner but inadvertently exposing himself to my view. A hunter doesn’t bag many birds by keeping to the beaten path. I always forge my own way, wade into briars, slog through mud, negotiate the obstacles and the difficult terrain — and in so doing, open myself to new places and experiences. For me, this has always been one of the greatest rewards of hunting. 
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Pennsylvania Game News - October 2011

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