A few snow storms had raged across the foothills, and what was left for berries and greens had quickly been covered. The usual covers of mixed young pine and sapling aspens, which had the undergrowth to provide both food and shelter, no longer provided either. The birds had moved.
Despite the warm-up provided by the Chinook winds further East, closer to the mountains it was still bitterly cold. Unsure where to find birds, I drove a little further West than last time, and started following a rutted trail heading North. Tall spruce trees on either side framed a pretty claustrophobic picture, with only the occasional break in the monotony where small water courses had cut into the hills side, or blow-downs had opened up the canopy. We flushed one early, but I never saw it. Finn found another, a nice male, but it had survived smarter predators. A quick run, and a flush across the trail with the sun at his back, and in my eyes, and he was safe.
We were looking for more mature aspen groves. Allegedly, ruffies switch their diet to aspen buds in winter, which are well above the frozen, snow-covered forest floor. Much of the foothills at our latitude are covered in spruce forests, not the best habitat for good bird numbers. After a while, we circled downhill and worked back South along the base of young cover, with big spruces on our right, and an open valley with lots of low willows beyond those.
We got lucky. A bird flushed from underneath the low hanging branches of a big spruce, and made a dash for a backlit opening up ahead. Feathers slowly drifted down to earth after the shot. The young-of-the-year bird lay in the snow, for Finn to retrieve. As he brought the bird, another one flushed off to our right. I couldn’t help but smile. We had one bird, it was enough.
I opened the crop to see what it had been eating. Aspen twigs and buds, a pretty rough diet, confirming what I had read. I wished the remaining birds in this area a good winter. Time for us to move on, and find some new trails. Still a little time left in the season.
