Foul & feather

BY TURNS PRACTICAL, ADAPTIVE AND JUST PLAIN GORGEOUS, THE PLUMAGE WESTERN GAME BIRDS AND WATERFOWL WEAR CAN BE AS COMPELLING AS THE WILD PLACES THEY INHABIT AND AS VARIED AS THE ECOLOGICAL NICHES THEY FILL. During a half-century’s worth of wing-shooting, I’ve plucked away my share of natural beauty between the field and the table, where all wild game deserves its final celebration, never without at least a passing moment of consideration tinged with regret.

Duck feathers illustrate the essential relationship between function and beauty as well as any example in the natural world. When a plump northern mallard settles to the surface of a steaming Montana spring creek on a crisp December morning, the mottled breast feathers must protect the warm-blooded bird from its frigid environment. When it rises again in response to a predator’s appearance — a raptor, a mink or me with my shotgun — it’s the flight primaries that drive the escape, straining in exquisite geometric patterns, too quick for the human eye to capture without help from a camera’s lens. As admirably as the plumage serves the purpose, those feathers are always worth a closer look, to appreciate the symmetry and the subtlety of the beauty locked inside.

Ours has always been a nation of immigrants, none more important to the Montana bird hunter than the ringneck pheasant, which first arrived upon our shores from China 120-odd years ago. No native upland species can rival the visual drama of the cock pheasant’s iridescent plumage: from its emerald head to its signature white collar all the way through the outrageous bronze highlights on its body. On a clear October day, the impact of all that color (often accompanied by a loud and equally unnerving cackle) can rattle the novice into immobility or grossly inept shooting when the bird explodes into the sky from the grass underfoot. (Full disclosure: It can rattle the veteran as well.)

Montanans may lack the centuries of turkey hunting tradition enjoyed by hunters farther east, but we’re learning fast. Spring is the season of renewal here on the high plains, and nothing marks its arrival more definitively than the first gobble of the year. Unlike the birds of autumn, the male Merriam turkey is more often heard than seen. In fact, it’s the slow, teasing sequence of call and response as the hunter lures the bird out of the woods that provides spring turkey hunting its emotional edge. After all that yelping and gobbling, the moment of first visual contact can prove as dramatic as any experience in the wild as the gobbler struts, puffs and pivots, displaying iridescent copper body plumage and fanned tail feathers to a hen that is not there. I can tell myself that it’s all about passing genes on to the next generation, but deep in my heart I know better. It’s about nature showing what it has to show.

Our native upland species offer an interesting visual contrast to the imported ringneck. From sharptails and sage grouse on the prairie to ruffs and blues in the hills, they have all opted for subtlety rather than the male ringneck’s flagrant self-promotion (as, for that matter, has the female pheasant). The adaptive point, of course, is camouflage from predators, and no feathers serve that purpose better than the sharptail’s, as any hunter who has walked up early season birds in native grasses knows. Save for the striking lavender throat patch the male displays on the lek each spring, the sharptail may look drab and uninspiring compared to the ringneck. But look again, more closely this time. A world of beauty lies hidden in those intricate patterns, and they’re beautiful for the soundest reason nature has to offer: They have made the species a survivor.