The Old Songs

The Old Songs

Sing me the old songs. Tell me the stories of times gone by. I want to spend an evening or so with you to hear about your dogs. I want to see your guns. I want to read your favorite books. I want to warm my hands in front of your fire and try     your pipe tobacco and...

Three Boys and a Cannon Barrel

Three Boys and a Cannon Barrel

It was a Federal Criminal Conspiracy: three boys, a cannon barrel and scaup to drive them crazy. The saltwater scaup are mostly gone now, but back when I was a boy they would raft offshore, a thousand, ten thousand at a time. It would take a booming gale to get them...

Little Windy and the Wingshooting Woman

Little Windy and the Wingshooting Woman

She was a great Nordic beauty, and she came with a duck lease. She was a green-eyed freckle-faced redhead, long of hair and limb, married a couple of times before I met her but neither lasted too long. Her name, literally translated, meant "the daughter of an angel of...

Requiem for a Peregrine

Requiem for a Peregrine

Everything about the peregrine falcon is spectacular — even in death. "One of the penalties of an ecological education is that one lives alone in a world of wounds." – Aldo Leopold Early one evening toward the end of April, my English setter, Tina, and I were on the...

Woodcock Days

Woodcock Days

The best hunting spots are secrets among friends, where a bird in the bag is just a bonus. A mist conceals these mountains. They are gray like bone. The sun will not rise above them for another hour, and yet it is eight o'clock. This is a favorite spot. I find...