Not sure if this will ever happen to me again since this is the first time it ever has....
So today, after a brief AM hunt, I get in the truck to go to work and see a hen standing in the field. I grab the binos and watch her for a few minutes then call out to the land owner to come over. When I hand him the binos, she has disappeared. I say, 'impossible she ran off, I would have seen it as the grass it tall, but not that tall."
The land owner and I start to head and that general direction to see if she is sitting on a nest. When we get to the general area where she was, she is not there. Again, I say "this is impossible". We separate and circle the general area, but she seems to be gone. How can this be? Am I losing my mind???
Short answer to the last question is nope. As I turn around to head back I see her. She is 100% laid flat out, head down, and looks like a big piece of bark, or wood. We are now less than 10 feet from her, and she is NOT moving. We assume she is on a nest and therefore will not leave it, even with us that close. We sat and admired her with total awe and amazement that we were so close to her and she did nothing to expose her position to us. Amazing, simply amazing.
The land owner wants to get his DSLR so we head back to the house, and fetch it. As we return, she is still in the exact same spot. We actually drive my truck (an obnoxious diesel with big exhaust) down the field edge below her. She still has not moved or given away her position. I shut off the truck and we slowly walk towards her again; he with his DSLR and me with my cell phone. We stayed a respectable distance as not to force her to leave the nest and took some pics.
We must have stayed too long, or she got nervous because she jumped up and ran into the woods. We walked to where she was, no nest or eggs to be seen.... odd, at least to me anyway. Now even more confused as to why she whould have stayed there and tolerated us. Confused we go back to the truck.
After packing up my stuff at the other end of the field, we turn around and head back. Low and behold there she is in the field again. She sees us coming and runs right back into the woods. As I slowly drive up the road, down from where she was, I hear tiny "lost calls" from the poults. I shut the truck off and we sit and listen. Here are the poults off to my right, and momma is off to the left. I can see and hear her running around in the woods like a crazy lady. She is calling to them over and and they to her. We did not get out and look for the poults, but there were several distinct calls coming from the area where she was. Not wanting to stress her or the poults, we drive away.
As I sit on the hill, I can still hear them calling to her and her back to them. Then, in an instant, she rushes back into the field and disappears in the grass again and things go silent as if it never happened.
I tell the landowner good day and head off to work with a huge smile on my face as this was something I may never again witness in my time. I am grateful and humbled to have even experienced it and it just adds a whole new dimension to my respect for these birds.
One lesson I took away, and one that hit home pretty fast....was I am SO GLAD I was not on the bush hog. Prior to taking up this facet of hunting, it never even crossed my mind to not jump on the bush hog and mow down the fields. Now, with this in my brain, seriously doubt I will ever be seen on one until well after turkey season is over, and the poults can better run away from danger. These birds have a low survival rate as it is, and certainly do not need me running them over with the tractor or the blades from the machine. The land owner and I speak on it and both agree.
Anyway, that is my cool story.
-weave
