Bird Hunting Pictures

[Firebird]

Sitting on the dike waiting for a swan right now-a pintail is a nice consolation prize until they start the afternoon flight

 

[Hunt anything]

Good looking bird for early to mid November! Hope you get your swan.

 

[Ontario Hunter]

No birds in the bag today. Never even fired a shot. That's a first for this year. But scenery was worth the drive. Pushed up the biggest whitetail buck I've seen in my life. A real beauty but he wouldn't pose for a photo. The two-tone massive clay cutbank on the other side of the river was more cooperative.

 

[Firebird]

This should be in the funny meme section:
“What happens when the swans aren’t flying” or something like that.
But the reality is that this handsome fellow checks a box on my North American duck collection.

 

[Ontario Hunter]

This should be in the funny meme section:
“What happens when the swans aren’t flying” or something like that.
But the reality is that this handsome fellow checks a box on my North American duck collection. View attachment 647930

Common merganser, aka "fish duck." The buff colored chest is unusual. Should be gleaming white. Perhaps immature?

 

[Ontario Hunter]

No birds in the bag today. Never even fired a shot. That's a first for this year. But scenery was worth the drive. Pushed up the biggest whitetail buck I've seen in my life. A real beauty but he wouldn't pose for a photo. The two-tone massive clay cutbank on the other side of the river was more cooperative.
View attachment 647916

Many years ago when I was hunting this spot and the sun was setting, a lone swan came flying by me down the river. Everything in the valley was just falling into the shadows and subdued but the cliffs were still lit up brilliantly. Sadly, no camera. The white swan flying in front of that backdrop would have made a priceless photo. A special memory.

 

[Hunt anything]

Common merganser, aka "fish duck." The buff colored chest is unusual. Should be gleaming white. Perhaps immature?

The breast coloring on common mergansers tend to take on a pinkish coloration when they are feeding on salmon or trout. Something like how flamingos plumage changes with their diets.I’ve shot them on the Klamath River in Northern California and they were very pink but fades with the mounting process. The bird in this picture had a very creamy colored breast but turned snowy white when degreased for mounting. He had several 4” trout in his gullet.

 

[Firebird]

The breasts turn bright white in spring as part of their breeding plumage and sexual maturity. When we kill them in the fall-and I only shot this one because I needed a male, they have a “peach” coloration on their breasts. The birds in this area feed heavily on carp. Their diet also adds to the bright red beak-as was pointed out earlier

 

[Ontario Hunter]

The breasts turn bright white in spring as part of their breeding plumage and sexual maturity. When we kill them in the fall-and I only shot this one because I needed a male, they have a “peach” coloration on their breasts. The birds in this area feed heavily on carp. Their diet also adds to the bright red beak-as was pointed out earlier

I have only shot one, a male, by accident one foggy morning back in 1970. I seem to recall it was much brighter white but that was a long time ago. Had to throw it in the woods. Back then the Flathead River was full of spawning salmon and mergansers were full of eggs (Montana Fish and Game eventually destroyed that fishery experimenting with introduction of shrimp). Impossible to do anything with mergansers to make them edible. At that time of year all divers were also a waste of ammo. Occasionally I would even shoot a mallard that developed a taste for eggs. I vividly recall a hen shot below the plant that Mom tried to cook up for my dad's birthday. House smelled like a rotten salmon! Ugh! Even the dog turned up her nose. Mom threw it out and we went to Hennesey's Steak House for dinner.

 

[Hunt anything]

I have only shot one, a male, by accident one foggy morning back in 1970. I seem to recall it was much brighter white but that was a long time ago. Had to throw it in the woods. Back then the Flathead River was full of spawning salmon and mergansers were full of eggs (Montana Fish and Game destroyed that fishery experimenting with introduction of shrimp). Impossible to do anything with mergansers to make them edible. At that time of year all divers were also a waste of ammo. Occasionally I would even shoot a mallard that developed a taste for eggs. I vividly recall a hen shot below the plant that Mom tried to cook up for my dad's birthday. House smelled like a dead salmon! Ugh! Even the dog turned up her nose. Mom threw it out and we went to Hennesey's Steak House for dinner.

Any duck can turn rancid with diet, we’ve shot mallards in severe cold spells when we get a threadfin shad die off due to the temperatures. The mallards love them but tend to taste like rotten shad. On the other hand I’ve shot hooded mergansers that were eating acorns in flooded oak flats along with woodies, mallards and black ducks and you couldn’t tell the difference between them.
Down here on the bay we used to shoot a lot of red breasted mergansers, great for the dog work but somewhat challenging to eat. They were always put in gumbo. After my last chessie died and I had a great drake for the wall I quit shooting them.

I found that I had to weed out quite a few red breasted and common mergansers before I got one I deemed suitable to mount.

 

[WAB]

Any duck can turn rancid with diet, we’ve shot mallards in severe cold spells when we get a threadfin shad die off due to the temperatures. The mallards love them but tend to taste like rotten shad. On the other hand I’ve shot hooded mergansers that were eating acorns in flooded oak flats along with woodies, mallards and black ducks and you couldn’t tell the difference between them.
Down here on the bay we used to shoot a lot of red breasted mergansers, great for the dog work but somewhat challenging to eat. They were always put in gumbo. After my last chessie died and I had a great drake for the wall I quit shooting them.

I found that I had to weed out quite a few red breasted and common mergansers before I got one I deemed suitable to mount.

Agreed. I have shot mallard feeding on spent salmon. The meat smelled so bad we couldn’t even clean them.

 

[Ontario Hunter]

Only two shots this afternoon. Expensive birds. Ruined a tire on my Jimmy coming out in the dark.

 

[Ontario Hunter]

Buffleheads are cool little divers-they also make great mounts, if done well, there is no bad pose for a bufflehead!

Bufflehead are also the only diving duck that can jump off the water into flight. Rest of the divers must take a run at it.

 

[Ontario Hunter]

View attachment 645959
A good start to the day

Jump shooting?

 

[Beaufort]

 

[Firebird]

Took me too many attempts but I was having fun in the marsh and my wife was a good sport about me leaving early and coming home late. I really enjoy hunting tundra swans

 

[Hunt anything]

Great bird @Firebird, do you mount many swans?

Here is another great picture from my friends hunt in Nevada. Look above the guys heads at the flock of swans decoying in. They also shot widgeon, pintail and redheads.

 

[Ontario Hunter]

Great bird @Firebird, do you mount many swans?

Here is another great picture from my friends hunt in Nevada. Look above the guys heads at the flock of swans decoying in. They also shot widgeon, pintail and redheads.

I tried to eat a swan once. Barely palatable. I would send any in the future (unlikely) to the sausage maker.

 

[Hunt anything]

I tried to eat a swan once. Barely palatable. I would send any in the future (unlikely) to the sausage maker.

I’ve eaten 6, they aren’t rice fed speckle bellies but didn’t find them too bad. Something like western Canada geese. The ones I’ve eaten had been eating in corn fields and winter wheat so that may have had something to do with their palatability. But then again I’ll eat just about anything.