After spending 8 days in Montana watching our grandson, Mac, playing baseball and just seeing the country we made it back to familiar country. What we found is very promising for the upcoming season.
First of all the mountains from Lewiston all the way down to Riggins are still green with lot’s of cover and hoppers everywhere. Although we didn’t do any hiking there it looks great.
But we did get out in some hun country today for a quick scouting trip. Things looked great. The cover is perfect and still fairly green, with an abundance of grasshoppers just the right size for chicks to get protein from. And we found chicks and plenty of sign that there were more that we didn’t see.
Here are a few video’s of the day. I know some of you might think this is a no no to be out pestering the birds, but I firmly believe that we did no harm to the hun population and all the chicks were soon reconnected with their parents. This first video is what we see when there are chicks on the ground. Excuse the heavy breathing.
The birds were reluctant to leave and did whatever they could to get the dogs and me to follow them. I did see two little ones that were only a few days old and heard others peeping. I led the dogs away and returned 1/2 hour later, without the dogs, to find the adults back and the grass moving all over the place by the running chicks.
One more video of a couple of birds with chicks on the ground.
We had several opportunities like these and I found chicks almost every time after leading the dogs away. It looks like this was a good week for the huns to hatch and fingers crossed that many more are ready to do the same.
It’s suppsed to be a little cooler next week and the boys and I will be checking out some chukar country hoping for the same results. We’ll let you know what we find.
Thanks for reading and not chastising me too much.
The Reigning Chukar Champions 
Thanks for the report. Seeing much the same here with the first chukars hatching three weeks ago. Lots of grass, continued moisture, and plent of bugs. All good things!
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Illegal in many states for good reason .
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Lot’s of good news Steve.
Anonymus. Maybe in some states and on certain birds it should be illegal. I’m definitely not a bird biologist. I truly believe that my being out in the chukar hills is not harming the birds one bit. I’ve done this same thing for over thirty years and can’t remember seeing one casualty for the birds or other baby animals I have come upon. The last thing I want to do is ruin my resource of entertainment. I guess I’m kind of boring and that’s all I like to do. And that’s why I show the videos that some may think is wrong. It’s interesting to see the reaction of the birds when they have little ones on the ground and how they try and draw attention to them and away from the chicks. I usually vacate after we find the birds but sometimes I sit right there to see how long it takes for the adults to return. They are usually back within ten minutes. Sometimes I have the dogs sit with me and sometimes not. It amazes me how when the dogs are with me their ears perk up because they can hear the sounds of the adults calling the chicks better than I can. Sure enough the grasses come alive with trails of babies joining her as she rushes them off. When to be out there is a different thing. Today it’s raining out and would be definitely detremental to the chicks to be separated from mom and get soaked. But in the end, like you, I am always concerned about disturbing our valuable resource.
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Thanks Larry. Hoping Idaho and Oregon have enough birds to share with a mid-western pheasant hunter.
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