The ground had glittered with frost when we started hunting; now, the shadows were beginning to lengthen, and not only was my gamebag still empty, my barrels weren’t even dirty. We—meaning my English cocker spaniel, Rumor, and I—had moved exactly one woodcock all day, a bird whose twittering rise I heard distinctly but whose pear-plump form I was unable to “find,” visually, through the gray, thickly massed ranks of popple.
Hard-earned
by Tom Davis - Thursday, Dec 7th, 2023