If The Bird Sings, Don't Shoot It

 

Editor’s Note: Conrad gets mail; sometimes about things that pertain to the nature of his outdoor column. An old college chum of his, Butch, neither a hunter nor a fisherman, recently wrote and asked a question about meadowlarks, and got his money’s worth in the reply.

Conrad,

My grandmother made the best chicken and noodles in the world. She said she got the recipe from her mother so who knows how old that recipe is. We still use the same recipe today except that we substitute Crisco for lard. That’s what we’re having for lunch tomorrow. Chicken and noodles. Wish you were here.

Butch

P.S. Are Eastern meadowlarks common? Would that be the type of meadowlark I grew up with in Kansas? Are they song birds? What is a song bird anyway?

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Butch,

Yes, eastern meadowlarks are common, and they are the one you grew up with in Kansas. As a boy, I fancied I could whistle their spring call well, and think I still can. Listen: Did you hear that? I learned to do it while traveling afoot about my grandparent’s farm up in Nebraska. I think it’s that state’s, state bird. 

There are thousands in Oklahoma. You will never see them in wooded areas except maybe in a pasture that borders woods. You most certainly will never force one into the woods. They like meadows, you see, and the bugs and late winter seeds to be found there. Their beak (like all bird beaks) are adapted to the specialized feeding opportunities only meadows provide. Also, they are ground nesters and of course a grassy meadow is ideal habitat for that function. 

You will see them quite commonly, so long as there is a large, open field nearby, alongside both paved and dirt roads in Oklahoma where they must find gravel for their craws, not having teeth to aid in digestion being one of the drawbacks to being a bird. They can fly, of course, which probably makes up for not being equipped to eat steak or pizza. 

Without closing my eyes, I can see one in my boyhood memory as we speak, sitting atop a wooden fence post, mouth agape, head thrown back, black velvet “V” on a lemon-colored breast, and that incredible warbling whistle coming to my ears like the sound of clean water tumbling over rocks in a stream. Only a springtime male, red-winged blackbird (“Purple shaaaade! Purple shaaaade!”) can match it in my mind as a true sign of the arrival of spring. 

They are somewhat fewer in number (and I have noticed the decline) now because of the slow, but progressive, disappearance of their favored meadow habitat. Nobody in their right mind would ever eat one as food, although I feel quite confident they would taste just fine, which reminds me of a story my late uncle Cleetis Howell down Walters way once told me while in that country hunting quail with him.

Seems he had been having a pretty good day of it, had his limit of ten quail, had stopped alongside a dirt road, and was in the process of loading his dog into the back of his truck to head home, when a carload of local Fort Sill GI’s (in uniform fatigues) with a New Jersey tag on their car pulled alongside, apparently wanting to talk. The driver got out cautiously, looked all around as if he expected to see something, and then said, “Hey, mister. You doin’ any good?” 

Uncle Cleetis, not wanting to brag, said, “Well, yeah, I got a few,” and started to open the door of his truck to get in and leave. 

“Mister, this is the best quail hunting we have ever seen! Come look at this!”, whereupon the guy popped the lid on his trunk displaying it level-full of dead meadowlarks. Cleetis was shocked, but made no comment. “We counted ‘em back up the road, and we’ve got something over four hundred!” 

“I see you do. That’s some mighty fine eatin’ you got there. Make sure you clean them all, buddy.” And he left. 

I asked Cleetis how he figured they had enough ammo to shoot that many, and he allowed as how they probably “flock shot” them wherever they found them graveling in bunches alongside the road, which made sense to me. 

For years, when there were still quail in this country, one of the biggest problems game wardens had was with people “potshooting” actual quail when they found them huddled on the ground under trees and roadside brush in weather like we have been experiencing lately. Quail like to bunch up in coveys in snowy weather to combine their body warmth, and at the same time they like to travel roadsides as they do not like getting their feet wet. 

Back in the day, many a quail went home to Momma without the “hunter” ever having turned a dog loose, nor even having put on a jacket. Rolling down the window was sport enough. You could drive roads all day now and not find a single quail to potshoot, let alone a whole covey. Nobody knows why, but it’s likely for the same reason there are fewer meadowlarks. Birds, of any sort, have to have a place to live. Give them a place to live, and they will find the things in it they can eat. 

Your question about “songbirds” is an interesting one. As I understand it, any bird not hunted as food was long ago deemed to be a “songbird”, although I must tell you that if you have never heard a quail give either a lonesome covey call at sundown, or a cheery “bobwhite!” at sunrise, then you will not understand why some of us find the aforementioned terminology discrepancies confusing. I like to hear them call, to relish their bell-like notes, and then eat them. 

Life is full of funny little coincidences. You mention your grandmother’s chicken noodle soup. Pam and I shared hot bowls of Campbell’s best (all we had) today at noon, probably about the same time your bunch was commemorating your late grandmother (what better way?), and watched out the kitchen window a powdered sugar snowfall coming down into a front yard full of redbirds. 

The redbirds weren’t the only birds there; only the reddest. The ground below our feeders was a swarm with all kinds of birds, but no quail. Grandma Lily down yonder in Little Dixie, who fed both songbirds and chickens out her back door (and sometimes quail), used to say that snow brings the birds “close to the chopping block.” 

Just then, I’d of traded our soup for your grandmother’s, or, for sure, the canned stuff for a pile of fried quail, biscuits, and gravy. I’ve still got a chopping block. 

Maybe the yard full of snowy redbirds made up the difference. 

Yeah, I think maybe they did.

© 2014 Conrad M. Vollertsen