The First Month of the Season

The first month of the season has nearly run its course. What little green was left on the prairie vanished weeks ago, hiding out of sight over the creek banks. The rest of the country is the color of straw.

The recent rains won’t make much difference except to turn dust to mud.

Stock ponds that were brim-full in mid-summer shrunk to half their size by the first of September as hot winds blew and the ground cracked.

Where there was good soil the grass grew waist high, but on the hard pan, only cactus thrived, covering the ground so thickly in places the dogs couldn’t dodge it.

Not surprisingly, until the weather turns, sharptail grouse prefer the more open, prickly ground where grasshoppers are easier to find, and predators – like dogs and bird hunters -- more easily spotted.

The thicker cover, however, isn’t without birds. They’re just not in season yet. In the grass and the thick brush along the creek, the dogs put up pheasants, which for a few more weeks yet can fly away unmolested.

As the days grow shorter and the temperatures cool, flights of waterfowl become more common, the resident quackers joined now by geese and northern ducks working their way south. Soon the raucous calls of sandhill cranes will announce their presence as flights of the big birds fill the sky.

Pronghorn bucks are busy chasing does, and occasionally show an interest in the spaniels, the dogs’ white markings attracting their attention. The mule deer, however, are still months away from their rut and remain scattered across the landscape.

Many mornings smoke lay on the prairie like a blanket, softening its harsh edges, the lush creek bottom looking more like a Renoir landscape than a muddy stream in Montana.

Then the wind picks up, the smoke blows away, and just like the day before and the day before that, it’s hot and dry, heat mirages shimmering in the distance.

In a few months, the snow will return, covering everything in white. Ducks and geese will become scarce as open water turns to ice, but the prairie birds, the coyotes, badgers, deer and antelope won’t be going anywhere.

Neither will I.

It’s a long season and it’s only just begun.

Parker Heinlein is at [email protected]