Grouse Brood on the home course

This morning we did the short loop here at the kennel with both sets of Puppies.  The black and white ones got into a brood of grouse and the hen led them on a merry chase as she would flush and fly only 20 or 30 yards drawing them both away from the chicks which are about the size of the 10 week old quail we got last week.  Yesterday we checked out a cover with Pete and Lucy (Jack X Trip -- Cider and LJ's littermate).  Pete pointed three woodcock and Lucy pointed a turkey with a brood of grouse size chicks and then had a stop to flush on a fourth woodcock.  If it's like last summer there's probably 2 to 3 times that many woodcock in that cover and they'll stay there all summer.  Also the grouse will move in there as well once their chicks are bigger.  Everybody is doing a lot of yardwork to get ready for the end of next week when we'll start hitting the covers regularly.  It's also time for both sets of pups to get a little more structure in their training.

Pete on one of his three woodcock finds yesterday.  I think the camera lens on my phone was a little fogged up which created the bad picture quality.  There's nothing wrong with the quality of Pete's bird work.