Brad Parkes: Out of sights, but not mind

On Monday just gone, and as Fiona slipped open the gates and Heather drove us through to the river berm, Jack Frost had made his presence felt.
Even just nudging 8am, those areas still in shade twinkled, shimmered and glistened as we cruised past. Quite different from two days earlier when on the Saturday, at a similar time, we encountered several areas of the tracks flooded.
"I'm not driving through there," Heather said, stopping before a flooded piece. The water had just reached the dogs' bellies the last time we drove that way, but now they'd have to swim across: I wasn't one to argue with her.
A lone hen took off as we motored and hunted downstream, quite possibly put up by Holly - it came from the area she was working just ahead of Bella - to everyone's delight, and at the end of that particular beat, the dogs put up a cock, again heard but not seen.
We retraced our path to hunt upstream, stopping at a ford to give the pups a drink and frolic, without any excitement. On the way back, on a fresh piece of track, I saw what I thought was a hedgehog moving into fescue beside the track. "Hen pheasant!" said Heather, stopping about 15m from where the bird had disappeared: a golden opportunity for the dogs to get a real fresh scent in their nostrils.
On exiting the car, a second hen took off from the opposite side of the track as Bella closed in on the first. I find it absolutely fascinating to watch a dog, at such close quarters, first run past the bird, then get the scent before rapidly backtracking and putting the bird up. Heather and I figured the birds must have been late hatchings, given their small size.
Back to Monday. A cock called from well off the river berm, "miles" away, and there was nothing to get excited about other than a couple of tracks to explore "next time".
We continued upstream. "Isn't this the spot we put those two hens up on Saturday?" I asked Heather.
"Yes - and there's a much bigger hen!', she replied, pointing towards the river. "And there's a cock with her!" I couldn't see a thing, but carefully got out of the car, and called Bella to me as we closed in on where Heather had seen them, hard up against thick growth.
The hen promptly flew away, and with the gun closed I followed Bella as she got on to the birds' scent. But instead of flushing straight up, he ran for about 100 metres, before Bella put him up, well out of range.
Eleven birds sighted so far: can't complain about that.