By Mike Arnold
As we raced southeast from Malmö, down the Swedish multi-lane highway, I reflected on how much of my professional life was rooted in Europe. With 1000’s of hours of invited lectures given – months spent as a visiting Professor in places like Oxford, England, Oporto, Portugal, Rome, Italy, and Konstanz, Germany – I knew how fortunate I was in my scientific life. Ironically, though, as passionate as I am about my science, I’m more so about hunting, and yet, I’d never pursued game in Europe. I’ve hunted many places around the globe, but never in the center of the development of so many of the scientific theories I’d investigated over many decades. More importantly, never had I enjoyed my chosen sport in the places where the richest hunting ethics first appeared and came to fruition, providing examples of cultures dedicated to revering not only the pursuit of the sport, but as well, the animals pursued, and the bounty (read, ‘meat’) provided.
So, as the stereotypical red-and-white homes flitted past the car window, I wondered at the memories already captured, and those to come. Enraptured was the adjective that kept popping into my mind. The emotion caused by the experiences of the last two days – the game animals seen and taken, the intermixing of agricultural and natural areas into a tapestry perfect for plants, animals, and humans. Focus had been on hunting for larger game, Roebuck and Fallow stag, wonderful representatives of both coming from hunts with Stefan and Sofia Bengtsson of Scandinavian Pro Hunters in two separate, and beautiful hunting, areas. The Fallow stag came from a property near the southeastern coast of Sweden.
The Roebuck, successfully hunted two days before the Fallow stag, lived on the property towards which we were returning for a mixed bag of gamebirds, crows and even rabbits. Known as Jordberga Gods (FYI, ‘Gods’ is Swedish for ‘Estate’), since its founding in 1355, various enterprises left their marks on the thousands of acres making up the estate, with agriculture and hunting always playing significant roles. Substantial wealth accrued through sugar production, centered around the farming of sugar beets. Currently, the owners and guardians of Jordberga, Marie and Carl-Adam von Arnold, continue the emphasis on agriculture, while using the estate’s spacious grounds, halls and living quarters to host everything from groups of hunters to large wedding parties.
What I would see in the mouths of our hunting companions – a Brittany named Paris, and a Black lab named Lilly – would depend on my shooting, but I hoped for success with Hungarian partridges and Pheasant, in particular. The former, I’d never hunted before, and the latter I wanted for a mount for our home. The catalyst for the mount came from an encounter of one in Stefan and Sofia’s office on the estate. A beautiful cock pheasant, perched on a Fallow stag antler captivated my wife Frances and me. A non-hunter, but appreciative of beautiful taxidermy, Frances looked at me after spying the Bengtsson’s mounted pheasant and said, “We need one of those!” O.K., I had my marching orders. Speaking of marching, according to an App on my I-Phone, ironically with a large heart as its logo, by the end of our hunt for gamebirds, crows, and rabbits, I would have walked 15,612 steps, or approximately seven miles, through plowed fields, tall grass, and dense hedgerows. Seriously, I need to delete that frickin’ App from my phone.
Stefan and Sofia provided lovely loaner shotguns, with mine being a 20-gauge Browning Citori, the same make and gauge of shotgun I have at home; my guides carried matching Fausti 28-gauge side-by-sides. They were more effective in bringing down birds than I. Humbling, but I’ve never been that great of a shotgunner, while they proved themselves very accomplished gamebird hunters.
We began our morning’s hunt traveling the lanes near the estate’s castle and other residences. Like the Bobwhite quail near where I grew up in West Texas, partridges and pheasants live equally well near human habitations as in isolated hedgerows along extensive agricultural fields. It’s a good thing we began where we did, as Paris pushed out a flock of 30+ partridges from around one of Jordberga’s beautiful villas. Stefan and I walked in with shotguns at port arms, while the Brittany held tight against the birds. Exploding with a rush of wings, my first shot saw a partridge drop, leaving behind a blizzard of feathers. My second cartridge didn’t connect. Stefan, waiting graciously on his client, fired while my second shot was still echoing around the glade, dropping another partridge from the rapidly departing flock. Paris’ training, though including retrieval, focuses on ferreting out where flushed birds end up. So, while she headed into the dense forest surrounding the glade, Lilly came into her own by retrieving Stefan’s and my birds. I was incredibly pleased with taking my first ever Hungarian partridge. If I’d known the ‘tradition’ to which Stefan would introduce me after our hunt, I might have been a bit less pleased. More about that later.
Our next foray was into the extensive agricultural fields making up the estate. One of the crucial conservation tools used by Stefan and Sophia is the cultivation of ‘Game Crops.’ Plantings of native Chicory and Sweet Clover for food, and as a windbreak, native Canary grass, bordering the fields of onions, wheat, and other crops appear throughout the estate. Used by birds, hares, rabbits, Roe deer and Fallow deer, the stands provide perfect places to search for game. As well, long stretches of high hedge made up of plants such as untended fruit trees and rose hips, provide further cover and food. My next two downed partridges, and one cock pheasant came out of these hedges and Game Crop strips.
I love hunting with dogs, whether collaring leopards in Mozambique, hunting quail in South Carolina, or partridges and pheasant in Sweden. The ballet put on by working dogs is always breathtaking. Without Paris and Lilly, the tight-holding partridges and pheasants would have remained invisible, and if by some chance a bird flushed and fell to our shotguns, its loss in the dense vegetation was almost assured. Even with the dogs, it was tough work finding the gamebirds, and then locating the downed individuals. Watching Stefan and Sophia work with their charges also reminded me of the incredible investment made by trainers. Simply put, I would not have the time or patience to accomplish a trained bird-finder or retriever!
Along the first 10-foot-high hedge, Stefan and Sofia split up. I walked with Stefan and Lilly on one side while Sofia took Paris to the other, with the Brittany working in-and-out of the hedge. Fifty meters down the trail, a partridge scared the pants off me, rocketing up from my toe tips straight into the air, banking left just over the top of the hedge. Throwing the shotgun up in a body-contorting twist, the snapshot created another cloud of feathers from which the bird disappeared onto the other side. That is when the fun began. Fifteen minutes later, Lilly pulled off a miracle, finding the partridge buried in the jungle of five-foot-high grass. We continued along the hedge, busting partridges out, but never getting another opportunity for a shot due to the birds’ strategy of putting the thick hedge between shooters and their rapidly departing bodies.
The last opportunity for both partridges and pheasants came as we worked a different type of habitat on Jordberga. Spotting a partridge sail into the trees around the edge of a pond, Sofia circled to the other side, taking Paris and Lilly along to try and push out any birds holding in the reeds and trees. No partridges flew over as I walked along the opposite edge, but a beautiful cock pheasant, cackling like only they can, soared above the trees and straight over the field. So, by the finish of our day, Frances had her pheasant.
Ending our day with what might seem an odd combo, indicates the wonderful wealth of game in many areas of Europe, and particularly Sweden. We had the opportunity of hunting for additional gamebird species, namely ducks, Eurasian Cranes, and Swans. We chose instead for a session with Lilly on crows and rabbits. The crows were thick on the ground, working the fields and hedgerows looking for the small prey, including the eggs and young of the ground nesting partridges and pheasant. Stefan made getting close enough to the wary predators easier with the loan of his .22 Hornet rifle. Stopping some 60 yards away, a crow dropped without a twitch. Likewise, strolling down a lane near a pond, a rabbit provided a quick target as it headed toward the nearby stone wall. We could have taken more of both species but needed to return for an early dinner in Malmö, so called it a day.
The crow and rabbit mixed bag was the final act of our wonderful time on Jordberga, except for the tradition mentioned earlier. It seems that when a hunter takes their first Partridge, they must kiss the bird’s backend while their Outfitter/Guide squeezes the bird’s stomach and the hunter’s wife giggles and snaps photos. In the hunter’s opinion, the less said of this experience, the better.