Goodwill Hunting

THERE’S A HARD LINE BETWEEN WHERE the birds might be and where the birds certainly are not. On one side lies a rolling field of native prairie grasses—wheatgrass and big bluestem, Indian grass and false sunflower. On the other, a long, slow rise of closely cropped soybean stubble that unfurls to the blue horizon. It’s hard to imagine much more than a June bug scratching out a living there.

I’m in the good stuff, a Conservation Reserve Program field. CRP, as it is widely known, is a program, funded by the farm bill, through which the U.S. Department of Agriculture pays landowners to replace low-producing crops with native plant species beneficial to wildlife and ecosystems. I push through tall, winter-brown grass stalks and seed heads that rake my thighs. Beside me is Paul Niebur, the landowner who planted this field, and four other hunters flank us to the right. Their blaze-orange vests and hats wink through the grassland as two bird dogs vault ahead, sifting the air for the scent of a Ring-necked Pheasant.

I grip my shotgun and pick up the pace. We’re nearing the end of the field, and when the pheasants rise they boil out in waves—first three birds closest to the dogs, then another half-dozen, launching from the flocculent grasses, the long plumes of the cock pheasants rippling like kite tails as they break for the sky.

“Rooster! Rooster! Rooster!” The hunters shout to identify the male birds, which are legal to shoot, as shotguns bark and more birds flush