Dispatches from Hungary

A wingshooting adventure in Central Europe

Today feels like October 20, the opening day of Michigan's pheasant season when I was a kid and our untrained dogs raced through cornfields heavy with bird scent. I can hear again the shatter of papery stalks and the cockbirds cackling in alarm as the dogs closed in. Suddenly, pheasants burst into panicked flight-gashes of Technicolor as brilliant as that NBC peacock. Showtime: Birds blowing out everywhere, the guns going off, feathers drifting past my stand, the taste of gunpowder. God, how I loved those opening days.

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