Birds of a Feather

I was cleaning a bird we had taken earlier that morning, and came across two pellets. While encountering shot is not uncommon, what was unique with this bird, is that one of the pellets was old and healed over.  The luster of the older pellet had long since faded away.  

It was apparent to me that this goose was not new to the fall hunt. While it had managed to survive a previous encounter with a previous hunter, today was not its day. 

I wonder how many times I’ve shot at a bird and swore I hit it, only to watch it fly off into the horizon?  What this encounter has taught me, is that there is another hunter out there, we birds of a feather, who could swear they too hit a bird, only to have watched it fly off into the horizon.