Patience and well-chosen camouflage are my tickets to the best of fall's outdoor show. I enter the scene as an intruder, but my camouflage clothing and sheltering blinds make me a neutral part of the landscape. Like spots on a whitetail fawn, the drab patterns of brown, green, black and dead grass keep me hidden, treating me to front-row views of the rhythms of nature.

My fleece pullover mimics the greens of a still-living cornstalk. It warmed me last year on an early-season goose hunt. The bugs of summer were finally on the wane that chilly mid-September morning. Geese could be heard for miles through the still air, but none came near. I stuck my head through the last row of 8-foot-tall cornstalks and scanned the hayfield where my decoys stood. Fifty yards down the line a whitetail doe was doing the same thing, sniffing the air for danger. Then a pair of fawns exploded out of the corn and past her. They looked like a kaleidoscope of creams and tans through my binoculars. But when their exuberance took them too far, the doe called them back. I couldn't hear the calls but they were visible in the deer's frosty breath. The fawns reluctantly returned to their mother's side.

In early October last fall my Labrador, Doc, was dozing under an Indian summer sun on the floor of my duck boat. I was clad in camo still favoring green, watching a flock of loosely connected crows a half-mile long. They were flying from roost to feeding ground and, as they flew over the slough, red-winged blackbirds shot up at them from the cattails like tracer rounds from anti-aircraft guns. The blackbirds were still protecting long-empty nests. Then some barn swallows took this opportunity to sweep the water, gathering fuel for their flights south.

Green becomes passé

By mid-November last year, all the shallow sloughs were locked in ice. Refusing to accept defeat, I hunted a deeper pond for waterfowl while camouflaged in a half-dozen layers of clothing featuring a dead-grass color. By now the songbirds had departed for southern stages. A marsh wren flew within inches of Doc and me, scolding the dog awake. The bird bounced from cattail to cattail, disappearing only when Doc lunged at it. Ice formed in rings around my mallard decoys and a few floating weeds. A northern goshawk patrolled the shoreline with his flap-flap-flap sail flight.

Suddenly a dark brown head popped up amid my decoys. A mink. It eased effortlessly onto a shelf of ice and slinked its way into a muskrat house. Then the mink dove into a pocket of open water, emerging seconds later with a ravaged rat. Leaving its prey atop the house, it raced to another opening. Same result. Then a third, before the mink disappeared entirely, leaving all three muskrats behind. It was caching a few meals before the next cold front made underwater hunting impossible.

Now the goshawk hovered above. It called and went into a steep dive. At first I thought it wanted the mink's muskrat meals. But no, his target seemed to be me! I cowered with my arms over my head, peeking just in time to see its talons sink into the plastic foam of a duck decoy.

Doc barked. I screamed. The decoy went airborne, its anchor swinging crazily behind the goshawk. The bird flexed its primary feathers for altitude, reaching heights of about 20 feet before deciding this was not worth the effort. It dropped the decoy, sending it crashing through thin ice.

Sly as the red fox

Before driving home from that late-season duck hunt, I rested against a giant round bale of marsh hay on the shore of the slough. My dog and I shared the sunset and a turkey sandwich. A mid-level deck of clouds was resplendent in end-of-day hues. Then a soft guttural growl from Doc interrupted my reverie. We both peeked around the corner of the bale. A red fox approached, its puffy tail luminous in the low light. I hushed my dog and watched the fox hunt toward us, stopping a scant 50 feet away. It sat and stared at the weeds, unaware of Doc and me. After two or three minutes of statue-still patience, the fox suddenly launched itself into the air in an arching attack. Its nose and forepaws hit the ground in unison. Field mouse was for dinner.

With darkness now falling heavily on the prairie, Doc and I headed for my truck, my shoulders hunched against the cold. The fox's patience had scored dinner, while our game bag was empty. But patience and camouflage had served up several beautiful memories, now seared onto our souls.

Bill Klein is an avid hunter, angler and student of nature. He has been writing about the outdoors since his retirement from AT&T.