I saw a reference to chukar hunting that led me to a site about hunting in Upland Idaho and a video (called A Fistful of Chukars) of a man and a dog and chukars falling from the sky.  I learned a little about chukar hunting – not much – and saw that there was a reference on the site labelled “If you are out hunting by yourself and feel you are having a heart attack… this is how to handle it.”

That is probably there because of this description of an outing:

You just climbed to the top of a mountain.  You didn’t get there taking a hiker’s path, the slow rhythmic pace along a trail.  You got there cross-country chasing a dog that is chasing a bird.  Your steps fall downhill to get to the dog on point and hopefully the flush of a covey.  Your steps fall uphill racing to get above the feathered creatures you admire so much.  Once you are on top or even crest a high vantage to look down on the rolling ridges and water below you know what it is to have earned something.  It isn’t the bird in the bag you will think of at this very moment, it’s the view.  The stark beauty of the place you are in settles into you.  Once you feel this you have found another piece of the puzzle that is chukar hunting.

Karl DeHart
UplandIdaho.com

But getting back to chukars, when I first saw the word and that they were hunted, I thought it sounded like something you should do with a khyber knife. And when I checked a Cornell site to learn abou chukars, I exclaimed, “I knew it!” because the first thing I read was this: A native of southern Eurasia, the Chukar was introduced into the United States from Pakistan . . .

I then went to the shopping part of the site and found a new phrase: CHUCKING FUKAR! It was printed on hats.

By the hilt and the haft of the khyber knife, what in the heck does fukar mean? I looked it up. This proved a difficult task. Most results on the Google search engine referred me back to the place on Upland Idaho I had come from. When I put in “fukar definition” it asked me if I meant FUBAR – and we have been there before . . . Foo Bar and all that.

The best I could come up with was a reference to a post titled  Sand Merchants Baned in a blog titled Corax’al.

“Fukar” is the noun form of the verb (that we of Vra’Akar came up with) for the action by which mothers and fathers engender children. But in usage just as common, one might hear ‘jalla‘ used to mean ‘copulate’. Since it also means ‘to strike’ or ‘to beat’, it shares an etymology analogous to that of the infamous English F-word.))

So how this happened to get on hats, I don’t know, but next to the picture, they have noted this:

If you have chased chukar then you understand the meaning.

Well, at least if a tornado carries me, like Dorothy, far away – say to Peshawar –  I will know two words. I think I’d better just say “Chukar”.  Although, “Take me to the American Embassy” would probably be best.

Ack, some of the pheasant hunters here are gearing up for chukar . . .