California Upland Birds

California's upland seasons run from a September dove field to a January chukar ridge, and from desert washes to the alpine crest of the Sierra. These are the birds we cover. Pick one for the 2026–27 season dates, how to tell it apart, where it lives in California, and everything we've written about it.

The Harvest Map: California counties shaded by upland bird harvest Interactive map

Field tool · CDFW 2023–24 harvest survey

Harvest Map

Where California's ten huntable upland species were actually taken, county by county. Pick one bird to see its counties, or turn on the recent burn scars.

Open the Harvest Map →
A mourning dove perched on a lichen-covered branch against a blue sky in Sacramento, California.

Doves

California's dove season opens Sept. 1 — the unofficial start of the upland year — and comes back for a second split in November and December. Mourning and white-winged doves will test every part of your swing.

A male California quail with its forward-curling plume stands in dry golden grass beside a weathered log.

Quail

California has three quail species worth chasing — California quail in the foothill chaparral, Gambel's quail in the desert southeast, and mountain quail in the steep timber country.

A wild ring-necked pheasant rooster with a white neck ring and copper flanks walks through dry tule-edge cover.

Pheasant

Ring-necked pheasants aren't native to California, but they've made the Sacramento Valley floor their own — and a rooster flushing from tule marsh is tough to forget.

A sooty grouse stands in red and orange early-fall ground cover in the Sierra Nevada of Placer County.

Sooty & Ruffed Grouse

Sooty and ruffed grouse are California's most overlooked upland birds — forest species that require elevation, dense timber, and a willingness to hunt country most bird hunters never see.

A chukar partridge with a black eye-stripe and barred flanks stands on a dark basalt boulder above cured cheatgrass in Modoc County.

Chukar

Chukar live where most hunters won't go — steep, rocky, and relentlessly vertical country in the eastern Sierra and Great Basin ranges. They'll humble you, but they're worth it.

A band-tailed pigeon with a yellow bill and a white crescent on its nape perches on a bare snag above a chaparral and oak slope in Southern California.

Band-tailed Pigeon

Band-tailed pigeons are a coastal and mountain species that few California hunters pursue — and that's exactly why the ones who do have the oak ridges largely to themselves.

A white-tailed ptarmigan in mottled early-fall plumage with white wings and belly sits among granite boulders in the Sierra Nevada.

Ptarmigan

White-tailed ptarmigan occupy some of the most remote alpine terrain in the Sierra Nevada — a bird so rarely pursued in California that finding one is an achievement before the shotgun ever comes up.

A Wilson's snipe with a long straight bill and striped back stands in shallow water among flooded rice stubble.

Snipe

Wilson's snipe are real, they're huntable, and don't let the name fool you — their corkscrew flush will expose a wing-shooter faster than almost anything else in the field.

Everything We've Written on Birds

The pieces about each bird, starting with its guide where we have one. Each bird's own page lists these plus everything else that touches it, from dog care to shotgun shells.

Doves

Quail

Pheasant

Chukar

Sooty and Ruffed Grouse

Band-tailed Pigeon

White-tailed ptarmigan and Wilson's snipe have no articles yet; their pages carry the 2026–27 dates and where each one lives. For everything else we've published, see Articles.

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Photo credits, left to right: mourning dove — ADJ82 / CC BY 3.0 (source); California quail — Hawk T. / CC BY 4.0 (source); ring-necked pheasant — Mary K. Hanson / CC BY 4.0 (source); sooty grouse — James Fowler / CC BY 4.0 (source); chukar — Garth Harwood / CC BY 4.0 (source); band-tailed pigeon — Andy Kleinhesselink / CC0 (source); white-tailed ptarmigan — Christoph Moning / CC BY 4.0 (source); Wilson's snipe — Jonathan Eisen / CC BY 4.0 (source).

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