Story tyme-Way back in `84 when hunting/living in ND, a friend and I were out bird hunting in a picture perfect harvested field approaching a tree line,when we jumped a lone partridge. As if my magic this bird is flying farther, and higher, with every shot fired by the both of us! We figured we was shootin` blanks? Well, with my last shot I took aim and took the bird down. It took a low,left banking, dive to the ground that we could(assumed) easily mark for a quick find.After at least a 20 minute search, we finally found it...within inches of where we had searched for the past 20 minutes! Needless to say, I really missed my GSP that day, and had a very good lesson in the art of NATURAL CONCEALMENT!

Good advice Phil. Like I have said before, I use my decoy stake as a reference for downed birds. It has helped me a lot.

Can't emphasize persistence enough. If you don't have time to find a "lost" bird, you probably don't have time to be a hunter.

I've used my hunting hat, BUT have declined to shoot multiple birds when a covey gets up because of lost birds, and I have dogs. Not all the time do dogs pick up sent, and some birds must not give off much sent like doves. I've got a lab with a great nose for pheasants, and not always because of lack of moisture on the ground, and that dog recently came close to stepping on a dove, and never knew it was there. And I invariable don't have a clue where one of the birds went down if I shoot two birds.

and it doesn't just apply to birds. Arrows, foul ball baseballs. On my high school baseball team, we are surrounded on 3 sides by a golf course(all 3 side being major roughs). For every foul ball or home run that gets lost we run a mile(to save money on game balls). I treat a baseball the same as a dove, duck, or pheasant, I mark it with a landmark in the area of the ball and go as straight to it as possible. I don't have to run very much.

I cannot begin to count the number of times I have kept my eyes frozen on where I thought a downed dove went down in a fairly barren field and still end up being completely mystified as to its whereabouts after arriving at the spot. You can usually find it if you meticulously widen your search and go over every square inch, but there is nothing more difficult to spot once it hits the ground than a dove. I gave up a really good flyway once on public land because the grass was about two feet high and you simply could not find anything you shot. Doves just seem to slip into another dimension when they hit the ground. I've gotten to where I take my Brit with me anytime I can, but even she has trouble finding the damned things sometimes, and she has a really good nose.
My favorite recovered bird was a wood duck years ago. Shot it on an 11-degree morning and for the first time my lab refused to go in the water. Couldn't blame her. Wind was blowing away from me and I had to leave, but I came back the next morning to see if I could find it on the opposite bank. Didn't have much time so I didn't take a gun; just the dog. Ran into a game warden and told him what I was doing. He had just happened to come across it a few minutes earlier and told me exactly where it was and how to find it. He didn't even ask to see my license or stamps. I guess he figured anybody either ethical or dumb enough to make a second-day search for a dead duck in freezing weather, unarmed and accompanied by a lab, was probably legal.