Music came from somewhere across the field, and the sound — string instruments, a recording — seemed to cue both the riders and the no-see-ums.

The bugs, biting but not yet wheeling about in pesky clouds, whined in people’s ears — surely those of the horses, too — as well-groomed animals carried jacketed riders toward silver serving trays.

Arranged on the trays were small, plastic cups of sherry.

The riders, more than 100 of them, garbed mostly in black coats and tan riding breeches, partook — the ritual ahead of a hunt.

Helpers hand out sherry to riders before the start of the fox hunt on Jan. 15, 2017, during the Lowcountry Hunt Club's Plantation Hunt Weekend at Airy Hall Plantation in Colleton County.

Jay Karr/Staff photo

The air tried to be chilly on this January Sunday morning, but the sun had risen, and the pests that landed on and bit into exposed skin forecast an unseasonably warm day. Not ideal. Cool, damp conditions are better for hunting foxes and coyotes — the animals’ scents linger in dewy grass and stay lower to the ground, nearer the noses of foxhounds pursuing them, hunters say. A warm winter sun toasts the land like bread, drying it out, causing scents to rise and, eventually, vanish.

Experienced foxhunters know their game’s scent, and when they can smell it atop their mount, well, the hunt might be over early, before noon.

But it was just after 9 a.m. on this day, and here, at Airy Hall Plantation in southern Colleton County, Martyn Blackmore knew where to find a fox.

Don’t call them dogs

Blackmore and his horse rested nearer the middle of the field, which was stained with splotchy sunshine, as more riders appeared through the moss-strewn oaks lining the perimeter.

He wore a red riding coat, the collar of which was dark blue with gold trim — indigo and Carolina gold, the colors of Lowcountry Hunt, his employer.

Lowcountry Hunt, founded in 2006, has its kennels in the Colleton County community of Jacksonboro. There are about 80 members, according to Master Foxhunter Melinda Shambley, who pay annual dues ranging from $400 to $1,800. They come from all over the Lowcountry and Savannah, and they earn their colored collars only after three years of membership, and only when they are nominated and confirmed by the club. Sporting the colors is an honor, and members must perform sufficient service to the club to warrant it.

Christina Bates, left, and daughter Tracy Bates, on horses Lola and Tori, model formal hunting attire before the Lowcountry Hunt Club's fox hunt at Airy Hall Plantation in Colleton County on Jan. 15, 2017. The blue collar with gold trim they wear indicates they are members of the club. Christina's red jacket and black and brown boots show she is one of the three masters present for the hunt, while her white breeches show she is a staff member.

Jay Karr/Staff photo

There are more than 150 clubs in North America recognized by the Masters of Foxhounds Association and Foundation, according to the organization’s website. Lowcountry Hunt is one of six recognized in South Carolina.

Blackmore is the club’s professional huntsman, responsible for breeding, rearing, training and caring for the club’s hounds, and directing them in the field during hunts. The club hunts eight properties in four area counties, including Turkey Hill Plantation in Jasper County and Palmetto Bluff in Beaufort County.

The Englishman has worked with hounds — foxhunters never call them “dogs” — for more than three decades, and his hunting roots stretch to his great grandfather, a harbourer, someone who tracked and identified deer to be pursued by hounds during stag hunts. This is his third season with Lowcountry Hunt.

The hounds await the start of the fox hunt on Jan. 15, 2017.

Jay Karr/Staff photo

Near his horse, 33 foxhounds — 16 and a half couples, as they’re traditionally counted — trotted around or lay on the ground. Some rolled onto their backs, looking very much like pets at a park. Most were tri-colored: black, white and tan. All had large feet and long, sturdy legs that merged into lean bodies. At one end were heads with drooping ears and long snouts; at the other, thick, corded tails — called “sterns” by foxhunters — which might “feather” when hounds pick up their game’s scent.

A hound sniffs the air before a fox hunt on Jan. 15, 2017, during the Lowcountry Hunt Club's Plantation Hunt Weekend at Airy Hall in Colleton County.

Jay Karr/Staff photo

Blackmore raised to his lips a small copper horn, which looked like the child of a bugle and a kazoo and sounded much the same.

He blew the horn.

The hunt began.

Stealthy quarry

Lowcountry Hunt had once killed a fox at Airy Hall, where on this morning Blackmore began leading the riders through fields, down trails and into the woods.

His wife, Sue, can remember just one other kill during the couple’s tenure with the club. Killing a fox is rare, hunters say, and in America that’s not the point.

“Through the years North American foxhunting has evolved its own distinct flavor which is noticeably different from the British,” according to the Masters of Foxhounds Association. “The most obvious difference is that in North America the emphasis is on the chase rather than the kill.”

A hunt is successful if a fox is chased into a hole or forced up a tree. The hounds are called off and the riders go elsewhere in search of other game.

Gray foxes will climb trees, according to wildlife biologist Jay Butfiloski, who coordinates the S.C. Department of Natural Resources’ furbearer program. Red foxes won’t.

Sometimes foxes will run circles, he said, to confuse hounds. And sometimes “they may even appear to enjoy the chase and stop to allow hounds to catch up.”

Sue Blackmore has seen a fox get out ahead of a pack of hounds and stop. That day she was hunting as a whipper-in — a rider who answers to the huntsman, drives straggling hounds back to him and scouts away from the pack in hopes of seeing a fox. She was in the woods, and she could hear the hounds in the distance, and she watched the fox sit down near her. Moments later, as if checking some invisible watch and deciding it was time, the fox sauntered away.

During an average season — 35 or so hunts between November and March — there might be 70 total sightings — or “views” — of foxes and coyotes, she said. But that’s a very rough estimate, she said, and some riders, depending where they’re positioned in the field, might not see anything.

When a fox — usually old or sick — is killed, it’s “instantaneous,” she said.

“The lead hound bites them in the back of the neck, which kills them straight away, severs the spinal cord,” she said. “So all the pictures you see and the stories you hear of them ripping the animal apart alive, that is not true, at all.”

Foxhunting, with the Lowcountry Hunt Club

Things will go wrong

At Airy Hall, just minutes into the hunt, Martyn Blackmore and the hounds made for the Butterfly Pond, the first area he would “draw” — search — for a fox.

The rest of the riders, organized into several “flights” — first flight being the most experienced equestrians likely to perform jumps — followed at a distance.

Along the way, a rider, a young woman, fell from her mount. No surprise on a day like this, said Lowcountry Hunt Secretary Holly Evans, who was following behind in her car. The group of riders, called “the field,” was larger than usual, as foxhunters from nine states and Canada had traveled to South Carolina for the club’s annual Lowcountry Hunt Weekend.

The larger field — the inclusion of horses not used to running together — meant some things were bound to go wrong.

“Fox hunting is essentially an inner struggle against dashed hopes,” Stephen Budiansky, himself a hunter, wrote in The Atlantic some years ago. It is a sport where things go wrong, he said, and in which, he guessed, “one (almost) perfect day in ten years is well above the mean.”

As the woman gathered her horse and moved to the side of the dirt road, the field continued along.

Fox hunters and hounds search for their quarry on Jan. 15, 2017, at Airy Hall in Colleton County.

Jay Karr/Staff photo

Blackmore and the hounds then hunted along the Long and Windy, a trail where they “ran something in there, maybe a fox or a coyote,” he would later say. Their quarry led them to the plantation’s main drive toward the gatehouse.

Somewhere in there, some of the hounds “were naughty” and chased a deer — “rioting,” it’s called, when hounds chase something they shouldn’t.

Tailgaters and squeals

As the field hunted, friends and family followed in cars and trucks.

The passengers sipped beers and bloody marys, some of them seated on hay bales atop an open trailer towed by a truck — the “Tally-ho Wagon.” When the woods became too dense or the trail ended, they parked the vehicles and waited.

Sometimes you see nothing. Sometimes you see a lone hound weaving in and out of the treeline. You might, if you’re lucky, see a fox.

Sometimes you hear Blackmore’s English accent cut through the woods as he encourages the hounds. The high-pitched buzz of his copper horn. And, often, the hounds themselves.

Huntsman talks to the hounds — and they speak back

Veteran foxhunters such as Nina Burke, a founder and past master of Lowcountry Hunt, can tell what the hounds are tracking by the sound of their cries.

Lower-pitched WOOF-WOOFs for coyotes and foxes, squeals for bobcats.

Tealeaf, the club’s best-hunting bitch, has a distinctive higher-pitched cry, and the Blackmores can hone in on her when she “speaks.” That trait has endured in her bloodline, they say. The couple and other club members know each hound by sight and name.

In Airy Hall’s woods, Blackmore continued to hunt for almost two more hours.

Around 11 a.m., he and the riders headed for an old hayfield, centered by a large oak offering shade for the hounds.

The tailgaters met them there for “tea.”

Beers were shared, pictures were taken — and, when asked, Blackmore divulged the day’s kills.

The late hour

People and horses milled about the hayfield, which was dotted with holes dug by armadillos.

Riders dismounted and walked to nearby bushes to relieve themselves.

Blackmore, still atop his horse, inspected the hounds.

Ladybird was limping, and she was retired from the hunt.

Tallulah had a cut, but nothing serious.

People did their best not to pet the hounds — it’s bad form to do so during a hunt.

The day had warmed. Scenting conditions had deteriorated. The hunters weren’t optimistic, given the late hour.

Blackmore would take the riders out for a couple of more hours, “drawing” another “covert” — pronounced “cover” — where a fox might be.

Nothing.

Eventually, everyone would retire to the house at Airy Hall, and have “breakfast” — what the meal’s called, no matter the hour — by the pool, a stone’s throw away from a bend in the Ashepoo River.

The hunt was over, the hounds were collected, the riders went home.

A hound relaxes in the shade during a break in the action on Jan. 15, 2017, during the Lowcountry Hunt Club's Plantation Hunt Weekend at Airy Hall in Colleton County.

Jay Karr/Staff photo

Earlier, in the hayfield, a guest asked Blackmore if he’d nabbed any game.

A couple of armadillos, he said.

Still, a good day — a day on horseback in the natural beauty of the Lowcountry.

The riders had seen the hounds work.

Heard their cries.

And had chased game through the country.

Which, in many ways, is the point.

Wade Livingston: 843-706-8153, @WadeGLivingston
Produced by Kelly Davis, 843-706-8102, @kdavis2001