WILDFOWL-SHOOTING IN THE MARISMA
ITS PRINCIPLES AND PRACTICE
Vast as their aggregations may be, yet wildfowl do not
necessarily--merely by virtue of numbers--afford any sort of certainty
to the modern fowler. Half-a-million may be in view day by day, but in
situations or under conditions where scarce half-a-score can be killed.
This elementary feature is never appreciated by the uninitiated, nor
probably ever will be since Hawker's terse and trenchant prologue failed
to fix it.[19]
What "the Colonel" wrote a century ago stands equally good to-day; and
_mutatis mutandis_ will probably stand good a century hence.
[Illustration]
Long before the authors had appeared on the scene with
breech-loaders--even before the epoch of Hawker with his copper-caps and
detonators--the Spanish fowlers of the marisma had already devised means
of their own whereby the swarming wildfowl could be secured by
wholesale. As a market venture, their system of a stalking-horse (called
a _cabresto_) was deadly in the extreme and interesting to boot,
affording unique opportunity of closely approaching massed wildfowl
while still unconscious of danger. We have spent delightful days
crouching behind these shaggy ponies, and describe the method later. But
this is not a style that at all subserves the aspirations of the modern
gunner, and we here study the problem from his point of view.
The essence of success lies in ascertaining precisely the exact areas
where fowl in quantity are "strongly haunted," by day and night,
together with their regular lines of flight thence and thereto.
Obviously such exact knowledge in these vast marismas, devoid of
landmarks, demands careful observation, and it must be remembered that
these things change with every change of weather and water. Having
located such well-frequented resorts or flight-lines, the degree of
success will yet depend on the _strength_ of the "haunt." It may happen
(despite all care) that the partiality of the fowl for that special spot
or route is merely superficial and evanescent. A dozen shots and they
have cleared out, or altered their course. In the reverse case, so
strong may be their "haunt" that no amount of disturbance entirely
drives them away, and even those that have already been scared by the
sound of shooting will yet return again and again.
* * * * *
By night ducks feed in the slobby shallows and oozes, but concealed by
the samphire-growth which flourishes in such places. Hence the use of
the stancheon-gun is not here available as in the case of bare,
plant-free, tidal flats at home and elsewhere.
In the dusk the ducks have arrived at these feeding-grounds in quite
small trips or bunches. But as the stars pale towards the dawn, they
depart in larger detachments, often numbering hundreds in a pack. Still,
such are their enormous numbers that, even so, their shifting armies
form an almost continuous stream in the direction whither they take
their course. But where is that? That is the problem on the solution of
which the fowler's success depends. We will presume that you have so
solved it. In that case, you will have witnessed, between an hour before
sun-up and half-an-hour thereafter, as marvellous a procession as the
scheme of bird-life can afford.
Let us follow the fowl throughout that matutinal flight. Away through
leagues of empty space they hold their course, now high in air where
vistas of brown samphire loom like land and might conceal a lurking foe,
anon lowering their flight where sporadic sheets or lanes of open water
break the tawny monotony. Beyond all this, stretching away in open
waters like an inland sea, lies a big _lucio_. That is their goal. One
by one, or in dozens and scores, the infinite detachments re-unite to
splash down upon that glassy surface. Within brief minutes the whole
expanse is darkened as with a carpet.
[Illustration: THE STANCHEON-GUN IN THE MARISMA--DAWN.]
Upon this _lucio_ the assembled ducks command a view for miles around.
Hardly could a water-rat approach unseen. If the fowl persisted in
passing the entire day thereon, no human power would avail to molest
them--they could bid defiance to fowlers of every race and breed. Two
circumstances, however, favour their human foes. The first is the
perpetual disturbance created among those floating hosts by
birds-of-prey. These--chiefly marsh-harriers, but including also the
great black-backed gulls--execute perpetual "feints" at the swimming
ducks, sections of which (often thousands strong) are compelled to rise
on wing by the menacing danger. The dominant idea actuating the raptores
(since they are unable to attack the main bodies) is to ascertain if one
or more wounded ducks remain afloat after their sound companions have
cleared--the cripples, of course, affording an easy prey. The disturbed
fowl will not fly far, perhaps half-a-mile, unless indeed they happen
during that flight to catch sight of an attractive fleet of "decoys"
moored in some quiet creek a mile or so away.
The second favouring circumstance arises from a difference in habit
between ducks in Spain and their relatives (even con-specific)
inhabiting British waters. For whereas the latter, as a rule, will
remain quiescent in their selected resting-places the livelong day, in
Spain, on the contrary, by about 11 A.M., the force of hunger begins
visibly to operate--not in all, but in sections, which, rising in
detachments, separate themselves from the masses and commence
exploratory cruises among the smaller and shallower _lucios_ where food
may be found.[20] This intermittent flight slackens off for an hour or
so at midday, is renewed in the afternoon, and stops dead one hour
before sun-down.
To exploit the advantage offered by these habits it is necessary to
ascertain to which of the innumerable minor _lucios_ these
"hunger-marchers" are resorting. Observation will have decided that
point, and our expert gunner now (at 11 A.M.) be concealed with
scrupulous care, and his fleet of, say, fifty decoys set out in lifelike
and (or) attractive attitudes, exactly in the centre of the particular
lagoon, whither, of recent days, the ducks have been observed to resort
in greatest abundance from noon onwards.
The gunner lies expectant on the cut rushes which strew the
bottom-boards of his _cajon_--a box-shaped punt some 7 feet long by
2-1/2 broad, which is concealed by being thrust bodily in the midst of
the biggest samphire bush available. The craft nevertheless is still
afloat and, though flat-bottomed, is yet terribly crank, and any sudden
movement to port or starboard threatens to capsize the entire outfit.
To allay the tense suspicion of flighting wildfowl, several of the
adjacent bushes for fifty yards around have been heightened by the
addition of a cut bough or two--the idea being to induce a theory among
passing ducks merely that this particular spot seems peculiarly
favourable to samphire-growth--that and nothing more.
In setting up decoys, while many are posed in lifelike attitudes, it is
advisable to hang a few (especially white-plumaged species, such as
pintail, shoveler, and wigeon-drakes) in almost vertical positions, in
order to induce a belief among hungry incomers that these birds are
"turning-up" to feast on abundant subaquatic plants beneath.
This intermittent flight is naturally irregular, hunger affecting
greater or less numbers on different days; but when it comes off in
force affords the cream of wildfowling from before noon till the sun
droops in the west. During the last hour before he dips not a wing
moves.
Duck-shooting thus resolves itself into two main systems: (1)
intercepting the fowl on flight at dawn, and later (2) awaiting their
incoming at expected points.
A good shoot may sometimes be engineered by cutting a broad "ride"
through the samphire along some flight-line, thereby forming an open
channel between two _lucios_. Ducks which have hitherto flown sky-high
in order to cross the danger-zone will now pass quite low along the new
waterway, and even prefer it to crossing the cover at hazard, however
high.
A typical day's fowling in mid-marisma may be described. The night has
been spent in a reed-built hut charmingly situate on a mud-islet
half-an-acre in extent, and commanding unequalled views of flooded and
featureless marisma. At 4 A.M. we turn out and by the dim light of a
lantern embark in a _cajon_ (punt), serenaded by the croaks and gabbling
of flamingoes somewhere out in the dark waters. My wild companion,
Batata, kneeling in the bows and grasping a punt-pole in either hand,
bends to his work, and away we glide--into the unknown.
A weird feeling it is squatting thus at water-level and watching the
wavelets dance by or dash over our two-inch free-board. We make but
three miles an hour, yet seem to fly past half-seen water-plants. A
myriad stars are reflected on the still surface ahead, and it is by a
single great _Lucero_ (planet) that our pilot is now steering his
course.
Batata presently remarks that we have "arrived." One takes his word for
this. Still that verb does conditionally imply some place or spot of
arrival. Here there was none--none, at least, that could be
differentiated from any other point or spot in many circumambient
leagues. But this was not an hour for philological disquisition, so we
mentally decide that we have reached "nowhere." A few hours later when
daylight discovers our environment, that negation appears sufficiently
proved. There are visible certain objects on the distant horizon.
One--that behind us--proves to be the roof of the _choza_ wherein we had
spent the night--"hull-down" to the eastward. The others a lengthened
scrutiny with prism-binoculars shows to be a trio of wild camels feeding
knee-deep in water. Now where you see such signs you may conclude you
are nowhere.
We skip a few hours, since we have no intention of inflicting on the
reader the details of a morning's flight-shooting. Suffice that at 9
A.M. B. reappears poling up in his punt, the spoils are collected
(forty-nine in all, mostly wigeon and teal, with a few pintail and
shoveler and one couple of gadwall), and the plan for the day discussed.
To remain where we were (as this _lucio_ had yesterday attracted a
fairly continuous flight of ducks) had been our original idea. But a
shift of the wind had rendered a second _lucio_, distant two miles, a
more favourable resort for to-day, and thither accordingly we set out.
Here a new _puesto_ is promptly prepared and the forty-nine decoys
deftly set out, each supported by a supple wand stuck in the mud below.
Hardly had these preparations been completed, than the intermittent (or
secondary) flight had commenced, file after file of ducks heading up
from distant space, wheeling over or dashing past the seductive decoys.
At recurring moments during the next three or four hours (with blank
intervals between) I enjoyed to the full this most delightful form of
wildfowling, so totally different in practice to all others.
Such is the speed of flighting fowl, such their keenness of vision and
instant perception of danger, that but a momentary point of time--say
the eighth of a second--is available fully to exploit each chance.
Should the gunner rise too quick, the ducks are beyond the most
effective range; yet within a space not to be measured by figures or
words, they will have detected the fraud, and in a flash have scattered,
shooting vertically upwards like a bunch of sky-rockets.
Two features in the life-history of the duck-kind become apparent. The
first points to the probability that adults pair for life, and that the
mated couples keep together all winter even when forming component units
in a crowd. For when an adult female is shot from the midst of a pack,
the male will almost invariably accompany her in her fall to the very
surface of the water, and will afterwards circle around, piping
disconsolately, and even return again and again in search of his lost
partner. This applies chiefly to wigeon, but we have frequently observed
the same trait in pintail and occasionally in other species. It is only
the drakes that display this constancy; a bereaved female continues her
flight unheeding.
The feature is most conspicuous when awaiting ducks at their
feeding-grounds (_comederos_), but it also occurs when shooting on their
flight-lines (_correderos_) between distant points.
The second singular habit is the custom, particularly among wigeon, to
form what are termed in Spanish _magañonas_--little groups of four to a
dozen birds consisting of a single female with a bevy of males in
attendance, flying aimlessly hither and thither in a compact mass, the
drakes constantly calling and the one female twisting and turning in all
directions as though to avoid their attentions. The _magañonas_ appear
blind to all sense of danger, and will pass within easy range even
though a gunner be fully exposed. Not only this, but a first shot may
easily account for half-a-dozen, and should the hen be among the fallen,
the survivors will come round again and again in search of her. We have
known whole _magañonas_ to be secured within a few minutes.
Other species also form _magañonas_, but more rarely and never in so
conspicuous a manner as the wigeon. The habit certainly springs from
what we have elsewhere termed a "pseudo-erotic" instinct (see _Bird-life
of the Borders_, 2nd ed., pp. 208, 234-5), and is probably the first
pairing of birds which have just then reached full maturity.
* * * * *
From mid-February to the end of March ducks are constantly departing
northwards whenever conditions favour, to wit, a south-west wind in the
afternoon, which wind is a feature of the season. Their vacant places
are at once filled by an equally constant succession of arrivals from
the south (Africa), easily recognised by rusty stains on their lower
plumage (denoting ferruginous water) which they lose here within a few
days.
Ducks at this season can find food everywhere in the _manzanilla_, or
camomile, which now grows up from the bottom and in places covers the
shallows with its white, buttercup-like flowers. Having food everywhere
there is less necessity to fly in search of it. It is, however, a
curious feature of the season that, after the morning-flight (which is
shorter than in mid-winter), ducks practically suspend all movement
from, say, 8 A.M. till the daily sea-breeze (_Viento de la mar_) springs
up about 1 P.M. During these five hours not a wing moves, but no sooner
has the sea-breeze set in than constant streams of ducks fly in
successive detachments from the large open _lucios_ to the shallower
feeding-grounds. Thus we have known a late February "bag," which at 2
P.M. had numbered but a miserable half-score, mount up before dusk to
little short of a hundred.
* * * * *
Wigeon arrive from the end of September onwards, the great influx
occurring during the first fortnight of November. They commence leaving
from mid-February, and by the end of March all (save a few belated
stragglers) are gone.
The same remarks apply equally to pintail, shoveler, and teal, though,
as before remarked, pintail often appear exceptionally early--in
September,--and are again extremely conspicuous (after being scarce all
winter) on their return journey--_de vuelta paso_, as it is called--in
February.
Gadwall, preferring deep waters, are not numerous in the shallow
marisma. A big bag therein, nevertheless, will always include a few
couples of this species.
Shoveler are so numerous that we have known over eighty bagged by one
gun in a day.
Garganey chiefly occur in early autumn and again _de vuelta paso_ in
March. They winter in Africa.
Marbled duck breed here, and in September large bags may be made; but in
mid-winter (when they have retired to Africa) it is rare to secure more
than half-a-dozen or so in a day. They are very bad eating.
Shelduck only occur in dry seasons. They fall easy victims to any sort
of "decoy" provided it is _white_. A local fowler told us he had killed
many by substituting (in default of natural decoys) the dry bones and
skulls of cattle! Ruddy shelduck do not frequent the marisma, preferring
the sweeter waters and shallows adjoining Doñana.
Diving-ducks avoid the marisma except only in the wettest winters.
* * * * *
An hour before sun-down, as above stated, all bird-movement ceases. For
a brief space absolute tranquillity reigns over the illimitable marisma.
The dusky masses that cover the _lucios_ seem lulled to sleep and
silence. But the interlude is very temporary. Hardly has night thrown
her mantle across the wastes, than all that tremendous, eager, vital
energy is reawakened to fresh activities. A striking and a memorable
experience will be gained by awaiting that exact hour at some favourite
feeding-ground. Within a few minutes, as darkness deepens, the ambient
air fairly hisses and surges with the pulsation of thousand strong
pinions hurtling close by one's ear, and with the splash of heavy bodies
flung down by fifties and hundreds in the shallows almost within
arm's-length--the nearest approximation that occurs to us is a
bombardment of pompoms. Yet, for all that, night-flighting in the
marisma (having regard to the quantities concerned) produces but
insignificant results. The ducks come in so low and so direct--no
preliminary circling overhead--and at such velocity that this
flight-shooting may be likened to an attempt to hit cannon-balls in the
dark. Our expert shots score, say, eight or ten, but what is that? The
nocturnal disturbance, moreover, may be (and usually is) prejudicial to
the next day's operations, and it is clearly not worth the risk, for
half-a-dozen shots in the twilight, to discount a hundred at dawn.
The fewer shots ducks hear, the better. Never disturb them unless you
have every reasonable prospect of exacting a proportionate toll.
[Illustration]