SPRING-TIME IN THE MARISMAS
BIRD-LIFE IN A DRY SEASON
Bird-life in the Spanish marisma--in spring no less than in
winter--presents spectacles of such abounding variety as can nowhere in
Europe be surpassed. In the Arctic are vaster aggregations, but these,
comprising, say, only half-a-dozen species, are less attractive. It is
the infinite kaleidoscopic succession of graceful and dissimilar forms
that hour by hour flash on one's sight--in a word, it is variety that
lends abiding charm to our Spanish bird-world.
[Illustration: GREY PLOVER (MAY)]
These scenes have already been described--we have ourselves described
them in detail, and do not propose to recapitulate, alluring though the
subject be.
Here we purpose depicting bird-life under undescribed conditions--in a
spring when, by reason of exceptional drought, the myriad marsh-dwellers
find themselves entirely at fault. Winging their seasonal way from
Africa, to seek the seclusion of reed-girt pools and their accustomed
league-long swamps and shallows, they found instead a calcined plain, no
drop of water remaining, plant-life either prematurely parched or
pulverised beneath a fiery sun. Watching the arrival of the
advance-guard in early spring, one wondered what the bewildered hosts
would do next, how they would face this fresh freak of nature.
The marismas, it should be explained, normally dry every summer, however
wet the previous winter may have been. Though the great _lucios_ stood
five feet deep in February, yet the deepest will be stone-dry by
midsummer or, at latest, by St. Jago (July 24). Cattle and the wild-game
can then only drink at the narrowed pools where permanent water, however
exiguous, oozes forth--or the cattle from wells. In normal years,
however, the marsh-birds have already reared their broods before these
dates.
But in years of drought--what resource have they, where can they find a
substitute for their sun-destroyed and desolate _incunabula_? Many (the
waders in particular) instinctively prognosticate a drought; few,
comparatively, either come or remain--those that come pass on. Even such
birds as breed on permanent deep-water lakes (such, for example, as the
smaller herons, egrets, and ibises) perceive in advance that, although
they may have water assured, there will neither be sufficient covert,
later on, to conceal their nurseries nor food for the rearing of their
young. The erewhiles teeming heronries are abandoned.
Never within forty years has there occurred a drier season than this
last, 1909-10. Incidentally we may remark that most of the previous
spring-tides that we had expressly devoted to the marisma had been years
of excessive rainfall, years when flamingoes nested abundantly--an
unfailing index. Such was 1872, for example, 1879, and 1883; again, in
April 1891, we remember our gunning-punt, caught in a squall, sinking
beneath us in quite three feet of water though barely a mile from shore.
These are the seasons when (as described in _Wild Spain_) one sees the
waterfowl in their fullest abundance. On the present occasion (1910) we
were to witness converse conditions. Throughout the preceding winter the
fountains of heaven had been stayed, nor did the advent of spring bring
one hour of rain. By mid-March the marisma was practically waterless--a
fortnight later, sunbaked hard as bricks. Where now were the
marsh-birds? In April or May you could ride a long day over arid
mud-flats and never see a wing, bar, in the latter month, a few Kentish
plovers and fluttering pratincoles[67]--add a band or two of croaking
sand-grouse (_Pterocles alchata_) passing in the high heavens. Where had
the exiled myriads gone? No man can answer.
We are not so foolish as attempt to say; but we do venture to express
the opinion that in years when even wildest Spain refuses asylum to wild
creatures such as these, the result to them can only represent an
overwhelming catastrophe. For there lies before them no alternative
refuge; their races must perish by wholesale.
At those rare points where permanent waters remained one might look for
great concentrations of bird-life, yet such was not the case. As
indicated, the bulk had foreseen the event and abandoned this country.
One phenomenon struck us as inexplicable. Of the birds that did remain
none displayed the slightest symptom of yielding to the vernal impulse,
of pairing, or of desiring to nest.
Flamingoes, for example (what few there were), continued massed in solid
herds up to mid-May. A band of 300 that we examined closely on the 12th
at the Caño de la Junquera (though fully 90 per cent were adults in
perfect pink feather) contained not a single paired couple. Hard by the
flamingoes some forty or fifty spoonbills were feeding. These, last
year, nested at this spot, building upon or among the low
samphire-scrub--a dangerously open situation for such big and
conspicuous birds. This spring, though many remained in the marisma, not
a spoonbill nested in the district at all. Flamingoes, by the way, had
exhibited extreme restlessness throughout the spring. On February 22,
for example, while steaming up the Straits of Gibraltar, we detected
them in quite incredible numbers but at an altitude almost beyond the
range even of prism-glasses--it was a dim similitude to drifting _cirri_
that first caught our eye. So vast was their aërial elevation that it
was only after prolonged examination we at length recognised those
revolving grey specks as being birds at all; presently a nearer band,
directly overhead, revealed their characteristic identity. The bulk of
these held a southerly tendency, towards Africa; others drifted
undecided; while several bands, halting between two opinions, when lost
to sight were wheeling beyond the Spanish hills.
Ducks also in mid-May serried the skies in utterly anachronous
skeins--reminiscent of winter. These were largely marbled ducks, all
unpaired; but there were also very large aggregations of mallards. One
such pack on May 10 certainly counted 500--a number we never remember to
have seen massed together in Spain before, not even in winter. This was
at the Hondon. A similar phenomenon was observed with the white-faced
ducks. These curious creatures also remained in packs, and without sign
of pairing, on the open waters of Santolalla--open only because aquatic
plants had forborne to grow. In normal seasons these lakes are studded
with great cane-brakes and islanded reed-jungles, within whose recesses
these amphibians build their floating homes. This spring not a reed had
grown--partly owing to cattle having destroyed the earlier shoots which
are usually protected by deep water. There was literally no covert
within which these ducks (and the swarming coots and grebes) could
breed, even were they so minded--which they were not!
The only ducks that had paired in earnest were gadwall, garganey, common
and white-eyed pochard (of which the first three nest here in very
limited numbers), together with normal quantities of mallard.
[Illustration: HEAD OF CRESTED COOT
The frontal plate is concave, whereas in the common coot it is convex.]
A collateral result of the shortage of water wrought yet further havoc
among the birds which had elected to remain, and accentuated the
prescience of those that had departed. Nesting-places, ordinarily
islanded in mid-water, were now left stranded on dry land and thus open
to the ravages of the whole fraternity of four-footed egg-devouring
vermin. Many species, we know, foresee such risks and invariably avoid
them; others, less prudent, make the attempt and lose their labour. The
white-eyed pochards, for example, which are accustomed to nest in
islanded clumps of rush and dense aquatic grasses, this year simply
provided free breakfasts to rats and ichneumons! We happened to require
two or three settings of these ducks to hatch-off under hens, but no
sooner did a marked nest contain three or four eggs than all were
devoured! As to the coots, of which both the common and crested species
breed in the marisma in myriads, they simply gave it up as a bad
business. They did not depart, but resigned themselves to the necessity
of skipping a season.
Gulls, great and small, with graceful marsh-terns, floated
spectre-like, surveying in solitude and silence arid wastes where before
they had found aquatic Edens. Once or twice we also noticed the small
white herons (buff-backed and egret) flying disconsolately over their
lost homes. A similar remark would apply to most of the other
marsh-breeders--we need not recapitulate them all. Stilts, for example,
and avocets remained perforce in single blessedness--the latter in noisy
querulous bands, quite wild and showing no tendency to assume spring
notes or habits. We _did_ chance on a single avocet's nest, where, in
other years, we have found hundreds. The same with the stilts--they also
retained winter ways. Curiously on May 17--one wet day--two male stilts
had a regular set-to over an irresponsive female; the only symptom of
their love-making we noticed all that spring!
[Illustration: AVOCETS FEEDING
Though long-legged, these are half-webfooted and swim freely.]
Here, in the very height of what ought to have been the breeding-season,
we had all these birds (and many others), instead of hovering overhead
and shrieking in one's ear, flying wild in great packs at 100 yards.
How came it to pass that the normal vernal impulse was neglected for a
whole season, unfelt and unrecognised--what was the precise
psychological reason? It reads ridiculous to assume that any feathered
husband should deliberately remark: "Now, Angelina, don't you agree that
it would be imprudent our attempting to raise a family this
drought-struck season?" Nor could the neglect arise from physical
weakness, since the birds were strong and wild. Such specimens as we
shot proved plump and well favoured, though the generative organs
disclosed a hybernal obsolescence. One explanation--indeed a
rough-and-ready diagnosis that seemed to cover the ground--was given by
Vasquez. Now Vasquez is our Guarda of the marisma; he is not scientific,
but has been in charge of the wilderness and its wildfowl these thirty
years and, more than all, he is observant. This rough keeper perhaps
understands the inner lives of wildfowl, with the causes that actuate
their movements and habits, better than our best scientists, and Vasquez
told us in February: "This year no birds will breed here; the conditions
necessary to _calientár los ovários_ [literally, to warm up the ovaries]
are wanting." The subsequent course of events, corroborated by the
evidence of dissection, proved the correctness of his forecast.
* * * * *
For a moment we return to the white-faced ducks--no European bird-form
less known, or more extravagant. With heavy, swollen beaks, quite
disproportionate in size and pale waxy-blue in colour, with white heads,
black necks, and rich chestnut bodies, their tiny wings (as well as the
sheeny silken plumage) recall those of grebes, but they have long stiff
tails like cormorants, and are more tenacious of the water than either
of those. To push them on wing is well-nigh impossible. They seek safety
in the middle waters and there abide, ignoring threats. To-day, however
(May 16), we needed specimens, and by hustling their company between
three guns, two mounted keepers, and an old boat that leaked like a
sieve we eventually forced them to fly and secured three. They flew
entirely in packs (not pairs), rarely many feet above the surface, but
with a speed little inferior to pochard or other diving-ducks.
Dissection showed that in a female the ovaries had not begun to develop,
there were no ripe ova, nor had the oviduct been used. The _testes_ in
both the males proved also that here these birds were not yet breeding,
or thinking of doing so.
A week earlier, however, at another lake of quite different formation
and different plant-growth (thirty miles away), we had found these
singular waterfowl already nesting, and append a note of that day:--
[Illustration: WHITE-FACED DUCK (_Erísmatura leucocephala_). See also p.
28.]
LAGUNA DE LAS TERAJES, _May 8._--A lonely lagoon hidden away in a
saucer-shaped basin amidst sequestered downs; almost the entire extent
(twenty acres) choked with dense cane-brakes and thick green reeds which
stood six or eight feet above water. We had driven hither, nine miles,
across sandy heaths and pine-wood; and while breakfasting on the shore
our two canoes (carted here yesterday) were got afloat. Meanwhile, on a
patch of open water we had observed several white-faced ducks swimming,
deeply immersed, and with their long stiff tails cocked upright at
intervals, together with some eared grebes; while marsh-harriers slowly
quartered the brakes and the reed-beds rang with the harsh nasal notes
of the great sedge-warbler. On pushing out into the aquatic jungle
ahead--no light labour with five feet of water encumbered with densely
matted canes and the dead tangle of former growths--we soon fell in with
nests of all the species above mentioned and several more. Those of the
white-faced ducks consisted, first, of a big floating platform of broken
canes, upon which was piled a mass of fine dried "duck-weed"--the coots'
nests being formed of flags and reeds alone. None of the ducks' nests
contained eggs; probably the season was too early (in other years we
have found their great white eggs, rough-grained, about the third week
in May), but possibly the harriers had forestalled us, as we found one
egg floating alongside. The grebes were just beginning to lay; their
nests, composed of rotten floatage, all awash and malodorous, containing
one to three eggs. Next we found two nests of marsh-harriers, immense
masses of dead flags, two feet high, supported on floating canes and
lined with sticks, heather-stalks, and palmetto. One had four eggs,
hard-sat; the other, two eggs, chipping, and two small young in white
down, with savage black eyes. The harriers' eggs are usually dull white;
in one nest found this year, however, the eggs were spotted with pale
red--apparently blood-stains. Hard by were two nests of the purple
water-hen, both of which had obviously been recently robbed by the
harriers next door.
These curious birds climb the tall green reeds parrot-wise, grasping
four or five at once in their long, supple, heavily clawed toes; then
with their powerful red beaks neatly cut down the reeds a yard or more
above water, in order to feed on the tender pith. Here and there float
masses of these cut-down reeds, split and emptied--_comederos_, the
natives call such spots. But the birds are silly enough to cut down the
very reeds that surround their nests--thus exposing the huge piled-up
structures to the gaze of their truculent neighbour, the egg-loving
marsh-harrier. Instinct badly at fault here.
With a degree more intelligence, the purple water-hens might at least
retaliate, by watching their opportunity and mopping-up the harriers'
young. They are amply equipped for such work, having great pincer-like
beaks fit to cut barbed wire!
On the other hand, the great purple water-hens habitually do a bit
robbery and murder on their own account, plundering the nests both of
ducks and coots and devouring eggs or young alike. We shot one whose
beak was smeared all over with yolk from a plundered duck's nest hard
by, and alongside the nest of a _Porphyrio_ with five eggs (found May 1)
lay floating the head-less corpses of two young coots. We have also
observed similar phenomena alongside the nests of the coots
themselves--doubtless attributable to the same cause. The eggs of the
purple water-hen are lovely objects, ruddier and much more richly
coloured than those of any of its congeners. These birds remain in the
marismas all winter.
In the densest brake bred purple herons, but this part proved quite
impenetrable to canoes. A few days later, however, at the Retuerta, we
reached a little colony of three nests. A beautiful sight they
presented, broad platforms of criss-crossed canes, cleverly supported on
tall bamboos, and lined with the flowering tops of _carrizos_ (canes).
These three nests were close together (another or two hard by), were
about five feet above water-level, and contained three, three, and four
pale-blue eggs. While circling around their nests, the old herons showed
a conspicuous projection beneath their curved necks. We therefore shot
one and found the effect was caused by a curious "kink" or bony process
on the front of the upper neck--as sketched.
Of other birds observed at this Laguna de Terajes may be noted a few
mallard and marbled ducks, a pair of squacco herons (not breeding),
common sandpipers (on May 8), and a party of whiskered terns which
arrived while we were there.
The day we had spent among the marsh-birds at this sequestered lagoon
happened to be the day of the general election and the usual excitement
prevailed. Yet, as we journeyed down by the early train, we had read in
the morning's paper this paragraph: "An understanding"
[_Inteligencia_]--"Yesterday an understanding was arrived at in Madrid
between Maura and Cañalejas, by which the former is to hold 225 seats."
Why, after that, bother further with an election? 'Twill serve as an
object-lesson at home.
[Illustration: PURPLE HERON (_Ardea purpurea_)]
Another phenomenon of the Spanish marismas is the through-transit in May
of that little group of world-wanderers that make a winter-home in the
southern hemisphere--in South Africa and Madagascar, Australia, New
Zealand, some even in Patagonia--and yet return each spring to summer in
Arctic regions. These comprise, notably, but four species, and not one
of these four, in our view, is excelled for perfect beauty of bright,
chaste, and contrasted coloration by any other bird-form on earth. This
quartette is composed of the grey plover, knot, curlew-sandpiper, and
bartailed godwit--all four of which appear here in thousands every May,
and all in summer dress.
Note, first, that these do not arrive in Spain (having come 6000 or 8000
miles but being still 2000 or 3000 miles short of their final
destination) until long after all other birds--including several
congeneric and closely related species--have already laid their eggs and
many hatched their young. Also, secondly, that some of them begin to
assume their spring breeding-plumage under autumnal conditions _before_
quitting Australia in April--that is, the Australian autumn--and while
yet some 10,000 miles distant from the points at which that
breeding-dress is designed to be worn.
To the four named might properly be added other two species--the
sanderling and the little stint. Our only reason for confining our
remarks to the original quartette is that, in Spain, the transit of the
other two is less pronounced and noticeable.
Last spring (1910), dry as the marismas were, we had these
globe-spanners in thousands. They were extremely wild, and it was only
by elaborate "drives" that we secured a few specimens.[68] We also
observed in mid-May hundreds of _black_-tailed godwits, a species which
usually disappears from southern Spain at end of March and which we have
found nesting in Jutland _before_ the above date, viz. the first week in
May.
[Illustration: GREY PLOVERS
In summer plumage, on route for Siberia--Marisma, May 12.]
Whimbrels had been extremely abundant early in May, together with a few
greenshanks, ring-dotterel, and green sandpiper. On May 13 we observed
several of the Mediterranean black-headed gull (_Larus melanocephalus_)
on Santolalla.
[NOTE.--Referring to the last sentence, our companion, Commander H.
Lynes, R. N., writes:--"All the gulls I saw on Santolalla I am
positive were _L. ridibundus_, and I looked most carefully. The
wing-pattern of _melanocephalus_ is very distinct. With the latter
I became quite familiar in the Mediterranean in winter, and also
saw them in late summer at Smyrna." We, nevertheless, leave our own
record as above, being confident that such gulls as happened to
come within our own view were _exclusively_ of the southern
species, with its darker and deeper hood. But the occurrence of our
British Black-headed Gull so far south in mid-May is also
remarkable. That species, though abundant all winter, has
disappeared, as a rule, by the end of March. Our own last note of
observing it during the spring in question was on April 1. We may
add a further note of having observed _both_ species (swimming
alongside) on Guadalquivir, March 12, 1909. The distinction, alike
in the depth and darker shade of the "hood" in _L. melanocephalus_,
was unmistakable, even to naked eye.]
This dry spring not a spoonbill nested in Andalucia. The teeming
_pajaréras_, or heronries, at the Rocina de la Madre and in Doñana were
left lifeless and abandoned. In normal years these are tenanted (as
shown in photo at p. 32) by countless multitudes of buff-backed,
squacco, and night-herons, glossy ibis, some purple herons, and a few
pairs of spoonbills, whose massed nests fairly weigh down the marsh-girt
tamarisks.
[Illustration: ORPHEAN WARBLER (_Sylvia orphea_)
Arrives end of April; hardly so brilliant a songster as its specific
title would import.]