_Knowledge and Ways of the Wild Duck._
In the previous chapter I have just given you a faint taste of some of
the enjoyable hunts Providence has permitted me to have. If it were
possible I would like to throw in a whiff of the home-grown savory
dressing, when mother opened the old-fashioned elevated-oven door. But
as I grew older, ducks, like all migratory birds, got scarcer until I
seldom ever went to hunt them. Yet I have always liked to see wild
ducks, both on the table and in the air.
In April, 1902, I secured some wild duck eggs and succeeded in raising
three, two ducks and a drake. But it was several years before I got a
pond suitable, as artificial ponds cost more than duck eggs. Then in
1905 Mr. Forest H. Conover of Leamington gave me three young black
mallards that were hatched from eggs direct from the marsh. In 1907 I
built my first real spring-water pond. I always kept the wings of my old
birds clipped or pinioned, and the young we usually sold to sportsmen
for decoys, but in 1908 I concluded that it was worth more to me to see
them flying around, and that fall a bunch of the young went away. I
naturally thought they had gotten out to the lake and were decoyed
before some pump gun.
The next spring several black mallards dropped in the pond and acted and
looked for all the world like the ones that had gone away the previous
fall, but the question was, these ducks came several days apart, and if
they were the same ones they would come back together; so I just gave
in, and said they were tame because they were with my domesticated wild
ducks, that was all. Another point I argued with myself against their
being the same ducks: These young tame ones that had left the previous
fall, would be shot by the first man that ran across them, because they
wouldn’t know an enemy.
However, about April the 20th all the wild ducks left. One Sunday
evening in June I was tapping the food tin and calling a few young wild
ducks in the park when my wife’s voice rang out from the house, saying,
“Here are your ducks outside.” As I looked up, here was an old black
mallard duck and eight young ones, about one-half grown, working away to
get in at the gate. For a few minutes I stood perfectly bewildered, in
thought. My ducks were all around my feet; what duck was this, with
eight young, trying and trying to get in at the gate? How did she know
there was a gate there? At length I went and opened the gate and she
withdrew to the north along the fence; the gate opened to the north but
the young were to the south a few feet, and as I stepped around them
they toddled, in single file, along the fence and worked their way in
through the opening. As soon as the mother saw they were all through the
wire netting, she just stepped back from the fence and flew over, like a
crow; dropping down she spoke to her family and all walked into the
water together. I then went and got my feed tin and tapped it as I
usually do to call all the ducks, and sure enough, this strange duck
came right up, but her family stood back; in fact, they did not come out
of the water. Again I tapped the tin and she turned her head sidewise,
looking at me with first one eye and then the other, as much as to say,
“How long will it take you to tumble? Don’t you know I am one of the
ducks you raised last year, and that I returned here to my home last
March, and went away to my nest about the 20th of April; and now I have
brought my family here to Safety Inn.”
The fact was hard for me to believe, but I was compelled to, for the
very next week another black mallard, which was evidently her sister,
came home, and when I got up one morning she was standing at the gate
with a broken family of four ducklings as much as to say, “Will you
please let my babies in?” Useless to say her request was soon granted.
In less than two weeks these old ducks and their young would all eat out
of the pan; in fact I would put feed in my pockets and the old ones
would climb up on my lap and put their heads in my open pocket and
scatter feed to their young.
This duck story I know is beginning to sound strange to you, but
remember, I have only just started telling you how they have cornered me
up and made me frankly confess I didn’t know anything about them. Why do
these old ducks, in every case when they return with their young (that
of course cannot fly) bring them around to this gate to be let in? How
do they know there is an opening there? It is plain to be seen they have
thinking ability enough to know that that is where we human beings enter
the park and that there must be an opening there.
Another mystery is, where did they bring their young from; where did
they hatch them, and so forth? In answer to this, young ducks, at three
days old, can run as fast as adult Bob White quail.
Since this happened, we know of one old duck that hatched her young over
four miles away and was home with them inside of a week. In another case
a lady telephoned that the school children were trying to catch some
little wild ducks in the ditch, and that the old duck had a tag on her
leg; this was after four o’clock, and these ducks were over a mile away
from here, but at six o’clock she and her family were in our north pond,
scudding over the water, catching flies.
[Illustration:
OLD DUCK AND YOUNG WAITING AT THE GATE
Note Aluminum tag on her leg.]
But perhaps the most interesting case I had was when a farmer phoned me
to come over and help him catch a crippled wild duck that went flapping
out of the clover field in front of him. He said that she could just get
over the fence, but he couldn’t quite catch her. I firmly believed him,
because he was still out of breath when he called me up. This story
sounded good to me, so in a few hours I took a stroll around, and this
wise old pet that he thought crippled was home with her family. What had
she done? Why, outwitted this intelligent man by leading him to believe
she was crippled; then, as soon as he disappeared, she flew back into
the clover field, dropped down and gave a few quacks that brought all
her family out of the grass, and they continued their journey homeward.
But the fact is that if there hadn’t been danger of this man stepping on
some of her babies, he would never have known she was there.
About the most touching duck scene I have ever witnessed was in 1913. A
wild house-cat robbed an old gray duck of her seven young. I now and
then heard her squawking, but I was looking for a hawk or weasel; some
men that were making hay near by saw old Mrs. Cat as she sprang upon the
last ducklings. The way the old duck carried on was pitiful. She flew
and squawked around for two or three days. Then one morning I missed her
altogether and concluded she had gone away to the lake. But on my way
from the factory to dinner I happened to think of the brood of ducks the
old Wyandotte hen was about to bring out, so I jumped the fence into the
park. As I neared the old hen she started scolding. I raised her up, and
all had hatched, and gone, but two. Where were they? My first thought
was “Weasels;” but just as I was backing away from the coop I saw the
eye of old Mrs. Duck. There she sat in the weeds, about four feet in
front of the coop, as still as a corpse, and I was compelled to tumble,
for here was the head of a sweet, tiny duckling projecting out of her
feathers near her wings. This dear old, broken-hearted mother was
sitting here, stealing this hen’s ducks as fast as she hatched them, and
surely she knew they were not hers, for her ducklings were ten or twelve
days old. As I looked at her I thought of the times I had crossed the
street to meet some curly-haired little child that looked like my sweet
little girl did. Well, when I went back again the old hen was alone in
the coop. The other two had hatched, and Mrs. Duck was gone with the
eight; and she raised them all, for that cat never came back.
Another thing worthy of notice is that this is a well-settled farming
country. I am three miles north of Lake Erie and about five miles
north-east of Cedar Creek, which is the nearest natural duck marsh, and
some of these cute old ducks raise their families until they are nearly
full-grown before they bring them home, and are seldom seen by any
person, unless they happen to be in the big ditches.
A very small sportsman who stood six feet in height sprinkled corn in a
living stream in order to get a shot at some of these ducks, and on Good
Friday morning, 1911, he succeeded in getting a crack at a pair. As they
flew up in front of him he killed the duck dead, but the drake fell with
a broken pinion and ran into some rushes. After hunting for him for
fully one-half hour he went for his bird dog, thus giving the drake
nearly an hour to make his escape. When the dog arrived he took up the
trail at once, but when he came to a ploughed field he apparently lost
the scent. One week from the following Sunday Mr. Drake was at the park
gate, trying to get in. Here he had been about nine days coming one mile
and a half, dragging his broken wing. What handicapped him worst was a
shot that had entered at the hip joint. I caught him and examined his
wounds. As I let him down in the park he didn’t flap away, as one would
expect, but simply stood and looked for food. Fortunately for him only
one of the bones was splintered and in less than six weeks he was flying
again. But it took over two years for all the particulars regarding the
shooting of him and the death of his mate to reach my ears.
Another fact worthy of notice is that the park gate is only thirty feet
from our dining-room window, and in every case these ducks come here to
look for an entrance when it isn’t at all likely they ever passed
through this gate themselves. Only they see us enter there. Really the
way some of these birds expose their intelligence compels me to believe
what I heard a farmer say at one of our Corn Growers’ Conventions. This
man rose up, stroking his beard; then, raising his right hand, he
remarked, “I tell you, gentlemen, there are a lot of things in this
world we haven’t come to yet.”
Another interesting fact about wild mallard ducks is the extreme
difference between the faithful mother and the lazy drone of a father;
for as soon as the duck starts to set, the drake deserts her entirely
and he lives the life of a Brigham Young for the rest of the season. In
fact he hasn’t got a bit more principle than some of us men! Hence the
faithful mother has to be father and mother both to her family, hatching
and guarding them from their enemies, and leading them to proper feed as
well as supplying the necessary shelter and warmth. Yes, she is just as
faithful and true as a kind washerwoman who is compelled to bring her
nursing baby with her while she scrubs the morning away and earns two
dollars, but willingly takes fifty cents, and on her way back to the
place called home spends it all to relieve the hunger of the three of
four more darling tots that are anxiously awaiting momma’s return, while
the lazy, good-for-nothing father is loafing around the smoky end of
nowhere, swapping garbage stories, and remarking about some lady who is
passing the dirty window that is corroded with smut.