Waterfowl

“ A few moorhens creep under the aquatic grasses and conceal themselves beneath the bushes, water-voles hide among the flags, but the once extensive host of waterfowl and river life has been reduced to the smallest limits. Water-fowl cannot breed because they are shot on the nest, or their eggs taken. As for rarer birds, of course they have not the slightest chance. The fish have fared better because they have received the benefit of close seasons, enforced with more or less vigilance all along the river. ”

“ There are almost as many waterfowl on our sea as there are here. I have seen it almost black with them down at [Pg 113] the southern end, where it is bordered by swamps and reed-covered marshes.”
“How do they catch them there, Jethro?” Chebron asked.
“They net them in decoys, and sometimes wade out among them with their heads hidden among floating boughs, and so get near enough to seize them by the legs and pull them under water; in that way a man will catch a score of them before their comrades are any the wiser.” ”

“ The majority of these waterfowl are insectivorous in the nursery stage and vegetarian when full grown. Fish forms an inappreciable portion of their food, with the two notorious exceptions of the goosander and merganser, though anglers are much exercised over the damage, real or alleged, done by these birds to their favourite roach and dace in the Thames. ”

“ The natives had left in one place a net suspended across the river between two lofty trees, evidently for the purpose of catching ducks and other waterfowl. The meshes were about two inches wide, and the net hung down to within five feet of the surface of the stream. In order to obtain waterfowl with this net some of the natives proceed up, and others down, the river to scare the birds from other places and, when any flight comes into the net, it is suddenly lowered into the water, thus entangling the birds beneath until the natives go into the water and secure them. ”

“ While making provision for future wants, the daily supplies were not neglected. In addition to the Polar hares, which underwent every variety of culinary treatment from Mrs Joliffe, and won for her compliments innumerable from hunters and workmen alike, many waterfowl figured in the bill of fare. Besides the ducks which abounded on the shores of the lagoon, large flocks of grouse congregated round the clumps of stunted willows. ”

“ During the autumn and winter its shallower waters are filled with almost every variety of waterfowl; it is said to yield a larger quantity of oysters than any other section of the globe of the same size; and it is also famous for the abundance and quality of its shad, striped basse or rock-fish, its drum, sheepshead, and a species of sea-trout. ”

“ A mistake may prove both embarrassing and costly, a correct identification adds to your day’s enjoyment.
Cooperate with Your Federal, State and Provincial Agencies. Solving the many problems of waterfowl production, harvest and research is possible only through continued cooperation of the duck hunter and conservationist.
Use a Retriever if Possible, or at Least Pick Up Every Bird You Shoot. A good dog will pick up cripples you would otherwise have to leave. A good sportsman will never kill game needlessly. ”

“ It was with the waterfowl that the boys were most successful. The ducks would in their feeding approach close to the shores of the river banks or the little islands and would gather in bunches so near to where the boys were hidden that the young hunters, leaping suddenly to their feet and hurling their stones together, rarely failed to secure at least a single victim. There were muskrats along the banks and there was a great beaver, which was not abundant, and which was a mighty creature of his kind. ”

“ Lighthouses Cause the Death of Many Birds
During the spring it is not uncommon for strange waterfowl to be found helpless in the streets or fields of a region in which they are ordinarily unknown. These birds have become exhausted during the storm of the night before, or have been injured by striking telephone or telegraph wires, an accident which often happens. ”

“ Since the flyway principle is in part an administrative device, it is important principally in fall and winter when most North American waterfowl are within the United States. As the wintering populations begin to move northward in the spring, many species disperse throughout the nesting grounds of the northern states and Canada. ”

“ In the summer they are but rarely taken, and it is then by means of a trap of stones, formed like the ice trap, with a falling door.
Hares are either killed with small shot or with arrows or caught in whalebone snares, as are ermines and lemmings.
Fig. 452. Whalebone nooses for catching waterfowl. (In the possession of Captain Spicer, of Groton, Conn.)
Waterfowl of all descriptions are caught in abundance in whalebone nooses (Fig. 452) fastened to a long whalebone line or to a thong. The line is set along the edge of a lake, particularly near nesting places. ”

“ So that upon the whole the fish have been well looked after of recent years.
The more striking of the aquatic plants—such as white water-lilies—have been much diminished in quantity by the constant plucking, and injury is said to have been done by careless navigation. In things of this kind a few persons can do a great deal of damage. Two or three men with guns, and indifferent to the interests of sport or natural history, at work every day, can clear a long stretch of river of waterfowl, by scaring if not by actually killing them. ”

“ Immature Adult Migrates chiefly in the Central and Pacific flyways but also present in the Mississippi. Rare in the Atlantic Flyway. Appears brownish gray at a distance. Often called "specklebelly".
Most distinctive characteristic of the V-shaped flocks is the high pitched call kow-kow-kow-kow.
Comparative Sizes Of Waterfowl All birds on these pages are drawn to the same scale.
Wetlands Attract Wildlife
There's more than just ducks in our marshes. Knowing and identifying other birds and animals add to the enjoyment of being in a blind. ”

“ Kildians mainly consists of the feathers and [28] eggs of wild-fowl, to procure which they are obliged to hang suspended from ropes over the most dreadful precipices, in the clefts and along the otherwise inaccessible ledges of which the sea-fowl breed, will have no difficulty in understanding the general drift of the island maid’s very spirited and very earnest song. It is, perhaps, unnecessary to say that as ling, conger, hake, and grey-fish are certain kinds of sea fish, so fulmar, guillemot, kittiwake, puffin, and scart are certain kinds of web-footed sea-fowl. ”

“ On the more outlying ledges some sea-fowl, themselves seeking food, still linger fearlessly. Engrossed in their grubbing, they fail to note that an enemy is near—a little cock-eared cur, that has swum up to the ledge, and, without bark or yelp, is stealthily crawling toward it. Taking advantage of every coign of concealment, the dog creeps on till, at length, with a bound, like a cat springing at a sparrow, it seizes the great seabird, and kills it in a trice, as a fox would a pheasant.
The shell-gatherers remain on the reef till the rising water forces them to quit. ”

“ There are some other hawks, owls, and a few small land-birds. The water-fowl are particularly numerous, and they must formerly, from the accounts of the old navigators, have been much more so. One day I observed a cormorant playing with a fish which it had caught. Eight times successively the bird let its prey go, then dived after it, and although in deep water, brought it each time to the surface. In the Zoological Gardens I have seen the otter treat a fish in the same manner, much as a cat does a mouse: I do not know of any other instance where dame Nature appears so wilfully cruel. ”

“ I have dozens of times put up a peregrine over ponds and marshes where teal and ducks were sitting together, and [29] then flushed the wild fowl all simultaneously. In every case without any exception the first bird overhauled and brought to the ground has been a teal and in the case of a long flight, when every bird has been flying for its life, the further they go the further the teal lag behind the wild ducks. The same remarks apply to woodcock and snipe, to black game and grouse, to pheasants and partridges—all of which I have flushed simultaneously in front of hawks. ”

“ Without, however, going into narrative detail, it should be sufficiently obvious that, under the conditions named, a very delicately dressed floating fly, in appearance quite similar to the natural ephemeridae common to the stream, attached to a practically invisible leader and riding down buoyantly on the surface, with wings erect, in the exact, jaunty manner of the natural dun, is far more apt to deceive the fish than two or more wet flies, shapeless and draggled, of dubious coloration, pulled across or against the current in a manner never followed by the natural insect. ”

“ All that livelong day, a day no one of them ever forgot, they spent by the river side, dabbling their little dark-green legs in the water when an eddy sent it gently up to them, learning to find the sweetest and wholesomest insects lurking 59 among the pebbles, with now and then a little worm, or caterpillar that had fallen from the bushes above: watching the trout turning up their golden sides in the dark water of the pool as they rose to the flies: practising their voices in a feeble piping, and always moving bodies and tails as they saw their parents do it. ”

“ Fish enthusiasts, for instance, desire the extinction of water-fowl—there is not a single aquatic bird which they do not accuse of damage to fry, spawn, or full-grown fish; no, not one, from the heron down to the tiny grebe. They are nearly as bitter against animals, the poor water-vole (or water-rat) even is denounced and shot. Any one who chooses may watch the water-rat feeding on aquatic vegetation; never mind, shoot him because he's there. There is no other reason. Bitterest, harshest, most envenomed of all is the outcry and hunt directed against the otter. ”

“ Sea-fowl usually feed by night, when, in all their multitudes, they come down to graze on the savannahs of the shore. As the sonorous cloud advances, the attentive fowler listens which way they bend their course:—perhaps he has the mortification to hear them alight at too great a distance for his gun to reach them ”

“ No less than three hundred persons were employed in attending upon the water-fowl and the birds in the aviary; feeding them and in the moulting season carefully gathering the gorgeous plumes, which served as material for the celebrated Aztec feather-work. The habits of the birds were closely studied, and great care was taken that every species should be supplied with the food best suited to its taste, whether it consisted of worms, insects, or seeds. The fish with which the water-fowl were supplied amounted to one hundred and fifty pounds daily. ”

“ With them, on these retaliatory sallies, goes that most intrepid of{185} sea-fowl, the skua—one of the many birds that the sailor calls “molly-hawks,” and that the lesser creatures dread like a bird of prey. For such it really is, living chiefly upon the fish the other birds have caught, upon the birds themselves, and during the nesting season upon the eggs and young of all species indiscriminately: so reckless in attack that nothing on wings dares to oppose it, and so powerful that full-grown gulls, if they persist in the fight, succumb to it. ”

“ If they are not, they will inevitably wend their way elsewhere. The discharge of one shot at night, with its accompaniment of flame, and its noise reverberating more horribly in the still and silent hours, will do more to frighten away the marsh ducks than any amount of daylight shooting. As the night begins to fall, the fowl begin to seek the marshes. They rise from the open water where they have been resting, perhaps without being able to feed at all, and move towards the shore, coming on in a steady unbroken flight, until they have all found nesting and feeding grounds in the shoal water. ”

“ As the boat proceeds southward from Rockledge the way grows in interest, for we soon reach what may be called “the region of water-fowls.” Ducks, coots, water-hens, absolutely cover the river’s surface, while pelicans increase in number until we reach Pelican Island, where they swarm by thousands. The rising of water-fowl before the boat is a wondrous sight, and the beating of their wings on the water produces a sound like a heavy fall of hail on a dry clap-board roof; there are positively millions, and the commotion which they create is almost pandemonium. ”

“ The fin fish and cacholot swallow barrels at a yawn; the porpoise, the grampus, the shark, and the whole numerous tribe of dog-fish, desist from making war upon each other, and make the herring their easy prey. The unnumbered flocks of sea fowl, that chiefly inhabit near the pole, watch the outset of their migration and spread extensive ruin. In this exigence the defenceless emigrants find no other safety but by crowding closer together, and leaving to the outermost the danger of being first devoured. ”

“ But there are water-fowl here at any rate, if of a less elusive and more clamorous kind; for the osier beds by the chalk streams are strident by day with the various notes and boisterous antics of the breeding moor-hens, and often melodious by night with the song of the reed-warbler. The willow-wren keeps you company in the pollards, the rare kingfisher loves the chalk stream, and there is nothing in which the corncrake more delights than to grind out his monotonous love notes—for all the world like a gigantic salmon reel—in a water-meadow put up for hay. ”