Unexplored Spain Part 10

It was a rifle-shot at these last that finally set the whole host on wing--an indescribable spectacle, hurrying hordes everywhere outflanked by the glinting black and pink glamour of flamingoes. Then the noise--the reverberating roar of wings, blending with a babel of croaks and gabblings, whistles and querulous pipes, punctuated by shriller bi-tones, ... we give that up.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "FLAMINGOES OVER"]

A long ride in prospect precluded serious operations to-night, but towards dusk we lined out our four guns, and in half an hour loaded up the panniers of the carrier-ponies with nearly three score ducks and geese.

An hour before the morning's dawn we were in position to await the earliest geese. Experience had taught the chief flight-lines, and these, over many miles of marsh, were commanded by lines of sunken tubs. These, however, the exceptional conditions had rendered temporarily useless.

Our tubs lay miles from water; hence each man had to hide as best he could, prostrate behind rush-tuft or twelve-inch samphire.

This morning, however, the greylags flew wide and scattered, in strange contrast with their customary regularity. We noticed the change, but knew not the cause. The geese did. The barometer during the night (unnoticed by us at 4 A.M.) had gone down half an inch, and already, as we a.s.sembled for breakfast at ten o'clock, rain was beginning to fall--the first rain since the spring! The wind, which for weeks had remained "nailed to the North--_norte clavado_," in Spanish phrase--flew to all airts, and a change was at hand. By eleven there burst what the Spanish well name a _tormenta_; lightning flashed from a darkened sky, while thunder rolled overhead, and rain drove horizontal on a living hurricane. An hour later the heavens cleared, and the sun was s.h.i.+ning as before. That short and sudden storm, however, had marked an epoch. The whole conditions of bird-life in the marisma had been revolutionised within a couple of hours.

[Ill.u.s.tration: POCHARD (_Fuligula ferina_)]

In other years, under such conditions as this morning had promised, we have records of sixty and eighty greylags brought to bag, and it was with such antic.i.p.ation that we had set out to-day. The result totalled but a quarter of such numbers.

Ducks came next in our programme, and the writer, being the last gun by lot, had several miles to ride to his remote post at El Hondon. The scenes in bird-life through which we rode amazed even accustomed eyes.

At intervals as we advanced across mud-flats clad in low growth of rush and samphire, rose for a mile across our front such crowds of wigeon and teal that the landscape ahead appeared a quivering horizon of wings that s.h.i.+mmered like a heat-haze.

Crouching behind a low breastwork, before me lay a five-acre pool which no amount of firing ever kept quite clear of swimming forms, so fast did thirsty duck, teal, and geese keep dropping in, since behind for twenty leagues stretched waterless plain.

Merely to make a bag under such conditions means taking every chance, firing away till barrels grow too hot to hold. Here, however, that nature-love that overrides even a fowler's keenness stepped in. With half the wildfowl of Europe flas.h.i.+ng, wheeling, and alighting within view--many, one fondly imagined, likely to be of supreme interest--the writer cannot personally go on taking single mallards, teal, or wigeon, one after another in superb but almost monotonous rapidity. For the moment, in fact, the naturalist supplants the gunner. True, this may be sacrificing the mutton to the shadow, and this afternoon no special prize rewarded self-denial in letting pa.s.s many a tempting chance.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

For gratifying indeed to fowler's pride it is to pull down in falling heap the smart pintails and brilliant shovelers, to bring off a right-and-left at geese, though, it may be, one had first to let a cloud of wigeon pa.s.s the silent muzzle. Such is individual taste, nor will the memory of that afternoon ever fade, although my score, when at 3.30 P.M.

I was recalled, only totalled up to seventy-four ducks and four greylag geese.

The recall was imperative, and I obeyed, though not without hesitation and doubt. Could earth provide a better place? "Yes," replies Vasquez, "in one hour the geese will be streaming in clouds up the Algaidilla and Cano Juncero. Come! there's no time to lose." Within an hour we had reached the spot. The water was four inches deep, with low cover of rushes. The revolving stool stood too high, so I knelt in the shallow, and within three minutes the first squad of geese came in quite straight. One I took kneeling, but had to jump for the second. Just as No. 2 collapsed, No. 1 caught me full amids.h.i.+ps, knocking me sidelong and, rebounding, upset the stool and the bag of cartridges thereon! A nice mess, occurring at the very outset of one of those ambrosial half-hours seldom realised outside of dreams. Quickly I dried the cartridges as well as circ.u.mstances would admit, for pack after pack of geese hurled themselves gaggling and honking right in my face, and during the few brief minutes of the southern twilight, I reckoned I had twenty-three down--seven right-and-lefts--though in the darkness only seventeen could be gathered, the winged all necessarily escaping.

[Ill.u.s.tration: WILD GEESE ALIGHTING AT FIFTEEN YARDS

(Take the upper pair right-and-left, leaving the nearer geese for second gun.)]

Within thirty-six hours we had secured sixty-two geese and over two hundred ducks. For four guns, under favouring conditions, this would have been no very special result; but to-day the fowl were all alert and restless at the prospect of a coming change. The keynote had already been sounded that first day, when the _tormenta_ burst, and when the long drought ended on the very morning we had selected to commence our operations. Had the weather held for a single week ... but why dwell on it? The point must be clear enough. No more geese were got that year.

Let us conclude with a few ornithological observations made during succeeding days. On November 30, after three days of stormy weather, with tremendous bursts of rainfall, there commenced one of the most remarkable bird-migrations we have witnessed. From early morn till night (and all the following day) cloud upon cloud of ducks kept streaming overhead from the westward. Frequently a score of packs would be in view at once--never were the heavens clear; and all coming from precisely the same direction and travelling in parallel lines to the east. Their course seemed to indicate that these migrants (avoiding the overland route across Spain which would involve pa.s.sing over her great cordilleras, say 10,000 feet) had travelled south by the coast-line as far as the lat.i.tude of Cape St. Vincent. Thence they "hauled their wind"

and bore up on an easterly course which brought them direct into the great marismas of the Guadalquivir.[17]

LAS NUEVAS

We had acquired this waste of marsh and mud-flat and were keen to "go and possess it." Initial difficulties arose to confront us. Though the whole region now belonged to us (_i.e._ the rights of chase, and it boasts but little other value) yet our possession was to be met by some opposition.

It was all very natural, delightfully human, and despite the annoyance, captivated our sympathy. Local fowlers, accustomed from immemorial times to earn a scant living by shooting for market the wildfowl of the wilderness, resented this acquisition of exclusive rights. Our scattered guards were overawed, our reed-built huts were burned, and threats reached us--not to mention a casual bullet or two ricochetting in wild bounds across the watery waste. That one quality, however, above mentioned--sympathy--is the pa.s.sport to Spanish hearts, and thereby, together with courtesy and fair-dealing, the erstwhile insurgents in brief time became the best of friends.

For the moment, however, we found ourselves hutless, and constrained to encamp two leagues away on the distant _terra firma_, this involving an extra couple of hours' work in the small dark hours.

As before 4 A.M. we rode, beneath a pouring rain, "path-finding," in blind darkness across slimy ooze and shallow--not to mention deeper channels that reached to the girths,--a nightjar circled round our cavalcade--true, a very small event, but recorded because it is quite against the rules for a nightjar to be here in December. Only three guns braved this adventure, and by 5.45 we occupied each his allotted post.

These could not be called comfortable, since the positions in which we had to spend the next six or eight hours were quite six inches deep in water, and the only covert a circle of samphire-bush barely a foot above water-level--that being the utmost height allowed by the keen sight of flighting fowl. Each man had an armful of cut brushwood to kneel on, besides another bundle on which cartridge-bags might be supported clear of the water.[18]

Rain descended in sheets. Before it was fully light--indeed the average human being of diurnal habit would probably swear it was still quite dark--the swish of wings overhead foretold the coming day. Then with a roar the whole marisma bursts into life as though by clock-work.

Thrice-a-minute, and oftener, sped bunches of duck right in one's face, at times a hurricane of wings. Not seeing them till quite close in, but one barrel can be emptied each time, yet soon a score of beautiful pintail and wigeon formed the basis of a pile.

Behind, in the gloom to westward, a sense of movement has developed. At first it might have been but the drift of night-clouds, but as light broadens, form and colour evolve and the phenomenon shapes itself into vast bodies of flamingoes, sprawling, as it were, on the face of heaven in writhing, scintillating confusion. After infinite evolutions, the amorphous ma.s.s resolves itself into order; files and marshalled phalanxes serry the sky--those weird wildfowl, each with some six foot of rigid extension, advancing direct upon our posts. Their armies have spent the night on the broad _lucios_ of El Desierto, and now head away towards feeding-grounds outside. Arrayed line beyond line in echelon, ten thousand pinions beat, in unison--beat in short, sharp strokes from the elbow. The fantasy of form amazes; the flash of contrasted colour as the first sun-rays strike on black, white, and vermilion. One may have witnessed this spectacle a score of times, yet never does it pall or leave one without a sense that here nature has treated us to one of her wildest creations. No rude sketch of ours--possibly not the best that art can produce--will ever convey the effect of these quaint forms in vast moving agglomeration. Long after they have vanished in s.p.a.ce, one remains entranced with the glamour of the scene.

[Ill.u.s.tration: WILDFOWL IN THE MARISMA]

The flamingoes have pa.s.sed away, but the lightening skies are still streaked and serried. Most numerous are the wigeon, millions of them in hurrying phalanxes, white specks f.l.a.n.g.ed with dark wings, too well known to describe; pintails (this wet winter hardly less numerous), readily distinguishable by their longer build and stately grace of flight; the dark heads and snowy necks of the drakes conspicuous afar. The arrow-like course of the shoveler, along with his vibrant wing-beats and incessant call, "zook, zook, tsook, tsook," identify that species; while gadwall, more sombre in tone than the mallards, "talk" in distinctive style; and mob-like ma.s.ses of teal and marbled ducks sweep along the open channels. Then there are the diving-ducks with harsh corvine croaks, pochards, ferruginous, and tufts, just as swift as the rest, though of apparently more laboured flight; occasionally a string of shelducks, conspicuous by size and contrasted colouring, and among them all, swing along with leisurely wing-beats but equal speed, wedge-like skeins of great grey-geese. A single morning's bag may include seven or eight different species, sometimes a dozen.

Now the rim of the sun shows over the distant sierra, and one begins to see one's environment and to realise what Las Nuevas is like. Of Mother Earth as one normally conceives it not a particle is in sight, beyond such low reeds and miles of samphire-tops as break the watery surface, and a vista of this extends to the horizon.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

Behind our positions stretched a _lucio_ of open water. Upon this, a mile away, stood an army of flamingoes, whose croaks and gabblings filled the still air. During a quiescent interval I examined these with binoculars. Thereupon I discovered that the whole _lucio_ around them and stretching away, say a league in length, was carpeted with legions of duck, which had not been noticed with the naked eye. The discovery explained also a resonant reverberation that, at recurring intervals, I had noticed all the morning, and which I had attributed to the gallant Cervera's squadron at quick-firing gun-practice away in Cadiz Bay. Now I saw the cause; it was due to the duck-hawks and birds-of-prey! Twice within ten minutes a swooping marsh-harrier aroused that host on wing--or, say, half-a-mile of them--to fly in terror; but only to settle a few hundred yards farther away. The harrier's hope was clearly to find a wounded bird among the crowd--the ma.s.sed mult.i.tude none dared to tackle.

It is nine o'clock, the pile of dead has mounted up, but the "flight" is slackening. Already I see our mounted keepers (who have hitherto stood grouped on an islet two miles away) separate and ride forth to set the ducks once more in motion. At this precise moment one remembers two things--both that wretched breakfast at 3 A.M., and the luxuries that lie at hand, almost awash among the reeds. Ducks pa.s.s by unscathed for a full half-hour, while such quiet reigns in "No. 1" that tawny water-shrews climb confidingly up the reeds of my screen.

Meanwhile the efforts of our drivers were becoming apparent in a renewal of flighting ducks; but we would here emphasise the fact that these second and artificially-produced flights are never so effective from a fowler's point of view as the earlier, natural movements of the game.

For the ducks thus disturbed come, as the Spanish keepers put it, _obligados_ and not of their own free-will. Hence they all pa.s.s high--many far above gunshot--and not even the attraction that our fleet of "decoys" (for we have now stuck up the whole of the morning's spoils to deceive their fellows) will induce more than a limited proportion, and those only the smaller bands, to descend from their aerial alt.i.tude.

The "movement" of these ma.s.ses nevertheless affords another of those spectacular displays that we must at least try to describe. For though none of their sky-high armies will pa.s.s within gunshot--or ten gunshots--yet one cannot but be struck with amazement when the whole vault of heaven above presents a quivering vision of wings--shaded, seamed, streaked, and spotted from zenith to horizon. Then the multiplied pulsation of wings is distinctly perceptible--a singular sensation. One remembers it when, perhaps an hour later, you become conscious of its recurrence. But now the heavens are clear! Not a single flight crosses the sky--not one, that is, within sight. But up above, beyond the limits of human vision, there pa.s.s unseen hosts, and _theirs_ is that pulsation you feel.

The pa.s.sage of these sky-sc.r.a.pers is actuated by no puny manoeuvre of ours. They are travellers on through-routes. Perhaps the last land (or water) they touched was Dutch or Danish; and they will next alight (within an hour) in Africa. Already at their alt.i.tude they can see, spread out, as it were, at their feet, the marshes and meres of Morocco.

Although nominally describing that first day in Las Nuevas (and, so far as facts go, adhering rigidly thereto), yet we are endeavouring to concentrate in fewest words the actual lessons of many subsequent years of practical experience. Thus the pick-up on that day (though it may have numbered a couple of hundred ducks) we refrain from recording in this attempt to convey the concrete while avoiding detail.

Back again, splash, splosh, through mud and mire, two hours' ride to our camp-fire--a picturesque scene with our marsh-bred friends gathered round, their tawny faces lurid in the firelight as flames shoot upwards and pine-cones crack like pistol-shots; and over the embers hang a score of teal each impaled on a supple bough. Away beyond there loom like spectres our horses tethered when silvery moonlight glances through scattered pines. Things would have been pleasant indeed had the rain but stopped occasionally. True we had our tents; but our men slept in the open, each rolled in his cloak, beneath some sheltering bush.

CHAPTER IX

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.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

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 ma.s.sed wildfowl while still unconscious of danger. We have spent delightful days crouching behind these s.h.a.ggy 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 quant.i.ty 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.