THE following illustrates in outline a day’s bustard-shooting and incidentally shows how strongly haunted these birds are, each pack to its own particular locality.
On reaching our point (a seventeen-kilometres’ drive), the scouts sent out the day before reported three bands numbering roughly forty, forty, and sixteen—in all nearly a hundred birds. The nearest lot was to the west. These we found easily, and B. F. B. got a brace, right-and-left, without incident.
Riding back eastwards, the second pack had moved, but we shortly descried the third, in two divisions, a mile away. It being noon, the bustards were mostly lying down or standing drowsily, and we halted for lunch before commencing the operation.
During the afternoon we drove this pack three times, securing a brace on first and third drives, while on the second the birds broke out to the side.
Now bustards are, in Spanish phrase, muy querenciosos, i.e. attached to their own particular terrain; and as in these three drives we had pushed them far beyond their much-loved limit, they were now restless and anxious to return.
Already before our guns had reached their posts for a fourth drive, seven great bustards were seen on the wing, and a few minutes later the remaining thirty took flight, voluntarily, the whole phalanx shaping their course directly towards us. The outmost gun was still moving forward to his post under the crest of the hill, and the pack, seeing him, swerved across our line below, and (these guns luckily having seen what was passing and taken cover) thus lost another brace of their number.
The bustards shot to-day (January 16), though all full-grown males, only weighed from 25½ to 26½ lbs. apiece. Two months later they would have averaged over 30 lbs., the increased weight being largely due to the abundant feed in spring, but possibly more to the solid distention of the neck.[46]
This wet season (1908) the grass on the manchones, or fallows, was rank and luxuriant, nearly knee-deep in close vegetation—more like April than January. Already these bustards were showing signs of the chestnut neck, and all had acquired their whiskers. The following winter (1909) was dry and not a scrap of vegetation on the fallows. Even in February they were absolutely naked and the cattle being fed on broken straw in the byres.
The quill-feathers are pale-grey or ash-colour, only deepening into a darker shade towards the tips, and that only on the first two or three feathers. The shafts are white, secondaries black, and bastard-wing lavender-white, slightly tipped with a darker shade.
In Wild Spain will be found described two methods by which the great bustard may be secured: (A) by a single gun riding quite alone; and (B) by two guns working jointly, one taking the chance of a drive, the other outmanœuvring the game as in plan (A). We here add a third plan which has occasionally stood us (when alone) in good stead.