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 passing over her great cordilleras, say 10,000 feet) had travelled south by the coast-line as far as the latitude 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 passport 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 mass 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 space, one remains entranced with the glamour of the scene.
The flamingoes have passed away, but the lightening skies are still streaked and serried. Most numerous are the wigeon, millions of them in hurrying phalanxes, white specks flanged 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 masses 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.