The nests of the Crane are huge accumulations of flags and aquatic plants built up in the shallow marsh, and hidden amidst the growing reeds, which in spring completely conceal the water. The Crane lays two handsome eggs, greenish in hue, but suffused with brown splashes and obsolete shades, about the end of April. Formerly the Crane used also to breed in the marismas of the Guadalquivir, but we have not met with it there of recent years, and fear it is already banished for ever from that resort. It may sincerely be hoped that these majestic waterfowl, whose stately appearance and resonant trumpet-note lend so peculiar a charm to the wild solitudes they frequent, may meet with more considerate treatment in their last stronghold at Janda.
Of the Mar Menor of Cartagena, the Albufera of Valencia, and other noteworthy wildfowl resorts lying outside our limits, we can speak with less certainty, not having had such opportunities of exploration as in the districts to the S. and W. The Albufera appears to be the western limit of the range of the handsome Red-crested Pochard (Fuligula rufina), a duck we have sought in vain in Andalucia; but with this exception, and that of a few stragglers, such as Hydrochelidon leucoptera and other species of more Eastern distribution, the spring avifauna of these localities does not materially differ from that of the more western marismas and lagoons described either in the present chapter or in those entitled "The Bætican Wilderness."
The lakes of Doñana are of no great extent, the largest being the Lagunas de Santolalla, and the broad, reed-choked Rocina de la Madre extending towards Rocio, all of which we have explored at different seasons.
Riding towards the small lagoon of Zopiton on April 16th, its surface was seen to be dotted all over with waterfowl—ducks and divers, coots and grebes. Zopiton is a deep, reed-fringed pool where we have often looked in vain for Fuligula rufina. On our approach, several Mallards and Gadwall flew up: I shot a Gadwall drake from horseback, whereupon there was commotion among the denizens of that sequestered lagoon—ducks rose splashing and quacking on all sides, coots "skittered" across the surface, grebes vanished amidst sedges, whence a Marsh-Harrier soared from her nest. Among the ducks which whistled around and overhead were many of a small dark species unknown to us. These appeared loth to leave, and after the others had disappeared, continued circling round, high in the air, with rapid rustling flight like that of a Golden-eye. By creeping out to a rush-clad point we lay concealed between sedges and a thicket of briar, and here soon shot several of these ducks, as well as Mallard, Garganey, and another Gadwall or two. The unknown birds proved to be the White-eyed Pochard, or Ferruginous Duck (Fuligula nyroca) which evidently intended to breed here, though a search for their nests proved futile. A month later, however (in May), we obtained nests both of this Pochard and of the Gadwall, both built among rushes on dry ground. The Gadwall—inappropriately termed in Spanish "Silbon real" (i.e. king-wigeon, or whistler)—is a very silent duck, and always seen in pairs. In May we found them singly, those shot then being all drakes rising from small sedgy pools.
The Garganey are fairly numerous on these lagoons in spring; yet though—especially in wet seasons—they certainly breed there, we have never discovered a nest. The marshmen (who know the different kinds of duck as well as most people) assert positively that in very wet springs a few pairs of the Common Teal also remain to breed.
Among the tall juncales, or reed-beds, in mid-water, abode numerous aquatic warblers—notably the Great Sedge-Warbler, Cetti's, and the Reed-Warbler, the loud grating song of the former is incessant: but owing to the depth of water and mud, and the maze of rank weeds, such spots are difficult to explore. The Melodious Warbler (Hypolais polyglotta) nests on bushes and sallows on the drier ground: while the little Fantails (Cisticola) build their pretty purse-shaped nests on the shorter rushes along the margin. A peculiarity of this tiny bird is that it lays eggs of wholly different colours—though not in the same nest—some clutches being pale green, some blue, others of a soft rose-colour, a few pure white. The elaborate way in which the nest itself is compacted of intertwined grasses and laced on to a tuft of rush is no less remarkable. Its Spanish name is Bolsicon—a little purse, and the species remains all the winter. Among the tall carices, floating in about three feet of water, was the nest of the Marsh-Harrier: it resembled that of a Coot, and had, perhaps, been built originally by that bird, many of which bred there.
While driving the ducks, five birds of peculiar appearance flew over—they were Glossy Ibis, and passed within shot of Felipe, who, however, failed to stop them. This was the only instance of our meeting with the Ibis—a singular circumstance, as in wet seasons they nest in numbers in the upper marisma. Their deep blue eggs have several times been brought to us while bustard-shooting on the Isla Menor, &c., the boys who brought them saying the nests were in the thick cañas, and not on low trees, where the small herons breed. Very curiously, in all the time we spent in the marisma, we never again saw this bird in spring, or found a single nest ourselves.
A ride of a few miles from Zopiton across the sandy heath-land brings us to the larger lagunas de Santolalla, where numerous wildfowl assemble in spring. Besides Mallards, Gadwalls, and Ferruginous Ducks, already described, were many Pintails, Garganeys, Teal, and the pretty Marbled Duck—(Querquedula marmorata). The latter nests at Santolalla at the end of May: but more numerously in the open marisma, laying ten or twelve eggs, well hidden among the clumps of samphire. Some of the Pintails (which are the most abundant of the winter wildfowl) linger late in spring: for on May 8th we observed a "bunch" of a dozen or so at Santolalla, all drakes, their snow-white throats glistening in the sunshine. Near them a pair of Shoveller drakes were swimming, and presently the binocular rested on six of the most extraordinary wildfowl we ever met with—gambolling and splashing about on the water, chasing each other, now above now beneath its surface like a school of porpoises, they appeared half birds, half water-tortoises, with which the lagoon abounds. We were well sheltered by a fringe of sedges, and presently the strangers entered a small reed-margined bight, swimming very deep, only their turtle-shaped backs and heavy heads in sight. Here we crept down on them, and as they sat, splashing and preening in the shallow water, stopped three—two dead, the third escaping, winged. They proved to be a duck and drake of the White-fronted Duck—Erismatura mersa—heavily built diving-ducks, round in the back, broad and flat in the chest, with small wings like a Grebe, and long, stiff tails like a Cormorant—the latter, being carried underwater as a rudder, is not visible when the bird is swimming. The enormously swollen bill of the drake—pale waxen blue in colour—completed as singular a picture of a feathered fowl as the writer ever came across: they were in fact no less remarkable in form and colour, now we had them in hand, than they had at first appeared in the water. The head and neck of the drake were jet black, with white face and cheeks: otherwise their whole plumage was dark ferruginous (not white below, as represented in "Bree") and with a silky, grebe-like sheen.
These singular ducks, we found, were well known to the guardas as "patos porrones" (porron—a knob), and subsequently found several pairs at the Laguna de Medina, a lake near Jerez, where, on the 23rd May, they were evidently breeding. The lake was also occupied "by numbers of the Great Crested Grebe (Podicipes cristatus), quaint-looking birds in their full summer-dress. The nests of the Little Grebe may be found floating in every rushy pool.