Out of Doors—California and Oregon

by J. A. Graves

Ducks Go Skating.

In a lull in the shooting I left my blind and went a quarter of a mile away to the little lake mentioned before as frozen over. I crept up to the top of a hill and looked down upon it. Although the sun was high in the sky, the lake was still frozen. It was surrounded by ducks. I don't want to say that they were skating on the ice. I saw one old canvasback drake, however, peck at another duck. The latter squawked and waddled out of the way, going where the water should have been. When he struck the ice, he slid for quite a little distance, balancing with his wings in a most ludicrous fashion. While cautiously watching them, I saw this performance repeated several times.

There was no hope of my approaching them within shooting distance, so I stood up to arouse the ducks, hoping to send them to my companions. They filled the air with a great clatter of wings, and circled off to various portions of the valley. I heard a great bombardment as they crossed the other lakes, and I knew that someone had taken toll from them.

It was a beautiful day, with cloudless sky. The sun's warm summer like rays were in marked contrast to the icy breath of winter, encountered at sunrise. What a grand sunrise it was! From behind the mountains of the East, up out of the depths of the Salton Sea, Old Sol first illuminated the sky, the mountain tops and wooded ridges to the southwest and north, and then with a rich show of crimson coloring, he suddenly vaulted into the sky, touching with his golden wand each frosted leaf and frozen bush and tree, and hill and vale and mountain top.

Fine Luck.

We shot with varying success during the morning hours.

Many of the ducks, especially the larger ones, circled high in the air like miniature aeroplanes, almost beyond human vision. How they sped on frightened wings, gradually going higher and higher, and finally darting off over the eastern rim of the valley in the direction of Salton Sea. Just before noon time my companion at one of the lakes, and myself, gathered up our ducks and hung them high in a tree at the water's edge. We then went to another lake by which the autos stood, where we had agreed to muster for lunch. The entire party were in high spirits, and pronounced the sport the best they had ever had.

After lunch two of the party in the runabout drove out of the valley to some place familiar to them. They returned later with the limit of jacksnipe—big, fat, thick-breasted, meaty looking birds.

My companion and myself returned to our blinds. The duck flight during the fore part of the afternoon was exceedingly light. I managed to land, among others, a beautiful canvasback drake. Shortly afterwards I stopped as fine a Mallard drake as I ever saw. This was the only Mallard killed on the trip.

In the gathering shadows of the coming night we drove back to the Springs. Seven guns had killed 118 ducks, fifty of them canvasback. There was a fine sprinkling of sprig, redhead, widgeon, plenty of teal, bluebills and some spoonbills, all fine, fat birds. Then there were the jacksnipe.