Unexplored Spain Part 28

The thoughts revolving in the leader's mind during his brief survey follow these general lines: First, which is (_a_) the favourite and (_b_) the most favourable line of flight of those bustards when disturbed; secondly, where can guns best be placed athwart that line; thirdly, how can the guns reach these points unseen? A condition precedent to success is that the firing-line shall be drawn around the bustards fairly close up, yet without their knowledge. Now with wild-game in open country devoid of fences, hollows, or covert of any description that problem presents initial difficulties that may well appear insuperable. But they are rarely quite so. It is here that the fieldcraft of the leader comes in. He has detected some slight fold that will shelter hors.e.m.e.n up to a given point, and beyond that, screen a crouching figure to within 300 yards of the unconscious _bandada_.

Rarely do watercourses or valleys of sufficient depth lend a welcome aid; recourse must usually be had to the reverse slope of the hill whereon the bustards happen to be. Without a halt, the party ride round till out of sight. At the farthest safe advance, the guns dismount and proceed to spread themselves out--so far as possible in a semicircle--around the focal point.[45] At 80 yards apart, each lies p.r.o.ne on earth, utilising such shelter (if any) as may exist on the naked decline--say skeleton thistles, a tuft of wild asparagus, or on rare occasion some natural bank or tiny rain-scoop.

[Ill.u.s.tration: GREAT BUSTARD--YOUNG.

(1) AS HATCHED.

(2) AT TWENTY DAYS OLD.

(3) AT ONE MONTH.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: SLENDER-BILLED CURLEW (NUMENIUS TENUIROSTRIS).

[See Chapter on "Bird-life," _infra._]]

Having now succeeded in placing his guns unseen and within a fatal radius, the leader may congratulate himself that his main object has been achieved. On the nearness of the line to the game, and on his correct diagnosis of the bustards' flight depends the issue.

[It may be added that bustard are occasionally found in situations that offer no reasonable hope of a successful drive. It may then (should no others be known within the radius of action) become advisable gently to "move" the inexpugnable troop; remembering that once these birds realise that they are being "driven," the likelihood of subsequently putting them over the guns has enormously decreased. There accrues an incidental advantage in this operation, for after "moving" them to more favouring ground, it will not be necessary to line-up the guns quite so near as is usually essential to success. For bustards possess so strong an attachment to their _querencias_, or individual haunts, that they may be relied upon, on being disturbed a second time, to wing a course more or less in the direction of their original position. We give a specific instance of this later.

Each pack of bustard has its own _querencia_, and will be found at certain hours to frequent certain places. This local knowledge, if obtainable, saves infinite time and vast distances traversed in search of game whose approximate positions, after all, may thus be ascertained beforehand.]

Now we have placed our guns in line and within that short distance of the unsuspecting game that all but a.s.sures a certain shot. We cannot, let us confess, recall many moments in life of more tense excitement than those spent thus, lying p.r.o.ne on the gentle slope listening with every sense on stretch for the cries of the galloping beaters as in wild career they urge the huge birds towards a fatal course. Before us rises the curving ridge, its summit sharply defined against an azure sky--azure but empty. Now the light air wafts to our ear the tumultuous pulsations of giant wings, and five seconds later that erst empty ether is crowded with two score huge forms. What a scene--and what commotion as, realising the danger, each great bird with strong and laboured wing-stroke swerves aside. One enormous _barbon_ directly overhead receives first attention; a second, full broadside, presents no more difficulty, and ere the double thuds behind have attested the result, we realise that a third, shying off from our neighbour, is also "our meat."

This has proved one of our luckier drives, for the _bandada_, splitting up on the centre, offered chances to both flanks of the blockading line--chances which are not always fully exploited.

[Ill.u.s.tration: SWERVE ASIDE TO RIGHT AND LEFT]

We have stated, earlier in this chapter, that among the various component factors in a bustard-drive the actual shot is of minor importance. That is so; yet truly remarkable is the frequency with which good shots constantly miss the easiest of chances at these great birds.

Precisely similar failures occur with wild-geese, with swans--indeed with all big birds whose wing-action is deliberate and slow. Tardy strokes deceive the eye, and the great bulk of the bustard accentuates the deception--it seems impossible to miss them, a fatal error. As the Spanish drivers put it: "Se les llenaron el ojo de carne," literally, "the bustards had filled your eye with meat"--the hapless marksmen saw everything bustard! Yet geese with their 40 strokes fly past ducks at 120, and the bustard's apparently leisured movement carries him in full career as fast as whirring grouse with 200 revolutions to the minute. To kill bustard treat them on the same basis as the smaller game that appears faster but is not.

Bustards being soft-plumaged are not hard to kill. As compared with such ironclads as wild-geese, they are singularly easily killed, and with AAA shot may be dropped stone-dead at 80 and even at 100 yards. A pair of guns may thus profitably be brought into action.

Bustards seldom run, but they walk very fast, especially when alarmed.

Between the inception of a drive and the moment of flushing we have known them to cover half a mile, and many drives fail owing to game having completely altered its original position. Instances have occurred of bustards walking over the dividing ridge, to the amazement of the prostrate sportsmen on the hither slope. Strange to say, when winged they do not make off, but remain where they have fallen, and an old male will usually show fight. Of course if left alone and out of sight a winged bustard will travel far.

In weight c.o.c.k-bustard vary from, say, 20 to 22 lbs. in autumn, up to 28 to 30 lbs. in April. The biggest old males in spring reach 33 and 34 lbs., and one we presented to the National Collection at South Kensington scaled 37 lbs. The breast-bone of these big birds is usually quite bare, a h.o.r.n.y callosity, owing to friction with the ground while squatting, and the heads and necks of old males usually exhibit gaps in their gorgeous spring-plumage--indicative of severe encounters among themselves. Hen-bustard seldom exceed 15 lbs. at any season.

Bustard are usually found in troops varying from half-a-dozen birds to as many as 50 or 60, and in September we have seen 200 together.

Bustard-shooting--by which we mean legitimate driving during the winter months, September to April--is necessarily uncertain in results. Some days birds may not even be seen, though this is unusual, while on others many big bands may be met with. Hence it is difficult to put down an average, though we roughly estimate a bird a gun as an excellent day's work. A not unusual bag for six guns will be about eight head; but we have a note of two days' shooting in April (in two consecutive years) when a party of eight guns, all well-known shots, secured 21 and 22 bustard respectively, together with a single lesser bustard on each day.

This was on lands between Alcantarillas and Las Cabezas, but it is fair to add that the ground had been carefully preserved by the owner and the operation organised regardless of expense.

A minor difficulty inherent to this pursuit is to select the precise psychological moment to spring up to shooting-position. This indeed is a feature common to most forms of wild-shooting--such as duck-flighting, driving geese or even snipe; in fact there is hardly a really wild creature that can be dealt with from a comfortable position erect on one's legs. Imagine partridge-shooters at home, instead of standing comfortably protected by hedge or b.u.t.t, being told to hide themselves on a wet plough or bare stubble. Here, in Spain, it may also be necessary to conceal the gun under one's right side (to avoid sun-glints), and that also loses a moment.

[Ill.u.s.tration: BUSTARDS Pa.s.sING FULL BROADSIDE]

All one's care and elaborate strategy is ofttimes nullified through the blunders of a novice. Some men have no more sense of concealment than that fabled ostrich which is said to hide its head in the sand (which it doesn't); others can't keep still. These are for ever poking their heads up and down or--worse still--trying to see what is occurring in front.

We may conclude this chapter with a hint or two to new hands.

Never move from your p.r.o.ne position till the bustard are in shot, and after that, not till you are sure the whole operation is complete. There may yet be other birds enclosed though you do not know it.

Never claim to have wounded a bustard merely because it pa.s.sed so near and offered so easy a shot that you can't believe you missed it. You did miss it or it would be lying dead behind.

All the same keep one eye on any bird you have fired at so long as it remains in view. Bustards shot through the lungs will sometimes fly half a mile and then drop dead.

Wear clothes suited, more or less, to environment--_greenish_, we suggest, for choice--but remember that immobility is tenfold more important than colour. A pure white object that is quiescent is overlooked, where a clod of turf that _moves_ attracts instant attention.

In spring, when bustards gorge on green food, gralloch your victims at once, otherwise the half-digested ma.s.s in the crop quickly decomposes and destroys the meat.

Here is an example of an error in judgment that practically amounted to a blunder. Before our well-concealed line stood a grand pack, between thirty and forty bustard beautifully "horseshoed," and quite unconscious thereof. Momentarily we expected their entry--right in our faces! At that critical moment there appeared, wide on the right flank and actually behind us, three huge old _barbones_ directing a course that would bring them along close in rear of our line. No. 4 gun, on extreme right, properly allowed this trio to pa.s.s; not so No. 3. But the culprit, on rising to fire, had the chagrin to realise (too late) his error. The whole superb army-corps in front were at that very moment sweeping forward direct on the centre of our line! In an instant they took it in, swerved majestically to the left, and escaped scot-free.

That No. 3 had secured a right-and-left at the advent.i.tious trio in no sort of way exculpated his mistake.

CHAPTER XXV

THE GREAT BUSTARD (_Continued_)

The following ill.u.s.trates 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 pa.s.sing 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 25-1/2 to 26-1/2 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 gra.s.s 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 sc.r.a.p 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 b.a.s.t.a.r.d-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 outmanoeuvring the game as in plan (A). We here add a third plan which has occasionally stood us (when alone) in good stead.

On finding bustard on a suitable hill, leave your man to ride slowly to and fro attracting the attention of the game till you have had time, by hard running, to gain the reverse slope. The attendant then rides forward, the whole operation being so punctually timed that you reach the crest of the ridge at the same moment as the walking bustards have arrived within shot thereof. Needless to add, this involves, besides hard work, a considerable degree of luck, yet on several occasions we have secured as many as four birds a day by this means.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "HURTLING THROUGH s.p.a.cE"]