Unexplored Spain Part 29

The great bustard, one imagines, has few enemies except man, but the following incident shows they are not entirely exempt from extraneous dangers. In October, some years ago, the writer purposed spending a couple of nights at a distant marsh in order to see whether any snipe had yet come in. Our course led us through good bustard-country, and by an early start I had hoped to exploit this in pa.s.sing. Hardly had we entered upon the corn-lands than we espied fifteen bustard, a quarter-mile away on the right. The rough bridle-track being worn slightly hollow and no better cover appearing, I decided to "flatten" on the spot, sending my two men to ride round beyond the game, which, being in a dip, was now below my range of sight. In due course the bustards appeared, winging directly towards me, but alighting in front when already almost in shot. Feeling practically certain of them now, since I could hear the shouts of the beaters beyond, I raised myself slightly, only to see, to my utter chagrin, the bustards flying off in diametrically the opposite direction while simultaneously a hissing sound from behind and overhead caused me to glance upwards. A black object hurtling earthward through s.p.a.ce, shot diagonally past me--this I mistook as merely a peregrine pursuing some hare that had been disturbed by the beaters. But on hastening forward over the ridge, I perceived one of the beaters riding up with a dead bustard across his saddle--a female, with a great gaping gash in her side. The beaters reported that just as they flushed the bustard a second time an eagle had swept down upon them, knocked down this one, and sent the rest, scattered in wild disorder, over their heads. Paco had then galloped up to within a few yards before the eagle reluctantly abandoned its prize and sailed aloft.

Continuing our interrupted journey, half a mile ahead another pack of bustard was descried, and while rapidly surveying the situation, yet another lot appeared on wing, flying from the right. These last, we instantly concluded both from their direction and also by the curiously unsettled style of their flight, were a part of the band which had recently been attacked by the eagle. Under such circ.u.mstances I realised that (though I was mounted and in full view) they might yet pa.s.s within shot, so, jumping from the horse, I fired at the nearest old c.o.c.k-bustard and distinctly saw blood spirt from his snow-white breast.

He flew slowly away with ever lowering flight, finally disappearing over a crest close by the scene of our first drive. Confident of gathering him, we rode back, and on gaining the ridge witnessed this amazing spectacle. In the hollow, 300 yards away, was a well with the usual cross-bar and pulley for drawing water, and on the cross-bar sat an eagle. Below on the ground stood the wounded bustard, facing-up to a second great eagle, which kept flapping around him, apparently reluctant to attack so huge a bird on the ground and in its then aggressive att.i.tude, and endeavouring to force it to fly.

So absorbed were both eagles on their quarry that I rode up unnoticed to within 100 yards, and was making ready to fire when the two great birds rose, that from the cross-bar flying away, while the other, not content to resign his prize, circled overhead. In hope that he might descend I concealed myself behind the well, always keeping one eye on the wounded bustard, but presently the eagle had become a mere speck in the heavens.

The bustard all this time had remained standing close by, but on my approach it rose quite strongly on wing, and had I not been loaded, might yet have escaped.

[Ill.u.s.tration: DRAW-WELL WITH CROSS-BAR]

The aggressors were imperial eagles, and in their second attack had no doubt realised that the quarry was already wounded. The first victim had been knocked down, stone-dead, when absolutely sound and strong.

During summer these birds practically subsist on gra.s.shoppers, especially those in the heavy wingless stage known as _Cigarras panzonas_. These disappear after July, being replaced by smaller and more active varieties, which are equally relished. Once the females commence laying among the spring corn (in April), the c.o.c.k-bustards a.s.semble in widower packs (_toradas_) on the fallows, and especially on _marismas_ adjacent to corn-land. By September both s.e.xes, with the young, reunite on the stubbles, where we have seen as many as 200 together.

It is in April that the old _barbones_ attain their full glory and pride of s.e.xual estate--resplendent in fierce whiskers and gorgeous chestnut ruffs all distended with the seasonal condition. Courtship begins in March, when the weird eccentric performances of the males, flashing alternately white and rich orange against their green environment, lend a characteristic touch to the vernal _vegas_--white specks that appear and disappear as the lovelorn monsters revolve and display, somewhat in the frenzied style of the blackc.o.c.k on our own northern moorlands. _Hechando la rueda_ the Spanish call it, as an old _barbon_ majestically struts around turning himself, as it were, inside out before an a.s.sembled harem that, to all appearance, takes no manner of interest in his fantastic performance--perhaps the gentler s.e.x dissemble their depth of feeling? Then occur ferocious duels between rival paladins. Long sustained are these and conspicuous afar, albeit not very deadly. No life-blood may flow, but feathers fly ere the point of honour is settled and the victor left in proud possession.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "HECHANDO LA RUEDA"]

These combats occur chiefly at break of day while tall herbage yet remains soaked by nocturnal dews, and it occasionally happens that some luckless champion, damaged and bedraggled, and with plumage saturated through and through, when thus encountered, is found unable to fly and so captured. Several such instances came under our notice years ago and--rare though they may be--misled us in _Wild Spain_ to conclude that the incapacity arose from a spring-moult--similar to that of wild-geese and of some ducks. That, however, was an error. The loss of flight-power arises, as stated, from the damaged and dew-saturated state of the primaries, as is concisely set forth in a letter from our friend D. Jose Pan Elberto as follows:--

Many persons undoubtedly believe (owing to bustards being captured in spring unable to fly) that these birds moult all their quills at once. That is not the case; but since in spring, when the male-bustards engage in continuous fighting, the corn-growth is already quite tall, and in the early mornings all vegetation is saturated with night-dews, it occasionally happens that a bustard may be met with incapable by this cause of taking wing--that is, that some of the flight-feathers are lost or broken and all dew-soaked (_rociadas_). The bustard moults gradually and never loses the power of flight.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Great Bustard "SHEWING-OFF"--FROM LIFE.

FIRST ATt.i.tUDE.

SECOND ATt.i.tUDE.

THE SAME, BUT LOOKING UP AT A Pa.s.sING BIRD.

FINAL POSITION.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: TAIL-FEATHERS OF GREAT BUSTARD]

While never attaining the size of wild birds, yet bustards thrive well in captivity--always a.s.suming that they have been caught young. Old birds brought home wounded never survive twenty-four hours, dying not from the wound (which may be insignificant) but from _barinchin_, which may be translated chagrin or a broken heart. Young bustards reared thus become extremely tame, coming to call and feeding from the hand, though when old the males are apt to grow vicious in spring, attacking savagely children, dogs, and even women, especially those whom they see to be afraid.[47] Tame as they are, they are always subject to strange alarms, seemingly causeless. Suddenly they raise their wings, draw in their heads, and dance around, jumping in air, and ever intently regarding the heavens--sometimes dashing off under cover of bushes. One may connect this exhibition with some speck in the sky, some pa.s.sing eagle, more often no motive is discernible. Bustard-chicks emit a plaintive whistle so precisely similar to that of the kites that (when hatched out under a domestic hen) the foster-mother has been so terrified as to desert her brood. When adult, bustards are usually quite silent, save for a grunting noise in spring--that is, in captivity. But on a hot day we have heard the old males, when pa.s.sing on a drive, utter panting sounds, and (as already mentioned) a winged _barbon_ will turn to attack with a sort of gruff bark--wuff, wuff--as his captor approaches.

So retentive is their memory that each year as May comes round our tame bustards keep constantly on the look-out for the first cart-load of green cut gra.s.s brought into the stable-yard for the horses. They even follow it right into the loose-box where it is stored, in order to feast on the gra.s.shoppers it conceals, climbing all over the mountain of gra.s.s, but never scratching as hens or pheasants would do.

THE LITTLE BUSTARD (_OTIS TETRAX_--SPANISH, _SISoN_)

The little bustard may fairly claim the proud distinction that it alone of all the game-birds on earth can utterly scorn and set at naught every artifice of the fowler--modern methods and up-to-date appliances all included. Here in Spain, though the bird itself is abundant enough (and its flesh delicate and delicious), it so entirely defies every set system of pursuit that no one nowadays attempts its capture. Practically none are killed save merely by some chance or accidental encounter.

True, during the fiery noontides of July and August even the little bustard enjoys a siesta and may then be shot. It will, in fact, "lie close" before pointers and cackle like a c.o.c.k-grouse as it rises from those desolate _dehesas_ which form its home--vast stretches of rolling veld where asphodel, palmetto, and giant thistles grow rampant as far as eye can reach. But that scarce comes within our category of sport, since a solar heat that can (even temporarily) tame a _sison_ is quite likely to finish off a Briton for good and all. And with the advent of autumn and a relatively endurable temperature, in a moment the _sison_ becomes impossibly wild. Any idea of direct approach is simply out of the question, but beyond that, this astute fowl has elaborated a scheme--indeed a series of schemes--that nullifies even that one remaining resource of baffled humanity, "driving." You may surround his company, "horse-shoe" them with hidden guns--do what you will, not a single _sison_ will come in to the firing-line. You cannot diagnose beforehand his probable line of flight, for he has none, nor can you influence its subsequent direction. For the little bustard shuts off all negotiation at its initiation by springing vertically in air, soaring far above gunshot, and there indulging in fantastic aerial evolutions more in the style of wigeon or other wildfowl than of a true game-bird as he is. Thus from that celestial alt.i.tude he spies out the country and all terrestrial dangers, finally disappearing afar amidst the wastes of atmospheric s.p.a.ce. Frequently we have noticed the high-flying band, after, say, twenty minutes of such display of wing-power, descend directly to their original position at a safe interval after the drivers had pa.s.sed forward thereof! Thus do they scorn our efforts and add insult to injury.

[Ill.u.s.tration: LITTLE BUSTARD

Summer plumage.]

In practice no _sisones_ whatever are killed in set drives, and for twenty years we have abandoned the attempt as impossible. They nevertheless--alike with every other fowl of the air--must, by occasional mischance, fly into danger, and at such times, owing to their habit of flying in ma.s.sed formation, a heavy toll may be levied at a single shot by a gunner who is alert to exploit the happy event. We have ourselves, in this casual way, dropped from five to eight _sisones_ with the double charge.

Though frequenting the same open terrain as their big cousins, the _sisones_ distinctly prefer the rough stretches of palmetto, thistles, and other rank herbage to corn-land proper--in short, they prefer to sit where they can never be seen on the ground. Conspicuous as their white plumage and resonant wing-rattle makes them in air, we can hardly recall a dozen instances of having detected a pack of little bustard at rest--and then merely in quite accidental and exceptional circ.u.mstances. And even then (as indicated) the knowledge of their precise position has seldom availed to their undoing.

By April the males have a.s.sumed a splendidly handsome breeding-dress.

The neck, swollen out like a jargonelle pear, is clad in rich velvet-black, the long plumes behind glossy and hackle-like, and adorned with a double gorget of white. All this finery is lost by August.

Thenceforward the s.e.xes are alike save for the larger size and brighter orange of the males, the females being smaller and yellower. They are strictly monogamous, yet the males "show-off" in the same fantastic way as great bustard and blackc.o.c.k. About mid-May the female lays four (rarely five) glossy olive-green eggs in the thick covert of thistles or palmettos.

In summer the food of the little bustard consists of snails and small gra.s.shoppers, and on the table they are excellent, the breast being large and prominent and displaying both dark and white flesh--the latter, however, being confined to the legs.

CHAPTER XXVI

FLAMINGOES

THE QUEST FOR THEIR "INCUNABULA"

[Ill.u.s.tration: A TYPICAL SIGHT IN THE MARISMA]

The flamingo stands in a cla.s.s apart. Allied to no other bird-form--hardly so much as related--it may be regarded almost as a separate act of creation. Its nesting habits, and the method by which a bird of such abnormal build could incubate its eggs, formed for generations a "vexed question" in bird-life. The story of the efforts made by British naturalists to solve the problem ranks among the cla.s.sics of ornithology. The marismas of Guadalquivir were early known to be one of the few European _incunabula_ of the flamingo; but their vast extent--"as big as our eastern counties," Howard Saunders wrote--and the irregularity of the seasons (since flamingoes only remain to nest in the wettest years) combined to frustrate exploration. First in the field was Lord Lilford--as early as 1856; and both during that and the two succeeding decades he and Saunders (who appeared on the scene in 1864) undertook repeated journeys--all in vain. The record of these makes splendid reading, and will be found as follows:--

Lord Lilford, "On the Breeding of the Flamingo in Spain," _Proceedings Zoological Society of London_, 1880, pp. 446-50; Howard Saunders, _ibid._, 1869, and the same authority in the _Ibis_, 1871, pp. 394 _et seq._

The late Crown Prince Rudolph of Austria, who visited Spain in May 1879, likewise failed to reach the nesting spot--apparently through the usual cause, not going far enough--though a few eggs were found scattered on the wet mud of the marisma. (Recorded by Lord Lilford as above.)

Thus the question remained unsettled till 1883, when a favouring season enabled the present authors to succeed where greater ornithologists had striven in vain.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

A venerable apologue attaches to the nesting habit of the flamingo.

Owing to the length of its legs, it was a.s.sumed that the bird could not incubate in the ordinary manner of birds, and that, therefore, it stood astraddle on a nest built up to the requisite height--a combination of unproved a.s.sumption with inconsequential deduction. 'Twere ungracious to be wise after the event, yet, in fact, this fable pa.s.sed current as "Natural History" for precisely two centuries--from 1683, when Dampier so described the nesting of flamingoes on the Cape de Verde Islands,[48]

till 1883, when the present authors had opportunity of observing a flamingo-colony in southern Spain.

Flamingoes do not nest every year in the Spanish marismas. Their doing so depends on the season, and only in very wet years is the attempt made. Rarely, even then, are young hatched off, so persistently are the wastes raided by egg-lifters, who sweep up by wholesale every edible thing, and to whom a "Flamingo City," with its hundreds of big eggs all ma.s.sed together--a boat-load for the gathering--represents an El Dorado.

As early as 1872 eggs were brought to us--taken by our own marshmen on May 24--but it was not till 1883 that we enjoyed seeing an occupied nest-colony ourselves.

More than a quarter-century has sped since then, yet we cannot do better than substantially transcribe the narrative as recorded in _Wild Spain_.

During the month of April we searched the marismas systematically for the nesting-places of flamingoes, but, though exploring large areas--riding many leagues in all directions through mud and water varying from a few inches to full three feet in depth--yet no sign of nests was then encountered. Flamingoes there were in thousands, together with a wealth of aquatic bird-life that we will not stop here to describe. But the water was still too deep, the mud-flats and new-born islets not yet sufficiently dried for purposes of nidification. The only species that actually commenced to lay in April were the coots, purple herons, peewits, Kentish plovers, stilts, redshanks, and a few more.

April was clearly too early, and the writer lost nearly a week through an attack of ague, brought on by constant splashing about in comparatively cold water while a fierce sun always beat down on one's head. In May the luck improved. Far away to the eastward flamingoes had always been most numerous, and once or twice we observed (early in May) signs that resembled the first rude beginnings of architecture, and encouraged us to persevere in what had begun to appear an almost hopeless quest.

_May 9_ (1883).--The effects of dawn over the vast desolations of the marisma were specially lovely this morning. Before sunrise the distant peaks of the Serrania de Ronda (seventy miles away) lay flooded in a blood-red light, and appearing quite twice their usual height. Half an hour later the mountains sank back in a golden glow, and long before noon had utterly vanished in quivering heat-haze and the atmospheric fantasies of infinite s.p.a.ce. Amidst chaotic confusion of mirage effects we rode out across the wilderness: at first over dry mud-flats spa.r.s.ely carpeted with dwarf scrub of marsh plants, or in places bare and naked, the sun-scorched surface cracked into rhomboids and parallelograms, and honeycombed with yawning cattle-tracks made long ago when the mud was moist and plastic; then through shallow marsh and stagnant waters gradually deepening. Here from a patch of rush hard by sprang three hinds with their fawns and splashed away through the shallows, their russet pelts gleaming in the early sunlight. Gradually the water deepened; "mucha agua, mucho fango!" groaned our companion, Felipe; but this morning we meant to reach the very heart of the marisma, and before ten o'clock were cooking our breakfast on a far-away islet whereon never British foot had trod before, and which was literally strewn with avocets' eggs, while nests of stilts, redshanks, pratincoles, and many more lay scattered around.

[Ill.u.s.tration: STILTS DISTURBED AT THEIR NESTING-PLACE]

During this day we discovered two nests of the slender-billed gull (_Larus gelastes_), not previously known to breed in Spain; also, we then believed, those of the Mediterranean black-headed gull (_L.

melanocephalus_), though the latter were afterwards ascribed by oological experts (perhaps correctly) to the gull-billed tern (_Sterna anglica_), a species whose eggs we also found by the dozen.