Unexplored Spain Part 46

When we first studied ornithology there still remained whole categories of birds (many of them abundant British species) whose breeding-places were utterly unknown.

One by one they have been removed from the list of "missing," forced to surrender their secrets by the resistless, world-scouring energy of ornithologists (mostly British). The year 1909 saw but ONE species yet undiscovered--our present friend, the slender-billed curlew.

While we are yet busy with this book, the eggs of the slender-billed curlew have been found--in Siberia!--the ultimate answer in all such cases. The first was exhibited by Mr. H. E. Dresser at the meeting of the British Ornithologists' Club on December 15, 1909, having been taken by Mr. P. A. Schastowskij on the sh.o.r.es of Lake Tschany, near Taganowskiye, in Siberia on the 20th of May preceding.

Yes, there _do_ exist "rare birds," and in Europe the slender-billed curlew appears to be an excellent ill.u.s.tration of the fact.

SANTOLALLA, _December 29, 1897_.--A wild night, black as ink, and a whole gale blowing from the eastward; an hour's ride through the scrub, and five guns silently distribute themselves along the sh.o.r.es. Strategic necessity placed us to windward, so most fowl were bound to fall in the water. As stars pale to the dawn the flight begins, the dark skies hurtle with the rush of pa.s.sing clouds, and for two hours a steady fusillade startles the solitude.

As ten o'clock approaches, one by one we seek the cork-oak, from beneath whose canopy a welcome column of smoke has long announced that breakfast was preparing. But considering the run of shooting we have heard, the toll of game brought in seems humiliating. Each gunner, gloomily depositing his fifteen or twenty, declares he has lost twice that number in the open water!... Well, a list of "claims" being drawn up, it appears that 205 duck are stated to have been shot, while only 120 can be counted. In his inner conscience possibly each man regards the rest as ... but, ere breakfast is over, here come the keepers. They have ridden round the lee-sh.o.r.es and islets, and bring in another 114!

The bag after all sums up to 234, or actually nineteen more than the sum-total of claims that we had been laughing at as extravagant. This is the list:--

2 geese 8 mallard 53 wigeon 152 teal 4 gadwall 2 shoveler 3 pochard 9 tufted duck

There were also shot two cormorants (mistaken for geese in the half-light), a marsh-harrier, two great crested grebes, and several coots.

The incident ill.u.s.trates an instance of scrupulous honesty.

OTHER COUNTRIES, OTHER STANDARDS

(A Sentiment about Wildfowl)

(_January 1909._)

A wet winter and flooded marisma--under our eyes float wildfowl in league-long lengths; countless, but far out in open water. By experience we know them to be una.s.sailable. Yet these hosts seem to throw down the gauntlet of defiance at our very doors; and under the reproach of that unspoken challenge experience succ.u.mbs. That night we arranged to dispose our six guns over a two-league triangle before the morrow's dawn. After every detail had been fixed, to us our trusted pessimist, Vasquez: "Ni por aqui ni por alli, ni por este lado ni por el otro, ni por ninguna parte cualquiera, no haremos _nada_ por la manana"--"Neither on this side nor on that, neither to east nor west, nor at any other point whatever, shall we do the slightest good to-morrow!"

On rea.s.sembling for breakfast, the result worked out as follows: 2 geese, 3 mallard, 29 wigeon, 26 teal, 7 gadwall, 4 shovelers, 1 marbled and 1 tufted duck. Total, 73 head before ten o'clock, besides a curlew and several golden plover, G.o.dwits and sundries.

We felt fairly satisfied; yet Vasquez's comment ran: "Seventy head among six guns, _eso no es nada_ = that is nothing!"

NOTE.--The writer had in his pocket a letter from home: "We put in six days' punt-gunning at the New Year. Frost severe and all conditions favourable. My bag, 4 brent-geese, 2 mallard, 3 wigeon, and a northern diver.--E. H. C."

Appendix

A SPECIFIC NOTE ON THE WILD-GEESE OF SPAIN

The Greylag Goose (_Anser cinereus_) is the only species we need here consider. For of the many hundreds of wild-geese that we have shot and examined during the eighteen years since the publication of _Wild Spain_, every one has proved to be a Greylag. This is the more remarkable inasmuch as an allied form, the Bean-Goose, was supposed in earlier days to occur in Spain, though relatively in small numbers. Col.

Irby estimated the Bean-Geese as one to 200 of the Greylags; but no such proportion any longer exists, at least in the delta of the Guadalquivir, where, during eighteen years, hardly a single Bean-Goose has been obtained.[72]

This abandonment of southern Spain by the Bean-Goose (presuming it was ever found therein) appears inexplicable. The species has lately been recognised as divisible into various races or subspecies (differing chiefly in the form and colour of the beak),[73] for which reason it may here be recorded that of the few Bean-Geese examined twenty years ago in Spain, the beak was invariably dark to below the nasal orifice, with a dark tip, and an intermediate band of rufous-chestnut.

Of the other three members of the genus, the Pink-footed Goose (_Anser brachyrhynchus_) has never occurred in Spain; while neither the white-fronted nor the lesser white-fronted species (_A. albifrons_ and _A. erythropus_, L.) have ever been recorded save in an isolated instance in either case. We have never met with any one of them--indeed, the only wild-goose in our records, other than Greylag and half-a-dozen Bean-Geese, is a single Bernacle (_Bernicla leucopsis_), one of three that was shot at Santolalla by our late friend Mr. William Garvey.

Of the Greylags that winter in Andalucia, the great majority are adults--that is (presuming our diagnosis to be correct), scarcely one in four is a gosling of the year. The adult geese we distinguish by the spur on the wing-point of the ganders and generally by their larger size and heavier build. Their undersides, moreover, are more or less spotted or barred with black--some wear regular "barred waistcoats," whereas the young birds are wholly plain white beneath. The legs and feet of the latter are also of the palest flesh-colour (some almost white), rarely showing any approximation to a pink shade, and their beaks vary from nearly white to palest yellow; whereas in the older, mostly "spot-breasted," geese the beak is deep yellow to orange, and their legs and feet are distinctly pink--some as p.r.o.nouncedly so as in _A.

brachyrhynchus_. These "soft parts" are, however, subject to infinite variation, and the above definition is a careful deduction from the results of many years' observation.[74]

On several occasions we have examined from a dozen to a score of geese without finding a single _gosling_ among them. The largest proportion of the latter so recorded was on January 29, 1907, when of sixteen geese shot, five (or possibly six) were young birds of the year before. All these sixteen showed some white feathers on the forehead, and the heaviest pair (two old ganders) weighed together 18-1/2 lbs.

As regards their weights, the following notes show the variation:--

During the severe drought of 1896, six geese weighed on November 26, when almost starving for food and water, ranged from 6-1/4 to 7-3/4 lbs.

A month later, when rains had fallen, weights had increased to 8-1/4 to 9-1/4 lbs.

_December 28, 1899._--The heaviest of 29 scaled 9-1/4 lbs.

_January 30, 1905._--The geese this dry season are in fine condition. An old gander, shot at Martinazo, exceeded 10-1/2 lbs., another pair, shot right and left, scaled 9-1/2 and 10 lbs.

_February 4, 1907._--Two geese, the heaviest of eleven shot this morning, weighed over 9 lbs. each, the pair scaling 18-1/4 lbs. It was a severe frost, the shallows being covered with ice, and as each goose fell, two bits of solid ice, in form as it were a pair of sandals, were found lying alongside it, these having been detached by the fall from the feet of the bird.

_1906. November 28._--Two pure white geese observed on Santolalla to-day and on subsequent occasions. Though usually seen flying in company with packs of normally coloured geese, the white pair always kept together.

_1907. January 25._--After a month's bitterly cold and dry weather with few geese, the wind to-day shifted to east, with heavy rain. All day long a continuous entry of geese took place from the south-westward, in frequent successive packs--sometimes two or three lots in sight at once.

A sense of movement was perceptible over the whole marisma. Next morning these newcomers were sitting in ranks of thousands by the "new water"

all along the verge of the marisma--a wondrous sight.

NOTES ON SOME WILDFOWL THAT NEST IN SOUTHERN SPAIN

WILD-DUCKS

PINTAIL (_Dafila acuta_).--In wet years a considerable number of pintails remain to nest in the marismas of Guadalquivir, and by August the broods (together with those of garganey, marbled duck, etc.) a.s.semble on the only waters that then remain--such as the Lagunas de Santolalla, etc.

In 1908, a very wet spring, almost as many pintails bred here as mallards, and in eight nests observed the maximum number of eggs was nine. They resemble those of mallards, consisting of twigs with a few feathers placed on the mud, and easily seen through the open clump of samphire which shelters them.[75]

MALLARD (_Anas boschas_), in the marisma, nest in precisely similar situations, but their eggs number twelve or fourteen. Elsewhere their nests (being among bush or reedbeds) are less easily seen.

WIGEON (_Mareca penelope_) never breed, though chance birds (and some greylags also) remain every summer--possibly wounded.

GADWALL (_Anas strepera_) do not nest in the open marisma, but many pairs retire to the rush-fringed inland lagoons, such as Zopiton and Santolalla. They lay nine to twelve eggs about mid-May, usually at a short distance from the water.

TEAL (_Nettion crecca_) remain quite exceptionally. Even in that wet spring, 1908, only a single nest was found. There were eight eggs laid on bare mud, with hardly any nest, beneath a samphire bush. Though quite fresh, and placed at once under a hen, these eggs did not hatch.

GARGANEY (_Querquedula circia_) breed among the samphire in the open marisma--in wet seasons quite numerously. Seven young, caught newly hatched in 1908 and kept alive at Jerez, showed no distinctive s.e.xual coloration all that autumn or up to February 1909. Early in March three drakes became distinguishable, the most advanced being complete in feather by the 15th, and all three perfect by April 1.

Young pintails, on the other hand, acquire complete s.e.xual dress in the autumn, as mallards do, by November.

Garganey also nest in large numbers on the lagoons of Daimiel in La Mancha.

MARBLED DUCK (_Querquedula angustirostris_).--This is one of the most abundant of the Spanish-breeding ducks, nesting both in the marisma and along the various channels of the Guadalquivir. Their nests, substantially built of twigs of samphire, dead reeds, and gra.s.s, lined with down, are carefully concealed among covert, usually on dry ground.