Wild Spain Part 20

KITES examined, 21.

Snakes, Lizards, Blindworms, &c 9 cases.

Locusts, elytra of coleoptera, &c 9 "

Bones and remains of small birds 5 "

Rabbits and young Redlegs (1 each) 2 "

Egg-sh.e.l.ls 0 "

Note.--We have shot Black Kites fairly crammed with Locusts.

HARRIERS examined, 17.

Frogs, Snakes and other reptiles 8 cases.

Egg-sh.e.l.ls 7 "

Scorpions, coleoptera and other insects 3 "

Game (1 Quail, 1 young and 1 putrid rabbit) 3 "

The Marsh-Harrier in spring seeks frogs, eggs, and young birds; in winter, frogs, wounded birds, and chance reptiles.

Montagu's Harrier takes chiefly the lesser reptiles and eggs--occasionally rabbits--and departs entirely in winter.

LARGE EAGLES examined, 8.

Rabbits, Partridge, &c. 8 cases.

Reptiles, eggs, or insects 0 "

SMALL EAGLES examined, 10.

Rabbits and other game 4 cases.

Reptiles (no eggs or insects) 4 "

Small birds 3 "

Sundries (1 young eagle! _See_ p. 215) 1 "

The large eagles prey on game all the year round; the smaller species chiefly on reptiles and small birds, secondarily on game. In winter the latter depart to Africa.

FALCONS.--The smaller species are chiefly insectivorous--the Lesser Kestrel and Eleanora Falcon exclusively so. The Common Kestrel and Hobby also take small lizards and snakes. From the crop of one of the large and powerful Falcons (_Falco punicus_) which, when shot, was in the act of pursuing a Hare, we have taken nearly a score of Blindworms.

It is corroborative of the predominance of reptiles and insects in their diet, that so many of the raptores leave Spain almost entirely in winter. Both the Booted and Serpent-Eagles, Black Kite, Montagu's Harrier, Lesser Kestrel, and others, migrate at that season to Africa.

[Ill.u.s.tration: BLACK STORK.]

CHAPTER XXII.

BIRD-LIFE OF THE SPANISH SPRING-TIME.

III.--BY LAKE AND LAGOON.

Spain is not a land of lakes; the so-called lagoons are often mere acc.u.mulations of flood-water, the result of the winter's rains which occupy shallow basins, or swamp the low-lying lands. Many of these hybernal lagoons dry up entirely as the hot weather sets in; others remain in greatly reduced proportions, hidden, as a rule, amidst reeds and dense aquatic herbage.

Few Spanish lakes cover any considerable area, though the Lagunas de Janda, near Trafalgar, those of Fuentepiedra near Malaga, and the Albufera of Valencia, are exceptions.

The Laguna de Janda, an inland sea of yellow muddy water, surrounded by belts of sedge and cane-brake stretching away for miles, is a well-known wildfowl resort, abounding in winter with Grey Geese, ducks, and divers of many kinds, besides Snipe, Rails, Bitterns, and aquatic birds in all their varieties. The dry plateaux on the north are a notable resort of Little Bustard; and large bags of Quail and Golden Plover are there, at times, secured. But this is well-known ground, and having been described by others, we will only add that in spring Janda is noteworthy as one of the breeding-stations of the Crane (_Grus communis_), which still nests in some numbers amidst the vast area of reed-beds and thick swamp that lie towards Casa Vieja.

The nests of the Crane are huge acc.u.mulations 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 ent.i.tled "The Baetican Wilderness."

The lakes of Donana 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) a.s.sert positively that in _very wet_ springs a few pairs of the Common Teal also remain to breed.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Plate x.x.xII.

MALLARDS AND FERRUGINOUS DUCKS--ALAMILLO.

Page 268.]

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 gra.s.ses 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 pa.s.sed within shot of Felipe, who, however, failed to stop them. This was the only instance of our meeting with the Ibis--a singular circ.u.mstance, 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 _canas_, 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 a.s.semble 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 k.n.o.b), 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Plate x.x.xIII.

WHITE-FRONTED DUCK (ERISMATURA MERSA)--Santolalla, May 8th, 1883.

Page 270.]

The width of the lagoon would barely exceed half-a-mile; its sh.o.r.es all furrowed by wild boar in their search for _grillos_, or mole-crickets, and dotted with the skeletons of water-tortoises, and beyond its glancing waters rolled stretches of grey scrub and heath, backed in the distance by sand-dunes and corrales, the outliers of the desolate _arenales_ that extend to the sea-coast. Beneath a straggling belt of pines there were sheltering from the mid-day heat a group of wild-bred cattle; and a little apart stood three or four big bulls of the fighting breed:--formidable beasts that demand a wide berth. More s.h.a.ggy cattle, knee-deep in water, were dreamily ruminating, each form surmounted by a white bird, the Buff-backed Heron--in Spanish _Agarrapatosa_ or tick-eater--some apparently asleep, others busily searching for prey. Nearer still, among the islanded patches of sedge and carices, stalked a pair of Little Egrets, their long, thin necks arched with infinite grace, and heads poised to strike with deadly precision any darting larvae or water-beetle they detect among the floating weeds.

The heron-tribe is strongly represented in Andalucia; in spring and summer almost every European form adorns these remote and marshy regions. During May the Buff-backed Herons were flying all over the plains in packs of a score to fifty or more, apparently in quest of a settlement; the pretty little Squacco Herons had then shifted their quarters from the marisma to the rushy lagoons, and many nests were ready for eggs in the _juncales_; but all this group breed late, none laying much before June.

Since we first visited these regions, now nearly twenty years ago, a sad diminution has taken place in the numbers of these beautiful Herons and Egrets, due in great measure to the cruel and thoughtless fashion of wearing their plumes in ladies' hats. Let ladies humanely remember that these plumes are only attained in the _nesting_ season, when to kill the male means the sacrifice of a whole family. Fortunately there remain sequestered nooks, sacred as yet to wild nature. Both in the neighbourhood of Almonte and in certain marshy regions of vast cane-brake and wooded swamp on the Estremenian border, there survive unknown and unmolested colonies of these graceful creatures, where for many a year to come the Egrets, Buff-backed and Squacco Herons, the Night-Heron and Little Bittern, Spoonbill, Glossy Ibis and other "rare birds" may yet find a sanctuary protected by natural fastnesses, and by legions of leeches and mosquitoes that render human life well nigh intolerable. The very toads are there as big as small footstools; the natives yellow and sunken-eyed, with hollow cheeks and parchment skin.

[Ill.u.s.tration: BUFF-BACKED HERON.]

Here, when summer-heats provoke miasma and fetid airs, languor-laden, from the mora.s.s, the herons congregate. In June their slight nests crowd the sallow-brakes and clumps of gnarled alders and aspens islanded in marsh, and barricaded with bramble and vicious th.o.r.n.y _zarzas_. Amidst umbrageous gloom the Night-Heron and Bittern dream away the hours of daylight, the former among the branches, the latter in thickest sedge.

The Bittern lays its pheasant-like eggs in April, often in March; the Little Bittern not till June. It is difficult to fix a date for the rest--so uncertain are they, and so dependent on the seasons and the quant.i.ty of water in the marismas. We have eggs of the Night-Heron taken as early as May 20th--another year none were laid till June 8th. From this latter date onwards is perhaps the average time for eggs of that species, as well as those of the Egret, Buff-back, and Squacco Herons, and the Little Bittern.

So retiring are the nocturnal species that it is difficult to flush them without a dog; yet they cannot compare, in this respect, with their neighbours, the Crakes and Rails, which also abound in the Spanish mora.s.s--the Water-Rail and Spotted Crake most numerous, Baillon's Crake rather less so, and the Little Crake the scarcest. All these are pointed and 'roded' keenly by native dogs, but their skulking powers are a match for the staunchest. _Mataperros_--"kill-dogs"--is their Spanish nickname, their thin, curiously compressed bodies resembling in section that of one's hand held vertically, enabling them to glide like rats through the thickest growth of flags and aquatic herbage.

The nests of all the Rails are hard to find; but to identify the precise owner of each is a thousand-fold harder. Nests and eggs of all being closely alike, an _unidentified_ clutch is worthless; but the man who can work this out knee-deep amidst mud and stagnant water, under a broiling sun, has patience that nothing can withstand, nor any obstacle resist.