THE SHELDRAKE.
THE November day is just awakening and the sands are still wrapped in the mystery of early morning; a grey haze blots out the horizon. In the pool below, a dog otter is swimming with long strokes, making his way up the river. At the bend, further up, three storks are standing, as if carved in stone, black against the haze, while another flies down, on heavy wing, to secure a share of the fish that are making their way towards the sea. It is very still, and the river looks like a winding mirror let into the sands. A soft, tentative whistle comes, and at last I see the sheldrakes —a pair of them swimming low, and feeding down stream, making their way to the marshes.
Always a familiar feature of our estuary the sheldrake vanishes when the big broods are almost full grown.
Some say they hide in the tangle of bog myrtle, bramble and harsh grass that covers the peat bogs. Here they - remain hidden while, practically denuded of flight feathers, they are incapable of flying. I have never seen them during this period ; all I know is that when the November haze is over the estuary the sheldrakes come back just as quietly and unobtrusively as they went. The families vanished when the flappers were big enough to go into their adult moult, and from that time till mid- November they have been unseen.
Even now they come back only by twos and threes, apparently in the early morning, feeding in lairs; but when the tide comes swirling across the estuary they collect in company on the edge of the marsh, generally sleeping until the sands are bare once more, then they gather round the shallow pools and amuse themselves. There is a magnifying effect about the purple haze that softens everything but hides nothing. The sheldrakes seem to grow larger and larger, until the sentinel drakes are almost aldermanic in proportions, and, standing very erect, with upstretched necks, look like geese.
They are fond of playing in the shallow pools, and chase each other, flapping their wings and making a scurry of water and sand. At this time they fluff them- selves out and look very white and big; later in the spring, when the ducks are quacking loudly, they resemble a company of domestic ducks at play. When they are bathing in the edge of the river they splash with tremendous energy, sending clouds of spray into the air on which the sun's reflections form tiny rainbows.
The ducks quack loudly and somewhat harshly, but the drake's whistle is generally soft and plaintive. The latter fight for their mates, and the combat is generally a comic affair, by no means dangerous. The two drakes waddle out on the sands, their plumage in the pink of condition ; the chestnut band upon their breasts is startlingly bright. The combatants step out, walking very erect, their chests well out, and standing as it were on their tails. They meet chest to chest, pushing and shoving until one gives back, or both retire to their starting place, then they resume the majestic march to meet once more and push and shove, chest to chest. A few feathers are, perhaps, pulled out, but this is rare. The battle may last a few minutes, or it may last an hour. One that I watched lasted the whole afternoon. The ducks do not seem to take any interest in these encounters, but play and amuse themselves in the pools close by.
The nests are made on the fells, sometimes high up among the limestone ridges that, weathered grotesquely, surmount the tops of the fells. A rabbit warren is always chosen, and the nest built too far back in the hole to be reached by the hand. It is easy to detect the particular rabbit warren, for the tracks of the duck are plainly visible on the red-brown sand of the opening. It is a wonderful structure composed of the soft grey-white down that clothes the mother duck's breast. Evidently it comes off very easily, for one can always tell when nesting mothers have slept through the flowing of the tide on the edge of the marsh, for masses of down cling to the dry marsh grass.
The drakes whistle shrilly when they hear their mates quacking as they sail straight down from the fells to the marsh, and always fly up to meet them. The nesting operations do not seem to trouble them, but when the ducklings are hatched the drakes are then much in evidence and are furious if anything even looks at the ducklings. Gulls and other birds are driven off with angry gestures. I remember meeting a family party in a narrow fell lane, three miles distant from the nearest sea. The drake stood bravely defiant, hissing savagely and apparently quite determined to bite. The mother duck appeared to have suddenly developed a broken wing and fluttered about as if actually wounded and dying. The ducklings vanished like magic under the grass tufts. I climbed over the wall, and left the little family in peace, simply watching the sheldrake parents collect the brood and depart. The next morning I saw them down at the estuary. I knew the drake again by a broken feather that stood out grotesquely from his wing. The mystery of their journey down the rough tracks and stony side of the fell to the sea was never solved, although the gamekeeper declared that the parents had carried the ducklings down in their beaks.
Another time I saw a different family making their way down to the estuary. It was not very far from the sands as the crow flies, probably barely a quarter of a mile, but the way down was extraordinarily difficult. The nest had been made in a warren on the fell side, with a deep gravel pit cutting out the heart of the hill below the nest. It was an ideal spot to observe, and hiding myself between some limestone rocks, I watched the whole journey through my field glasses. The little family— there were ten—waddled after the mother along the perilous edge of the gravel pit. Three slipped over and Aid from rock to rock until they reached the bottom a hundred and fifty feet below, absolutely unhurt. The men working in the pit signalled to me that they were all right, and apparently the mother did not feel any alarm. I concluded that she had not missed them, for she con- tinued her journey, marshalling the remainder of her flock through the great crevices in the limestone ridges, under great bushes of bramble, through patches of bracken, and forests of nut bushes, until finally she reached a road that led downwards. The family waddled along this, over a railway line, then over a siding, and into a yard full of trucks, loading and unloading wagons, straight through the yard gates, and along a road shut in by a sea wall. Then she reached an open space in the wall that led down to the sea. The ducklings scrambled down this, and then, perhaps wearied with their long scramble, they curled themselves into a round ball and went to sleep. It was only then that the drake appeared on the scene, flying down from the fell. The mother, to my surprise, flew across to the gravel pit and brought out the rest of her family. She displayed no alarm at the nearness of the workmen, and they afterwards assured me that each year the same sheldrake brought her ducklings down the same way, and always some of them fell into the gravel pit ! I watched them for days, marvelling at the knowledge of the mother duck, who would not let me approach within many yards, but paid no heed to gravel men, and railway porters, and such
Previous page
