Guide to Bird Watching

The Appeal of Bird Watching
Herbert K. Job

I'VE got the Wood Duck, I've got the Wood Duck, I've got him, I've got him!" This excited yelling brought me through the thicket in a hurry, out to the margin of the boggy pond. I arrived just in time to see my fifteen-year-old enthusiast capering like a jumping-jack, and catch a glimpse of a flying duck disappearing like a meteor.

"Got him, have you?" I said. "Produce him, then! Spread him out and let's look him over. Then we'll have roast duck!"

"He's just gone out there through those trees," cried Jed, indicating the course of the recent meteorite,"and dead sure it's a Wood Duck, positive! That makes 149 on my year's list, and I know there's a brood of Black Ducks in here, too; I heard one quacking. If I see them, that will make 150. Oh, it just makes me crazy!"

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"Yes, that was a Wood Duck all right. I saw it go," I replied, and you've certainly got him to your credit, but you mustn't get so excited this hot August weather, or you'll have 11. sunstroke."

"Hang the sunstroke," exclaimed Ned, "I'm awful glad you brought me in here. You said I'd get the Wood Duck, but I'd tried so many times I was afraid I'd miss it, again. This is certainly a dandy place, and I'm coming here every day for awhile. But when is the best time of day for ducks? I want to see the whole flock of Wood Ducks, and of course the Black Ducks, though I saw some of those fellows last year."

You would be liable to start them up at any time, while they are resting and sunning themselves in the swamp, I told him, "but at dusk they begin to fly around to feed, and dawn is another good time, too. But it would be hard for you to get here so early, and the grass would be drenching wet."

"Hard!" he cried. "You're a great man to talk so, for I've heard you tell of your getting up at two and driving twenty miles before light to shoot ducks in the fall. Don't you think I've got some sporting blood as well as yourself, even if I don't murder them the way you used to?"

Well, now we're getting on to a rather delicate subject," I replied. "I know you're an early bird, and I'm glad you are an enthusiast, and that we both know how to find more fun with the birds than by killing them. Of course there's nothing wrong in shooting lawful game in moderation, but it's simply this, that the new way is so much better than the old that we don't care for shooting. Gunners can hunt only in the fall, but our hunting lasts the whole year. Their game, too, is limited to a few kinds, while we have every sort of bird that flies."

So we talked along till we came to the village, agreeing to go to the pond next day at dusk and try to "get" the Black Duck.