Storm Rising
The weather map on the BBC showed a deep low-pressure system piling
in from the Atlantic Ocean. A gloomy prediction accompanied the
map, with a sober-looking presenter promising dire consequences for
southern England unless some miracle occurred. “There could be
storm damage – do not go abroad unless your journey is necessary!”
Well I too hoped for a miracle – that the weatherman’s miracle would
not occur and that the mother of all storms would indeed hit us! I
fervently hoped that my roof would not be blown off, or my car
heaved from the road, but apart from that let it do its worst!
The weatherman’s portent of doom and
the layman’s curse are in fact the sort of thing we wildfowlers hope
for above all other. Give us snow or wind, and all manner of
filthy weather thrown in and we will be content, and so long as we
do not get an accompanying plague of locusts I shall be happy
enough. I must admit that I do not much care for the rain which is
usually part and parcel of a serious storm; I can find few, if any,
redeeming features about shooting in the rain, however if it is the
storm with rain attached or no storm at all I will take the rain
every time!
Lovely, lovely weatherman. Not that
he would bring me a storm, but he would at least give some warning
of its approach and with it time to prepare for a day out of what
passes for normal life. According to the weatherman this storm
would hit sometime late the next day, get steadily worse overnight
until it got itself into a thoroughly bad mood by the following
morning. Thus the blissful scenario of a serious storm with a wild
wind from the west over one of my favourite marshes was enough to
get the adrenalin racing and send me out to walk the dog with a
spring in the step.
It was a quiet enough night, with the sky almost completely devoid
of cloud and the whole of the ether was a-twinkle with stars from
horizon to horizon. Was this truly the lull before the storm?
Whether it was or not made little difference, so long as I believed
it to be so!
Later as I leaned across a post and
rail fence, and listened to the dog snort and cavort her way through
the grasses round about, I looked to the west and imagined the
maelstrom being whipped up hundreds of miles away on the bleak
ocean. I thought back to the days past when storms had thrashed
the saltmarsh mercilessly and the wildfowl and been scattered before
the winds in the desperate search for a sheltered place. Mostly of
course work or other commitments would have caused the opportunity
to be passed up; just now and again I had managed to get out onto
the shore, and with even greater rarity I had hit it right and got a
few shots and a few birds to take home. This time I was determined
to at least be there – chance whether my luck would be in or not.
Storm Breaking
Man and dog cowered in a deep, narrow
gutter with the fury of the storm breaking over us. It had been a
long and pain-filled walk into the wind which had taken over two
hours; two hours of slipping and sliding on muddy lumps and rutted
edges; of cloying mud around ankles and calves; of shrieking wind,
and – mercifully – no worse than sporadic rain. The rain was being
pushed through at a rate of knots, so that most of the squalls
passed soon enough; yet while they were on the rain came in huge
stinging globules which would no doubt have been fearsome to behold
but for the darkness which hid everything.
The last leg had given a short
respite from the wind as it pushed at my side then my back as my
walk took me in a wide hook around a great creek, although this was
more than compensated for by the rain which then set in for what
turned out to be a prolonged spell. The whole of the salting was
squelching and wet through, even though the tide had long since
departed, whilst the gutters were running with water as the rain
hammered down.
Amazing as it often seems a gutter
offered some respite; the wind mostly passed by overhead, and even
the rain seemed less severe when once down below the level of the
marsh. I rested there, half sitting half lying, hoping that it
would be worth it and that the birds would give me the chance to
make the trek more than a fruitless exercise. It merely remained
to await a dawn that would obviously be much delayed by the heavily
overcast skies.
A bigger creek meandered its way
across the mud flats before emptying into a main creek, which in its
turn ran out into the channel and thence to the sea, and it was to
the saltmarsh edge of this that I made my way in anticipation of the
dawn. Sometimes the saltmarsh edge was the place to be, whilst on
others the big creek itself was the hot spot – only the dawn would
reveal the truth of where the main flight would be. If indeed
there was to be a flight at all!
On such mornings there is no light to
shoot by for a long time. Then all of a sudden gaps appear in the
scudding clouds and the dawn gloomily breaks through. It is a
fantastically exciting time, with anticipation running high and all
senses alert for the first chance; it is absolutely vital to
maximise those early chances if at all possible, as all too often
there may not be any more.
No matter how wet through the dog may
appear there is little that will dampen the enthusiasm of the
Labrador. In this respect dog and man are at one, as we await the
sighting of the first duck, and both revel in this dark, bleak
environment known to so few in this modern age in which we all
live.
The first duck appeared flying very low and well to the right – a
tightly packed bunch of teal some dozen or so strong. There soon
followed three more bunches on the same line, so that the classic
wildfowler’s dilemma arose – move to where the birds were flighting,
or wait to let the light strengthen and reveal whether or not the
flight was likely to occur on a wider front. It is a difficult
matter to decide on, for the flight may be narrow and short-lived;
equally a move can precipitate a disaster with birds then crossing
your recently vacated position! This has happened often enough for
me to know when to stay put, and I duly waited it out.
In the event I did not have too long
to wait as another pack of teal came to my right and for all I know
may be flying still for all the effect the two shots had. It never
ceases to amaze me how duck – teal in particular – can fly so
amazingly fast into a headwind; indeed shooting in a wild wind is
perhaps the most difficult test there is in the wildfowling world,
with both birds and shot undoubtedly being blown all over the
place. If there is any predictability in the flightpath of the
birds it is very quickly dissipated as soon as the birds catch sight
of the waiting wildfowler, or when a shot is fired – then it is
every bird for itself as they scatter every which way.
A couple more desultory longish shots
brought no reward, and it was now possible to see that the flight
was indeed scattered over a broad front so that it was not possible
to determine with any degree of confidence where the best ambush
place was likely to be. The only common theme was that the birds
were flying very low indeed, teal in the main but with a good number
of wigeon too. It had the makings of a very good flight indeed if
the birds kept moving.
At length I opted to move and then
tottered out across the mud, pushed on by the lunatic wind that
threatened to blow me off balance at every step. It was again
blessed relief to be low down out of the wind, although on this
occasion I was in the deepest part of the creek and below the level
of the mud itself. I always find this a marvellous way to flight –
out across the muds where you seem to be even more in the
environment of the birds and at one with nature. It does of course
have a downside in that if you are unprepared it can be the very
devil to shoot accurately as there is the constant struggle to
extricate oneself from mud which continually tries to pull you
down. I was not particularly well prepared, and this was to lead
to several uncomfortable, if highly stimulating, hours.
It was some while before I managed to
connect with anything. This produced a wigeon from a pack of about
eight birds, and the bird went spinning back on the wind for some
way. The dog eventually brought back a fine adult cock that would
once have been resplendent in its winter finery before it splattered
into a particularly cloying piece of mudflat.
There then developed an amazing
flight. It remains one of the best I have experienced which has
not been affected by snowy or freezing weather, and in many respects
one of the most difficult. Most certainly the shooting was
challenging - at least I had difficulty placing shot consistently
upon a speeding target. I firmly believe that you often shoot in
front of the bird under these conditions, whilst for the longer
shots surely the pattern is blown apart by the more severe gusts.
It is always better to have some excuses for doing badly, and on
this wild morning I was in need of all the excuses available!
Often spells of indifferent shooting can be overcome by sheer
determination – simply by continuing to shoot until the wrongs have
been righted. Seldom, if ever, do you have this opportunity on
the foreshore, although this day was to be different yet again.
Pack Upon Pack
Far off in the middle distance a
swarm of low flying birds appeared. At first I thought them to be
teal, but at length they turned out to be wigeon, flying low to hug
the mud and beating right up to my position. This time I did a
little better, managing to knock out two birds with the first two
shots whilst the third shot was in vain at birds which by then had
exploded up and back on the wind at the shots.
More wigeon came, and more missed shots. Fitfully the rain came
through, presaged on each occasion by a great brooding black cloud
and an increased wind velocity fit to blow you over if you did but
dare to venture into the open. Only once did I attempt to look back
at the sky to see how long it would be before it blew clear, and
then the great globules of water slashed and stung at the face so
that I quickly looked away again.
During one of these mad squalls a
duck mallard came right up to me, as if to land in the creek beside
me. The shot crumpled her unceremoniously but she went back on the
wind an incredibly long way before a great gout of mud was flung up
as she hit the flats. Later I estimated the drop at almost 100
yards, which was a truly amazing occurrence considering how low the
bird had been. It was an astonishing event, but not the only
amazing thing to happen that day.
Much later more teal began to come
through, hugging the mud as only teal can but still travelling at a
remarkable rate of knots and for consistency sake it was as easy to
miss them as it had been with the bigger duck. Eventually a couple
flew into a charge of shot, which made me realise that there was
something in the cartridges after all! At length a really big pack
of teal came right up the mud at almost zero feet; most of them
passed very close by to the right but I held my attention on a
single cock bird which passed by my left shoulder. Every colour
and feature on him was visible as he passed within a few feet – far
too close to shoot at – and no bird appeared more delicately
handsome on this wild morning.
After a few seconds my shot caught
him at about 30 yards range and in that same instant a great gust of
wind came and took him hurtling back the way he had come to hit the
harder mud edge of the creek some 60 or 70 yards away. Then
astonishingly the wind bowled the little duck over and over until he
was blown into the edge of the salting where he lay quite dead.
Much later the dog went across and hunted out the salting edge until
she found the bird and brought it to hand.
Another pack of approaching wigeon
produced a pleasant surprise for there was a single duck pintail in
their midst. She fell right in front of the gutter in which I hid
and the dog had only a few paces to go for this retrieve. The
shooting had been wayward in the extreme at times, but the
intermittent problems with the gun which I had been experiencing
over recent weeks reached a height of despair this day with more
jammed cartridges than enough to add to my confusion. This was to
be the final trip out to the marsh for that gun, for a newer model
waited at home, and was to be pressed into service without further
delay.
Then of course there was the creek in
which dog and man hid: when I had first slid down its shiny pristine
side it had been cleanly cut and devoid of any unnatural signs.
Little side inlets gave passage to the out-flowing tide, or the rain
water which poured from the flats, whilst the edges of the creek
were pockmarked with a myriad tiny holes where the small ragworm
live. Water poured along the bottom of the creek, in common with
so many creeks of the same kind – all providing a conduit for water
desperately seeking the easiest passage to the sea. But after a
few hours of stooping and ducking to remain unseen; of pulling
sinking feet from cloying mud, and replacing them in a slightly less
cloying place; of sitting on any muddy protrusion in the side of the
creek until it gave way under the weight and cracked and slithered
into the creek bed to make it more cloying still, the creek was an
absolute mess.
There have been many such creeks
previously, and there have been many since. No doubt there will
be more in the future, as there are occasions when this type of
shooting is the best way of getting on terms with the birds. One
answer of course is to be prepared and take something to place in
the creek bed, as this will immediate prevent the constant battle
with sinking feet. Something to sit on in the side of the creek is
of course another way of bringing a little comfort into what must
always be by any measure an uncomfortable shooting situation.
There are throughout these marshes
variously scattered hard-bottomed hiding places, where I have
carried wood or plastic out to flight. Some of these places are in
regularly use, whilst others become lost and forgotten as the
saltings change and the birds no longer flight the same.
On this morning the wind continued to blow, and the fitful
rainsqualls swept through periodically. The duck flight continued
too, although there were fewer birds at more widely spaced intervals
as the morning progressed. It would be a long and arduous walk
back, and as by midday I had a good bag of 17 duck and the water had
got through the outer protective layer of clothing to make me
uncomfortably wet it was time to give it best.
No sooner back into the salting than
I spied a pair of mallard approaching. Their approach was low and
slow against the wind, giving plenty of time to wriggle out of my
rucksack and take cover in the salting to await their arrival. In
due course the drake came right up to where I hid, and the single
shot caught him neatly for the wind to take him back the way he had
come until he disappeared behind a clump of spartina. The dog had
been unsighted from her hidey hole in the creek next to me and I
took here right down the marsh and back across the wind from where
she soon found the drake – quite dead, but covered in mud.
Wildfowl are magnificent creatures,
with the drakes resplendent in their winter finery. It is, for me,
one the enduring disappointments of shooting under such conditions
that most of the birds end up spattered with mud, and thus a little
of their beauty is lost. This last drake was a prime example to
illustrate my point, with his bottle-green head and fine chestnut
breast smeared in one dirty brown caking of estuary mud.
The bag was now heavier still, and it
was time to slide the gun into its slip and fasten it down so that
no matter what the temptation no more shots would be fired on this
day. A truly wonderful bag consisting of 7 teal, 7 wigeon, 3
mallard and 1 pintail, and when I arrived back at the car a full two
hours later I decided that this had to go down as one of my all-time
great wildfowling adventures.
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