Shooting Times & Country Magazine
A duck after dark
An evening’s flight on an unfed pond rewards Patrick Laurie with a wigeon for the table and some fine sporting memories
Ducks are some of the most controversial birds we pursue in the sporting year. For a start, the word ‘duck’ covers a wide range of species with a dizzying variety of habits and habitats. There’s no one-size-fits-all approach to duck shooting, and no sooner is variety introduced than people begin to rank the variants in order of preference. Controversy always ensues.
There used to be a trend for releasing mallard and shooting them in drives off ponds, but this kind of shooting takes a steady hand and a fine sense of balance. All too often, the ducks become difficult to flush; and when they do go, they’ll rise in a single flock and simply circle round and round above the Guns until everybody’s had their fill. The gamekeeper’s role is simply to stop the drive when enough birds have been shot. I don’t think there are many people who enjoy this kind of shooting, and I’m glad it’s proved to be a short-lived trend.
Understanding your quarry
Having reared plenty of ducks during my time as a keeper, I would say that mallard are inherently charming and beautiful birds. Despite the man-made context of rearing birds, I learnt a great deal about mallard from working so closely with them. I think that increases the pleasure I experience when I go to shoot them nowadays, understanding a little more about my quarry.
I hope we won’t go back to the days of big duck drives, and I’m pleased that most shooting folk agree with me, but these things are a matter of taste.
Away from reared or released birds, the deepest duck controversies rage around the divide between shooting inland ponds and coastal wildfowling. Both rely entirely upon the pursuit of wild birds, and each one can make a similar claim on ethical, ecological purity as a result. People who shoot on the foreshore are famously resilient, and they work hard for their sport. They might only get a few shots each year, often at
“Mallard breed well here; early season days are dominated by plump young quackers”
strange and exotic species like pintail or shoveler. I’ve done my fair share of this kind of shooting, and I can agree that there is something beautifully wholesome and pure about a scenario which pits a single Shot against the enormity of a vast horizon.
Perhaps foreshore fowling has a special place in the sporting imagination, but there’s nothing to be ashamed of at the inland flightpond. However, even that statement exists on a sliding scale, and there are many details within this subdivision. Perhaps if you shoot a pond which lies on a natural flightpath, you’d regard your sport as wilder than if birds are encouraged to the guns by scoops of feed scattered night after night in advance of your foray. Every aspect of shooting is vulnerable to excess, and I have seen some desperately ugly flightponds where feed is dumped in heaps at the water’s edge and birds are shot on a rigorous fortnightly timetable to maximise efficiency.
Everybody has a different preference, but I think we have to balance what shoots put back into the natural world. Mallard benefit from nesting tubes and predator control during the summer, and it’s only fair that if you’re taking a harvest, you should put something back. That’s where even the busiest flightponds can provide a haven for nature, and it’s often the case that there wouldn’t be a pond at all if not for the chance of some shooting.
I’m lucky that here in Galloway, I have access to many different kinds of duck shooting. My favourite pond works well on flightlines early in the season, but as the merse fills up with migrant ducks during the course of the winter, the birds are spoilt for choice. I need to give them a reason to head my way, so I’ll sometimes feed them on potatoes, apples and spoiled barley. If the conditions are right, I can have some success, but only once or twice in a season.
Fading daylight
Despatched by Shooting Times to cover an evening’s flight in mid-october, I felt sure that mallard would be the central quarry species. They always breed well in this part of the country, and early season days are dominated by plump young quackers. That suits me down to the socks, particularly since I’ve picked up some excellent new duck recipes during the summer.
I arrived at the pond with 45 minutes to spare. Robins were still singing, and the last of the
daylight still shone on the trees beyond the water. It’s only a mile to the coast from this pond, so ducks often arrive earlier than many ponds which lie further inland on the hills. I made myself comfortable and relished that sense of nature recovering from my disturbance.
The first flight
Things which had fled, returned.
Bats flickered across the pond.
Some of these were simple, scrabbly pipistrelles, but a few Daubenton’s bats skimmed the surface and snatched their supper off the water. Higher up, I was impressed to see two big noctule bats coasting and lunging between the stars. Noctule bats are
“Seconds later, a little gang of wigeon teemed over the gorse and I dropped one”
fantastic creatures; the biggest UK bat species. They’re almost the size of a snipe, but they have a thoughtful, lazy way of flying which reminds me of a woodcock roding.
I love to see them in the evening, and the almost constant flitter of bats was extremely distracting as evening suddenly descended.
The first small flight was of mallard. Six came in with a sense of purpose, but they turned and landed further uphill instead. A few wet days have created some splashes in the field nearby, and it’s only fair that these temporary boons should have seemed more attractive than a pond they can visit any time. Others joined them with a thrilling rush of wings and a cheeky little gabble of calling.
My moment came when two mallard barrelled directly towards me and offered a relatively easy shot against a gap in the trees. Of course I fluffed it, and I often wonder if the second barrel is even worth firing in these circumstances. If you missed them coming in and slowing down, you’re surely almost certain to miss them as they change direction and rush away like bolts of lightning.
The sound of gunshots did nothing to deter the ducks from this point. A group of six came, and then more for the splashes on the hill. I fired at the six and came up short, then birds dropped in without me seeing them.
They splashed on to the water 15ft away and immediately froze. They knew that something wasn’t right, and all it took was for the dog to adjust her position and they were off again.
Seconds later, a little gang of wigeon teemed over the gorse and I dropped one from the formation. I was so thrilled by the unexpected arrival of those birds that I didn’t even fire the second barrel, and the dog plunged into the water for a retrieve.
Wigeon don’t usually come to this pond until the start of November, and I hadn’t expected to find them here.
That had thrown me, but later when I had a chance to examine the bird in the headlights of the truck, I found it was a juvenile male, still wearing a patchwork of his summer plumage. I sometimes find summer feathers on wigeon until late November, but I’ve never seen one so clearly marked by beautiful flecks of chestnut brown and terracotta. These feathers were all mixed in alongside the bold dress of an adult male; blackand-white barring and the very start of a golden-yellow Mohican. Given a few weeks, he would have made for an extremely natty adult bird; I think a fully grown wigeon drake is one of the smartest things you can find in the winter estuary.
Good for the soul
This was a very satisfying flight, although perhaps slightly marred by some poor shooting. When I first started flighting at this pond 15 or 20 years ago, I was a teenager with plenty of time to spare. I used to daydream for hours, waiting for ducks and noting every small detail of wildlife. I’m often too tied up with work and life to give the place the same attention these days, and I’m more likely to get in and out as if shooting was just another chore in an already busy day.
I was pleased with my wigeon, which will be perfect in the oven, but I was even more delighted by the spectacle of bats, stars rising and thrushes passing overhead. As I packed up the dog and headed home, tawny owls began to racket in the oak woods. A single duck is hardly going to break the bag records, but that evening was enough to fill me up.