If the blind be newly built, only the stranger birds
will fly straight in to his decoys. Those that have been there before
will either turn away in alarm, or else examine the blind very
cautiously on all sides. If you know now how to wait and sit perfectly
still, the birds will at last fly directly over the stand to look in.
That is your only chance; and you must take it quickly if you expect
to eat duck for dinner.
By moonlight one may sit on the bank in plain sight of his decoys, and
watch the wild birds as long as he will. It is necessary only to sit
perfectly still. But this is unsatisfactory; you can never see just
what they are doing. Once I had thirty or forty close about me in this
way. A sudden turn of my head, when a bat struck my cheek, sent them
all off in a panic to the open ocean.
A curious thing frequently noticed about these birds as they come in
at night is their power to make their wings noisy or almost silent at
will. Sometimes the rustle is so slight that, unless the air is
perfectly still, it is scarcely audible; at other times it is a strong
_wish-wish_ that can be heard two hundred yards away. The only theory
I can suggest is that it is done as a kind of signal. In the daytime
and on bright evenings one seldom hears it; on dark nights it is very
frequent, and is always answered by the quacking of birds already on
the feeding grounds, probably to guide the incomers.
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