Page:Condor20(1).djvu/33

 32 TH] CONDOR, Vol. XX raising and lowering his neck, his bill held slightly above the horizontal. No. I promptly swam out and met him half way, whereupon both did head exer- cises. They did not come to blows but swam up to the Blue-winged Teal, when the four stood looking my way in an interesting group for a few moments, after which the Blue-wings went swimming off. Left to themselves the two Shoveller drakes partly forgot their rivalry and fed peaceably side by side till, at a sudden thought, they stopped and again did head exercises, their big black- ish heads looking droll enough as they pumped up and down. Once when per- forming, the two stood facing each other only a yard or so apart, raising and lowering their heads. One of them, presumably the resident, twice rose and circled out far enough to inspect me; then returned to the slough. A Black Tern hovered over the slough, dropping down for quarry, Red- wings called, the wide-bladed slough grass bowed and sang in the wind of the gathering storm, and again came the laugh of the Sora, light and joyous; for under his dense marsh cover, what cared he for wind or weather. Another band of the big, gentle farm horses came over the low hill to my fence line, and a flock of sheep followed as if to get out of the wind. The storm was almost upon us, and I too had to hurry to shelter. On a shallow slough in our own pasture nearer the lake, Shovellers were frequently seen during the breeding season, and if my supposition were cor- rect, each small body of water had its own habitues. Two days before watch- ing the mild rivalry of the two drakes, I witnessed an incident that I interpret- ed as the punishment of an interloper from our slough by the lord of our neighbor's slough. However correct the supposition, these were the facts. Two Shoveller drakes, striking figures in flight, came swiftly in--the second close on the heels of the first--from the direction of our neighbor's pasture and lighted down on our slough. As they did so, the Indignant Pursuer raised his breast well out of the water and with a pumping motion flew at the Interloper with a noisy rush of water. After a series of rapid encounters, the Indignant Pursuer chased the Interloper back to the far end of the basin, when, appar- ently satisfied with his work, he flew back low over the snowberry and sage- brush across our neighbor's pasture in the direction of Shoveller Slough. If the mild rivalry that I witnessed there two days later were the seque] the an- tagonists had learned to respect each other's preserves. The.well punished Interloper. when watched on his own slough acted much at home. When some of our farm horses waded in near him and stood up to their bodies feeding on the juicy grasses he showed as litfie concern as the pair in the bay by Stony Point, merely swimming to the edge of the basin where he fixed his feathers, his bright orange legs showing and his speculum in bands of green, white, and bluish gray giving a distinguishing touch. A pair of Shovellers were often seen on our main pasture slough, a long narrow one with only a few inches of .water, parallelling and cut off by a barbed wire fence from the deep grassy slough of our neighbor to the south. In the middle of this deep slough was a black streak of tule enclosing open water from which many voices were heard and over which Gulls and Black Terns were occasionally seen. The open water in former years had extended so far that a boat was kept on it, for before the prairie was broken the surface water was not absorbed as it is now by the grain fields. The 'black streak with its wide protecting band of high slough grass in time of danger made a good hiding place for the ducks which came to our open slough to feed and rest.