Ducks at night
Country Sights and Sounds
John Shelley
TWO hundred yards across the water a dark, sinuous shape moved through the reeds and disappeared behind one of the small islands. An otter? I thought it was, and with the kayak to hand I hopped aboard and paddled out into the gloaming for a better look. No matter that stars were beginning to show in the heavens, for the moon was nearly full and it would be an easy matter to find my way back across this sheltered bay. The only thing of importance was my lifejacket; tragedy falls upon the unwary as a marauding hawk, swiftly, and sharp clawed.
A soft breeze picked the water into a rippling carpet and sent it lapping at the sides of my craft. I paddled slowly, as quietly as I was able, with dark banks of reeds giving way to pale rocks on my right, a mile of open water glistening on my left. Bats shimmied back and forth overhead, plucking night-flying caddis flies from mid air. A curlew flew past a mere twenty yards from me, on its way to roost.
I let the breeze carry me for a minute or two while I listened. In the distance, a duck voiced disapproval of some disturbance or other. A water rail did likewise from the same direction, squealing pig-like and chattering high-pitched and angry. Perhaps duck and rail encountered each other in the reed beds, or maybe a mink roused the two from their slumber. I paddled on, looking for my otter but not expecting to find it.
When I rounded the point of the island, there was that same long shape moving back towards me and although I stopped paddling immediately I had been seen. The shape fragmented, becoming one large blot and several smaller ones, finally revealing itself to be a mallard with a convoy of half grown youngsters in tow. I counted six before the mother took fright and scattered her brood, thrashing the water with her wings and quacking loudly, feigning injury. The little ones dived without a moment’s hesitation, swimming considerable distances underwater before resurfacing in different locations, leaving me to wonder if such strategies are rehearsed.
No matter how many, they are welcome. The last few years have seen very few mallard broods raised, and it is the mink that is to blame. The adult birds have certainly been turning up, and I am certain that most of them are attempting to nest. But the mink swim out from the mainland to visit the islands and make short work of every nest they find. Some efforts have been made to reduce the mink population; perhaps these are paying off and we will witness a resurgence of mallard and other waterfowl.
I paddled back to base with the moon directly behind me so that I was facing into my own shadow. The lake is beautiful at night, but it is no place for the inexperienced. As the light fails familiar landmarks disappear. One island resembles another. The islands look like the shoreline, and the shore like them. At least the stars can be counted on for bearings, as can the moon when it is visible.
Back at base I tied the kayak and walked the half-mile to the car, feet stumbling along the narrow path that had been so easy to follow in the dusk. Dew made the rough grasses slippery and rocks, easily negotiated with the gift of clear vision, caught at toe and heel to impede my progress so that the ten-minute walk out became a thirty-minute journey home.
But there can be no hurry. Much better to listen to the night time chirr of the grasshopper warbler and the persistent song of the cock blackbird, both of which long for the day to never end. If such moments could last a year we would never tire of them.
But home, past the grove of white-barked birch trees and beneath the small group of Scots pine. A flat-topped rock lies here, where I often stop to rest. Heathers grow around its footing and algae scars its face.
Dwarf trees struggle for sustenance in the limy soil. Wild flowers thrive; in the day they are yellow, pink, blue; by night they are a hundred shades of grey. Day and night they are richly scented.
Indeed, I might be Emperor.
