Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Like a team of mallards in double column, plunging and lifting buoyant breasts to right and left alternately, the British fleet bore down upon the swan-like crescent of the foe. These were doing their best to fly, but failing of that luck, put helm alee, and shivered in the wind, and made fine speeches, proving that they must win the day.
I looked at the string of birds, and saw that they were mallards and teals, a couple of dozen at least. "Fie, fie!" said I. "I fear you've been shooting on the water." "Sure I did! And here's four things that I don't suppose are good to eat they got kind of snaky heads, and red-colored, too. Ain't no ducks good to eat that ain't got green heads."
In the other cases were the little birds and big ones ducks, swimming on crystal pools, canvas-backs and redheads, mallards and teal; Bob-whites, single and in coveys; sandpipers, tip-ups and peeps, those little ghosts of the seashore, shadows on the sand; there were soar and other rails, robins and blackbirds, larks and sparrows, wild turkeys and wild geese, all the toll which the hunter takes from field and stream and forest.
Every hollow in her path was filled to the brim, and the chain of sloughs to the south, now resounding with the joyous quacks of bluewings and mallards, were swelling their waters with the feeding of countless streams. And the drenched ground, where the flowers bent their clean faces as if worn with the heavy downpour, sent up that grateful essence that follows in the wake of a shower.
Like mallards we shot over the Medway and saw the battleships as if they were little children's playthings far away down below us. Now the children are going to use their pretty toys and will make a nice noise with them in the world.
From my view, there are happier instincts than those which impel migration; but remembering that personal views are best applied to personal use, I wish both maids and mallards bon voyage. Extending directly west from the porch for 150 feet is an open pergola, of simple construction, but fast gaining beauty from the rapid growth of climbers which Polly and Johnson have planted.
Then dawn and the rising sun, the water like molten gold, the black decoys churning at their pickets sending up swirls of turquoise in the gold. Suddenly the cracked bell rang out from the distant village. At that moment two long V-shaped strings of mallards came winging toward us from the north. I saw the curé glance at them. Then he held out his hand to me.
Down in the valley you see little but the flocking of blackbirds in the streets, or the low flight of mallards over the tulares, and the gathering of clouds behind Williamson. First there is a waiting stillness in the wood; the pine-trees creak although there is no wind, the sky glowers, the firs rock by the water borders.
Sometimes they were unable to find their birds after they had fallen, but they learned to hurry at once to a crippled bird and secure it before it could escape and hide in the grasses. Presently they had at their feet almost a dozen fine mallards.
Enormous areas of breeding ground are now protected in the wide fringe of private fresh-water marshes of this river-intersected shore. Plovers, redshanks, terns, ducks, especially the wild mallards, are increasing. So are the black-headed gulls; even the oyster-catchers are returning. After nesting the birds lead their young to the southern point of Canvey Island.
Word Of The Day