. Birds, beasts and fishes of the Norfolk broadland . ard). 3. Black-headed poker (tufted duck). 4. Scaup poker (scaup). 5. Golden-eyed poker (golden-eye). The red-crested pochard may be dismissed at once asvery rare. One gunner I know has only shot one in hiswhole career. The golden-eyed poker, too, is rare, though far more com-mon than the red-crested poker. He comes over late withthe cold winter, and the flighters know him by his veryswift flight and the peculiar rattling of his wings as heflies. These birds herd together on the water in small partiesof nine or ten, and are very shy and dif
. Birds, beasts and fishes of the Norfolk broadland . ard). 3. Black-headed poker (tufted duck). 4. Scaup poker (scaup). 5. Golden-eyed poker (golden-eye). The red-crested pochard may be dismissed at once asvery rare. One gunner I know has only shot one in hiswhole career. The golden-eyed poker, too, is rare, though far more com-mon than the red-crested poker. He comes over late withthe cold winter, and the flighters know him by his veryswift flight and the peculiar rattling of his wings as heflies. These birds herd together on the water in small partiesof nine or ten, and are very shy and difficult to approach ; sothat the gunners pick their day for shooting golden-eyes, pre-ferring a fine still morning, when the sun rises clear in thewinter sky. After the sun has risen for some half-hour, thecrafty old gunner launches his long punt-gun, and keepingthe bright sun right behind him, he approaches the herd,and the loud reverberations of his long gun tell of the deathof some golden-eyes, which fetch good prices, and that is allhe cares POKER DUCKS 233 Commoner is the scaup poker, a tame duck at all times,that arrives in large flocks in September, and later on indriblets of ten or a dozen. If the bunches of scaups on thewater be small, the gunner is able to scull up in the grey dawnas near to them as he likes—close enough, indeed, to see thewhites above their broad bills; and when they rise, just asdo the other pokers, he pours his deadly fire into them, bring-ing the heavy ducks down with loud splashes into the icywater, whence they are gathered and sent to market. Andso from September to March (when they leave) the scaupsare occasionally killed by the fowler. Commoner still is the tufted duck or black-headed poker,or black and white poker, which arrives on the Broadsat the end of September or beginning of October, flightingto the feeding-grounds of an evening, just in the same wayas the common pochard. In winter they seem to be shyerthan in the early spring, f
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1890, booksubjectbirdsen, bookyear1895
