“Although for the true hunter of the wild duck is nothing especially captivating, but, for lack of yet another game (it was in early September: woodcocks have not yet arrived, and run through the fields for partridges I’m tired), I took my hunter and went…” So begins the story of Ivan Turgenev “Lgov”.
In the vicinity of the swamp Zvyaginskiy
Honestly, I have never agreed with this idea Orlowski landowner — author of “Notes of a hunter”. Interesting hunt! Trophy… the Best decoration of torekov yet feels! Roasted with apples and raisins, or the soup is a real delicacy. And shooting difficult… For me, mediocre arrow, of course. Very exciting shooting. Wild duck is the only goal, shooting at where you feel the excitement, which experienced a shooting game in his youth. The excitement that is the reason of numerous failures. To be honest, mallards “smeared” I’m more than snipe. Not to mention the grouse and bears, the fire which never worried me and seemed more complicated than shooting at the bottles of alcohol or packs of cigarettes.
And here, the seventh of ten years, came to me Turgenev’s words from the “l” and the attitude of these hunters of wild ducks.
On The Dormition Of The Blessed. Virgin, after Liturgy, I went to watch the entrances to Zvyaginskiy swamp in the floodplain of the Klyazma river, located twenty kilometers from our house in Barley. Hunt there in recent years, and in any other — more remote — places are not drawn. Way, and there… Where plasic Lee, beach with footbridge for swimming and a bathhouse, a pond, whether on the edge of the village — everywhere mallards sit or swim. On the beach, youth sports, and a well two hundred feet on the water, basking in the sun, three mallards sleeping on CARASCO “leaning”. Come, stand on the shore, they on me any attention. On the pond between the boats of fishermen are floating, does people are not afraid.
Went home via Pushkino on “the old Yaroslavl”. And there, under the pedestrian bridge across the river Ucha (Uche we with Irina, my wife, my daughter’s spanielsko sweetheart Lucy was trained when she was little), also sitting ducks. A man a few meters away from them on the bridge worth it. Feeding them, apparently.
And I realized then the dissatisfaction of local residents, hunters mallards-ducks, salasaca next to a man around Zvyagino,
kill.
Who was the first?
Scholars believe that the first domesticated by man in the final Palaeolithic (just think 10-15 thousand years ago!) the animal was a wolf that became the dog. Then again, as they are scientists, consider: at least 10 thousand years ago — appeared domestic goats and sheep. The wild ancestor of the domestic sheep is the mouflon, who lived in southern Europe and Western Asia. And pondering, who first began to live near humans, they were domesticated (or he “domesticated”?), thought: I do not do wild Mallard duck was the first? Her and to tame (domesticate) it is not necessary. Herself next to a man who loves to settle. And meat (with great difficulty obtained for hunting animals) sharing is not necessary. She is tasty meat… And eggs. And we know: how many wolf feed, he looks into the forest… And modern experiments on the domestication of wolves and their hybridization with dogs, to my knowledge, no positive results have not given. Not noticed ducks during archaeological excavations because they do not have in your bird’s skeleton is so powerful bones, what have carnivorous or herbivorous mammals. Therefore, bird remains and not come across so often archaeologists. Yes, indeed, duck bone could be of great pleasure just milled together with the delicious meat powerful jaws ancestors.
In places Ostap Vyshnya
“Nice place on the river, on the Northern Donets… You know the lake estuary. It stems from kilometers in twelve. The village and Estuary and lake — estuary. Seven kilometers of the lake stretched almost to the village of Andreevka. Wonderful lake! And here closer to the village of Liman another lake. Seagulls called…” wrote Ostap Vyshnia in the story “the Swan” (1951). So, most of these Seagulls (with the accent on the second “a”, so in those places pronounce the name of this lake) were farm, WOO, also called the estuary. There I shot of my dad’s “tolki” (TOZ-63) the wild duck. It was, in my opinion, the last Sunday of August 19… now I don’t remember exactly what year. And in this case, 2016, to Cover the father turned 100 years old. His memory and dedicate this essay.
“There is excellent duck hunting in the fall,”… was in the time of Pavel Mikhailovich Gubenko (Ostap Vyshnya), who died in the year of my birth — September 28, 1956. Then, obviously, as the Scripture says, “the whole thing over again transformed in its nature, in obedience to particular commandments…” (WIS. 19:6). But great hunting in the years of his youth to see me in those places was not able.
Morning there was a story, it was quiet, seem cloudy, almost no duck summer. As usually happens every August, and then September, October morning, until freeze-up in a poor waterfowl game lands of Slobozhanshchina after the opening of the hunting season. The phenomenon is disgusting and cruel, which for many years has made me a supporter of individual hunting with a hunting dog far away from throngs of people with hunting rifles.
The father gave his gun to me, and he sat on the nose of the Shuttle. From left to right at an angle of forty-five degrees, flew a single duck. In those years I had the opportunity to visit the shooting stand. Coach, honored master of sports of the USSR, probably, considering my complete lack of talent, did everything to discourage this noble sport. I guess I was a ham… After doublet duck continued its flight. But the second, which “walked” over the edge of the water and reeds, can be noticed under a us Shuttle, turned over my head and went exactly how the hijacking target on the first issue of a circular platform. The target of the master M-cha I learned then to beat almost without a miss. And was very surprised that after my duck shots only swerved in the air, jerked wings, like going to fall. But… he continued his flight. “Oh, prom-a-hall,” I sighed and lowered his eyes to the “berelatively” to reload the gun.
“You know, she fell. Went to pick up,” said the father, picking up the pole and pushing the Shuttle from the reeds.
We overcame small ples of open water, swam again in the space covered with duckweed and water lilies: white lilies and yellow egg capsules. … And suddenly: “Here, then duck down,” he heard from the reeds. There, in the Shuttle, it turns out, dozing hunter. He managed to fire on my bird. Things would have seen I my first trophy “as their own ears without a mirror”!
“Yes, Yes. We are for it, and sail” — confidently said a loud, stage baritone, the father (he was a people’s artist of the USSR).
Just like said on the condition of the young hunter Ernest Hemingway in the short story “Fire in flight” (1935), “proud as a setter,” the rules I hook sitting on the stern with a paddle, guiding the boat along a wall of reeds and cattails, staring at the ducks lying on the middle Bank. Father on the nose with a gun. He loved hunting “with an entrance”. Suddenly we see, in the reeds lad. What is he doing here? Turns out beats on the fly with a whip, as the driver, “reed Gorobtsov”. Stopped. Gave him something. Seeing my duck, he said in hohlyatsky: “Good pitching, Cola AI Golovaty, won Boudet Yak svecica” (good duck if you feed, it will be like home). And the duck was not “krainem” (Mallard). My first duck was syrkovoy. Some duck, I guess. Don’t know if everywhere in Ukraine, but in the Kharkiv region, in my opinion, it is these ducks were called Sivakov.
And krajna (sometimes other ducks, such as teals and following on from this story, even diving) are often kept in their backyards Liman villagers with poultry. The ducks quickly gained weight, got bigger and fatter, flew all to them, but I stopped doing it and turned into a real “swicki kachek”. Probably because this happened with their ancestors in the final Palaeolithic. And that easy have not only been domesticated mallards, I think, explains the existing diversity of breeds of domestic ducks. Even in the wild, there is the fact that their interspecific hybridization.
