412 Bird -Lore 



Coming back to the channel, we found one poor Canvasback floating on 

 the water, dead, and another struggling to keep her head above the water, 

 but she soon gave up, turned on her side, and after a few gasps was still. 

 Every day, now, there were more dead Ducks. They floated to the edge of the 

 ice, the Herring Gulls and Crows coming and dragging them out on the ice, 

 where they picked the meager flesh from their bones. Some animal must have 

 carried the bones away, for after a few days a few feathers were all that 

 remained on the blood-stained snow. It has always been a mystery to me why 



^ * *>^ * 



^m, «• *4A-i» ^Jii* -Aa^ -'--Hto^piris. V * 



CANVASBACK DUCKS. BRANCHPORT, FEB. 13, 1912. "THEIR WINGS FORMING A 

 PARACHUTE AS THEY NEAR THE WATER, AND TOES TURNING UP AS THEY 

 TOBOGGAN INTO IT" 



these Ducks remained here, slowly starving to death, when Seneca Lake, with 

 its open water, was only 1 2 miles away, and it would seem that they could see 

 this water when they were up in their flights. 



February 21 brought a thunderstorm which was followed by high winds 

 and intense cold. Many of the Ducks must have been up in the air and got 

 caught in the wind and blown away over to Seneca Lake as, when the calm 

 came on the 23d, there were but forty or fifty Ducks left in the channel. I 

 picked up three Canvasbacks (two drakes and a duck) that were stranded on 

 the ice, and soon had them eating oatmeal gruel. They were fed and cared for 



