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breeding grounds they seem fond of wooded, or partially wooded country, and 
choose nesting sites that are high and often a good distance from water. 
The three species of Widgeon are very similar in form and their style of flight is 
characteristic; their young are easily distinguished from those of other surface-feeders 
and their incubation period is short. 
Wariness. Widgeon are extremely wary, fully as much so as Pintail and rather 
more so than Mallard, and when gathered together in great packs on the open 
estuaries of western Europe, the nature of their surroundings makes it almost im- 
possible to approach them by day. There, too, they have been so persecuted by 
puntsmen with swivel-guns that their education was long ago complete. Millais’ 
(1902) description of their manner of approaching a feeding ground is interesting. 
The first little pack will come flying in from the open sea against the wind, when the 
tide is at about half-ebb, and alight about 200 or 300 yards from the shore. Here 
they remain quietly packed together for some time till the first green fronds of the 
eel-grass (Zostera) appear on the surface near the shore. Then they slowly work 
shoreward, and after many false alarms begin to feed. Other small packs fly in 
from the sea and alight directly among the feeding birds, till finally the great packs 
are formed. 
They are usually hard to take in the decoy-pipes of Great Britain and Holland, 
and only in certain places were great numbers ever caught. Ussher and Warren 
(1900) mention a decoy in Ireland where none was taken in six years (1882-1888) 
although three hundred were on the decoy lake most of the time. 
English puntsmen find that Widgeon readily take advantage of the alarm-call of 
other birds, — curlews, red-shanks, oyster-catchers, sheldrakes, etc. — that are even 
warier than Widgeon. Such birds are apt to catch sight of a punt before the Wid- 
geon and warn them by getting on the wing first (Millais, 1901). 
It must not be supposed that Widgeon are so wary in places where they are less dis- 
turbed. W. Thompson (1851), speaking of the Belfast region, says that on small lakes 
the Teal were the first to rise, next the Mallard, and then the Widgeon, followed 
by the diving ducks. In India, Baker (1908) considers them “cute, wary’’ birds, 
but not as wild as some others of their kind. Even in England the first arrivals from 
the North, which, of course, are mostly young birds, are decidedly unsuspicious and 
unsophisticated. After they have been driven away there is nowadays little chance 
of a good shot until midwinter, when frosts and gales tend to make Widgeon, like 
other ducks, tamer and less alert. The best time to approach them in a punt is said 
to be the small hours of the morning, when the tide happens to be from half to three- 
quarters flood, and when, having fed, they are found congregated about the edge of 
the disappearing mud-flats. 
Waterton’s (1838) observations about one hundred years ago taught him that the 
