This has been a long time coming. Yes, it's turkey season now and yes, we're all afflicted with turkey fever. But I was watching a longbeard in a field this morning wanting to share the story, but I knew I couldn't until I wrote this one. I've been working on it for a while and just finished it tonight. Steve, you can go ahead and cook those eggs now rather than throwing them at my house. Sorry it's taken me so long to get it written.

Song of the Oldsquaw



Minus two. It could mean a lot of things. When you put a “Fahrenheit” after it, it means bloody freaking cold. Jack London romanticism aside, this is the kind of cold that burns. The kind of cold that steals manual dexterity in a matter of seconds. The kind of cold that freezes and kills exposed skin. The kind of cold that men climb into tiny boats for and putter out onto large bodies of water. Idiots.

Steve, my host, had invited me out to his house the night before for some deer spaghetti, which was actually not bad for a bachelor-cook. After consuming half my weight in pasta and robbing the dog of any scraps, we checked the weather and tried to catch some sleep. The temperatures would indeed be evil, but at least there was little to no wind forecast.

By the time we reached the ramp to begin readying the boat, the temperature had risen to a toasty +5 and we were considering trading our neoprene waders for baggy shorts and flip-flops. The pair of buffleheads diving around the docks reminded me of seagulls back home in Florida. The ice piling up on the ramp wasn’t even solid. It was all slushy for 50 yards or so. Wait. This was salt water. Frozen salt water. You see building-sized chunks of ice floating in salt water in the North Atlantic. The icebergs are usually fresh water. The water they’re floating in is salt and its freezing temperature is far below the magic 32F for fresh water. Let’s go boating on frozen salt water! Ok! Idiots.

I’m sure my friends in Minnesota and North Dakota would scoff at my diatribe here. I’ve heard stories of school children unzipping their parkas and peeling off layers in celebration of spring when it finally warms up to 15 above zero. True northerners routinely commute to work in -20 temperatures. But I grew up in a place where frost on the ground could keep the water cooler chatter going for weeks. With respect, commuting to work in a car when it’s -2 and hunting ducks from a boat on big water when it’s -2 compare like hanging out in the lodge versus skiing in a blizzard.

Five layers, thick jackets, and fleece balaclavas pulled tight, we motored out into the light chop and 10mph wind that wasn’t supposed to be there. Slush ice hissed against the hull of the boat. Tears streamed down my cheeks—either from the wicked-cold wind in my eyes or fear, I’m not sure which. I could feel my nose hairs freezing with every breath and my beard cementing to the fleece. But in a few moments, the magic of this enchanted place began to seep into me. The cold faded from my mind as the door opened on a whole new world right here in Virginia that I never knew existed.

As we motored along, from time to time buffleheads flushed from the waves around us. Steve took us to an oyster bar where we set anchor and put out a few decoys. (And no, not THAT kind of oyster bar.) Completely different than the puddle ducks I have hunted, sea ducks find their sustenance by diving below the surface, sometimes as deep as 200 feet for some species! The wind that wasn’t supposed to be there kicked the big river into bouncing waves just shy of whitecaps. Buffleheads flew here and there in their random way. I followed one bird’s flight just above the waves and suddenly he disappeared. I raised the binoculars and saw him bobbing on the waves. He had decided to put down and simply stopped flying which sent him plowing into a cupping wave. Hilarious! None were in range at all, but just seeing a new species was exciting for me. I settled in, enjoying the show, and Steve grew increasingly agitated at the lack of action. Having sat duck hunting for hours upon hours without even shouldering the gun, I was doing just fine. But judging from Steve’s demeanor, he expected more. After less than 30min, he decided we’d had enough, cranked up and began gathering the decoys. I reached a little too deep into the water retrieving one and had solid ice inside my glove in a matter of moments. The ducks could distract from the cold, but they couldn’t make it go away.

We cruised across the river watching black & white ducks zooming left and right. Suddenly, Steve throttled back at the sight of new plumage. “Oldsquaw,” he said with a smile. “My favorite duck.” I looked through the binos and saw beautiful black, white, gray and orangey brown. This was what we’d come for. What little I knew of them, I knew from dry encyclopedic online entries and the awed tones in Steve’s voice when he spoke of them. These are not normal ducks. They are not even normal sea ducks, if there is such a thing. They are by turns magical, ethereal, clownish, and musical. Yes, musical. Really.

According to Steve, a devoted student of the sport and its rich history, the ducks were named by the Cree Indians who thought the then-inconceivably huge flocks sounded like a group of old women talking together. More recently, some white people decided that the Indian word for woman is pejorative and ought not be used. The original speakers of the language attached no such stigma to the word, using it like English speakers use “woman” or “lady.” (I won’t bore you with more pontificating on this issue, but if you’re interested in words like I am, you might appreciate this: http://www.nativeweb.org/pages/legal/squaw.html) Nevertheless, through ignorance, misunderstanding, or a misplaced sense of heroism, the name “oldsquaw” is being replaced in all the species identification books with the pathetically blunt “long-tailed duck.” Where is the romance in a “long-tailed duck”? That’s like calling a majestic wild turkey gobbler a “brown fan-tailed bird.” Where is the mystique? Where is the innate sense of history & character? Keep your long-tailed ducks. I’ll hunt oldsquaw.

Feeling very much like a tourist, I could only watch as Steve slowly motored along tossing decoys out one at a time on a long-line rig towed behind the boat to keep them from tangling. Small knots of oldsquaw floated together to either side of us. Suddenly, a group of four sailed in behind the boat like attack aircraft, flaps down, sweeping the growing line of decoys and veering away as they reached the boat. I swear I felt their eyes on me as they sailed by.

Our setup was actually far from subtle. Having been trained in the art of hiding from puddle ducks and geese in riparian weeds to the point of paranoia, I felt like I had shown up for a wedding in scuba gear. Steve is a pro and knows very well what he is doing. This was just a different game for me. He placed a line of scoter decoys and a line of oldsquaw decoys end to end, perfectly straight on their gang rigs. Then he positioned the boat alongside these two lines about 25 yards away at anchor. Sitting in the middle of open water like this, I felt like maybe we ought to hang out a banner saying, “Attention Ducks: Yes These Are Real Ducks.” Believe it or not, this works. Not the banner. This setup. You may be tempted to call these sea ducks lots of synonyms for “dumb” for being taken by this pathetic setup. But in actual fact, the boat looks like an island and the decoys really do not look like they’re in straight lines from a distance. They look like ducks gathering around an island to munch on easy pickings in shallow water.

It wasn’t long at all before a group of oldsquaw buzzed over the decoys. I stood, swung with one of the birds over the bow, and touched the trigger. Pow! It was a clean miss, but the sound was like nothing I’ve heard before. There was no echo at all on the big water. Just a simple bang that I felt in the hull of the aluminum boat. Strange.

The pretty black & white birds flew back and forth around us. I watched as one in the distance folded its wings mid-air, dropped into a wave, and skipped like a rock before tumbling to a stop like a clumsy waterskiing clown. I laughed out loud. Apparently, this is normal approach and landing procedure for these birds.

There! At our eleven o’clock, a group of oldsquaw headed straight in. I heard strange music in the air as the birds set their wings directly over the decoys and I rose as a hunter should, drawing a bead on the most strikingly beautiful bird among them. I thought I heard a melody, but it was drowned by a shotgun blast. Pellets tore into the water behind the bird. The melody continued as I shucked the slide. Lengthened my lead. Pellets ripped the water all around the duck. The music stopped. The bird tumbled wildly into the wide river and instantly rolled beneath the surface in a dive. “Keep your gun ready . . . Wait for him . . . wait for him . . .” Steve coached. Ripples around a tiny black and white body materializing on the surface. “Shoot!” Pow! The odd, echo-less shot shouted and the water was torn around the bird again. Delicate white neck flat in the water, he would not dive again.

“Drake oldsquaw!” Steve said, smiling. “Just wait till you get your hands on him.” We unsnapped from the anchor line, kicked the outboard awake, and idled to the little body. I picked him from the water with the net and gently set him on the foredeck, carefully untangling feathers from mesh. Sun shone over my shoulder filling drops of water with diamond fire over striking black & white plumage. I felt a chill apart from the bitter air. This was a magical animal. Black and white, long sweeping scapular feathers, pink bill, ruddy circles on his cheeks, and that improbable, long sprig curving into two. All this aesthetic packed on a small, roundish frame. The neck was short and wide. The bill likewise short and broad, vivid pink and black. He seemed to be constructed something like an NFL running back—a small, muscular, stocky build. Somehow, its size seemed to magnify its exquisiteness.

You may know Steve by his posts on the board here as a very nice guy. He is. He is as nice, friendly, genuine, and generous a man as you could ever hope to meet. This is the guy who has given away a free guided youth hunt complete with gear for the last two years. What you may not know is that Steve was a Marine. He is close to my height and weighs 30-40 pounds more than me and there’s not much “extra” there. He could easily fold me into a pretzel and pack me into a bucket. In a dark alley, I want him on MY side. As I examined the otherworldly duck this burly ex-Marine waxed poetic in reverent tones praising its beauty. He was right to do so. I can’t recall exactly what he said, but it was surprising and moving and he used the word “audacious.” For my part, I couldn’t take my eyes away from the bird in my hands. Without looking up I said, “If ducks come in, you’re gonna have to shoot cause I’m not.”

Mallards are striking in their iridescent green and blue. Wood ducks are flashy and gaudily beautiful with their absurd quaff and unlikely collection of vivid colors. Oldsquaw are . . . difficult to describe. They are understatedly flashy. Like a beautiful woman in a refined evening gown, there is no excessive display yet you are unable to take your eyes off her. And their incessant calling—even under fire—and fearless sailing to the gun is, well, audacious.

At length, I reluctantly put the bird down, carefully, reverently. Music drifted over the water. Melody. “What is that?” I asked. “That’s them. That’s oldsquaw,” Steve answered. I cocked my head, stared at the water and studied the sound. Did I hear what I thought I heard? I listened closer. Again. And again. I felt my jaw go slack. The ducks were calling in a major triad. This may not mean much to the average hunter. It should.

I am a music student. I have studied music theory at university level, I play several instruments, I sing and write music. I say this not to inflate my ego, but merely to illustrate that I am not out of my depth when I write on the subject. The major triad (the major chord) has been the essential building block of all western music since Bach. If you have a piano, you can play a major triad by playing middle C, skipping a white key, and skipping another one. You would be playing the notes C, E, and G. If you place your thumb on middle C and your other fingers on successive white keys, you can hear a major triad by playing thumb, middle, pinky.

Now, in all fairness, I did hear some oldsquaw calling in something of a diminished triad—not major. In fact, I found an online recording of some calling in this diminished chord. Other musicians might dismiss this if they heard that recording. To avert controversy and the possibility of my sanity being questioned, here is a recording of some oldsquaw calling in major triads in the way that I heard and found utterly amazing: http://wildspace.ec.gc.ca/media/sounds/olds.wav A recording could never do justice to the way those melodic notes roll over the waves, but it will give you something of an idea. Forgive my ranting on and on about this, but I am still completely amazed by it. I don’t know if anyone has noticed it before or not, but it seems genuinely extraordinary to me.

These audacious, beautiful little birds have been calling in major triads for millennia. Thousands of years before Bach wrote The Well-Tempered Clavier which forever established the basics of all Western harmony from Baroque to The Beatles, these humble little ducks were singing what he discovered. And he never knew. He was in Europe. No one knew. They simply were. This blows my mind! Do you know the probability of this?

Do not insult my intelligence by telling me that the world and everything in it just happened through a series of random, chance mutations when there is a smallish duck that lives in the Arctic, migrates thousands of miles to Virginia, and does it all while singing major chords according to the rules of Western theory established in 1722. I imagine God creating these ducks and smiling, knowing that in thousands and thousands of years someone would discover what he had done and be completely flabbergasted. That, and drawn to worship a creative mind whose genius spans millennia. This does not “just happen.” It does not evolve. What evolutionary purpose could there possibly be in a duck singing major chords? Some quack, some whistle, and some squeal. There is no need to sing in arpeggiated major triads. It is superfluous. It is purely aesthetic. And the improbable precision of it points ineffably to a Designer.

I went duck hunting and found an entire world, an entire ecosystem in my back yard that I never knew was there. I went duck hunting and my world grew. I found an understatedly beautiful little duck that flies two hundred feet under water and sings arpeggiated major chords. I went duck hunting and found a song of praise to the Creator. I went duck hunting and found God.

Thank you, Steve!! I hope it’s not, but it felt like a once in a lifetime experience. Unquestionably, these are my favorite ducks too.

Link to the photos: http://vaturkey.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=4417

Ben, as usual, your skill with words is nothing short of amazing. I've been waiting as long as Steve for this story from you. The wait is over. I was not dissapointed. Congrats on your inaugural waterfowling season, one that may be hard to beat.

Thanks, I sat in the boat but did not feel the cold at all.

I'm at a loss for words, Ben. Well said.

That's just awesome.

Perhaps...no, absolutley, one of the best pieces of writing that has ever appeared on this board. You need to take some advice my boy: send that to a few classy shooting magazines and i expect you will have some paying work shortly. Not that you probably want to mix pleasure with coin of the realm but it is there for the taking. Excellent.

Wow, thanks Ben... Freddy said it, just awesome. It really was worth the wait.

Ben, I knew your story would be great, but this is just simply AMAZING!!!

Ben...speechless worth the wait reading. Even if it is Turkey hunting. As I have told you before you are talented and need to put this skill to use..REALLY

Truth of the matter is he made the whole thing up. He said it was too cold to go and stayed at the house all morning while I went out to try and make him look good. I even let him pose for the pics. Makes me wonder just what else he's made up?

WOW!!!! Absolutely amazing as usual! It's been said before but I felt as if I was right there with you on this hunt!