Hunting: Thrushes and wood pigeons are undoubtedly the protagonists of the migratory event that year after year, for an eternity, has affected almost all the regions of our country from north to south, strategically stretched between nesting paradises and warm wintering shores.
Text and photos by Pierluigi Mugellesi
The subtle pleasure of waiting
Many enthusiasts await thrushes and wood pigeons at the gate, at stalls designed to be able to use the decoys, cages and pigeons, which induce them to move to the right shooting distance.
However, the step fits perfectly even to the unskilled hunter, so much so that we believe we can say that the technique most used by our local shotguns to be able to undermine them during the autumn trip is represented by the so-called "mail" hunting, a discipline that fascinates for the special atmosphere, for the frequency of killing and for the irresistible attraction of the volley.
It is a "tradition" which boomed in the XNUMXs and XNUMXs, and then experienced a downsizing with the application of the constraints provided for by the national framework law. So like all traditional forms of hunting, it has a history that we regularly regret, but fortunately it also has a present that makes it still practicable and sometimes full of strong emotions. Towards the end of September, the passionate hunter of migratory, and especially of thrushes and wood pigeons, gets into fibrillation, starts consulting the weather reports, sniffing the air to warn you the unmistakable flavor of the passing season. His raids in the armory become more and more frequent, and since in reality he already has everything he needs to worthily welcome the coveted birds, they are rather the pretext to meet the numerous colleagues entangled by his identical frenzy and start discussions with them. repetitive, almost liturgical, which know in all respects of a propitiatory rite.
Then, one evening, when the right time seems to have come, he looks out of a window, cold, to contemplate the twinkling of the stars lit by the taut breath of the north wind and the black shadows that seem to magnify the silhouettes drawn by the trees against the intense blue of the night. . The gusts of wind, pungent like the sharp thorns of junipers, bring to his nostrils a new yet well known scent. It is the right smell, a sort of olfactory mirage of the north, the one that immediately portends the uncertain lighting of a clear autumn day. Looking out of that window, he waits for the monotonous "noise" of the calm and surreal silence of the night to gradually vanish and sharpens his hearing to grasp its voice ... an unmistakable voice, the intertwining of a thick and gossipy whisper in the background ... the metallic zirli of the thrushes, the sharp voice of our nights as hunters.
It is a magical concert, where the elusive instruments, hidden and swallowed up in the darkness, resound remote in the distance and then suddenly pinch us close, so much so that it seems impossible not to be able to see them; and finally they lose themselves timid and distant again, disappearing behind the ineffable, but imperious call of a mysterious horizon. Usually they are duet voices, incomprehensible, but exciting dialogues of invisible travel companions. Sometimes, on the other hand, they are solitary and melancholy zirli, faint lamentations of bewildered laggards. And yet they follow one another endlessly, according to rhythms that are now tired, now excited, sometimes interspersed with pauses that leave one suspended, anxiously awaiting the next take; and every voice seems to have its own particular timbre, every single zirlo seems to be the right note of an uninterrupted melody of nature, which irresistibly captivates, which feeds an irrepressible rush of adrenaline, the one that pushes the hunter to set off at night to wait for the miracle of dawn in the lock yet boundless green oasis of his post.
In this microcosm that overlooks the infinite, finally comes the first sberlume of the season and with it the first displacement of thrushes and blackbirds. Then with the lights that make full evidence of the shapes that surround him, his gaze turns a little higher, to surprise the regular flights of the entering turdids, without that frenzy that characterizes the chaotic moment of dawn. Now you no longer pull off your arms but you can take aim calmly. Finally, having pitted a nice series of «mezzefini», lead 8-10, we begin to keep the heaviest charges close at hand, those to be used when the passage of the thrushes is followed by that of the wood pigeons. Of course, in order to reach them, long barrels with a choked mouth and magnum cartridges are not enough (which in our opinion should be ignored for a hunt that in any case must contemplate respect for the wild); Instead, the weather, and in particular Aeolus, must be favorable and lower the flocks to make them possible even for those who cannot count on the help of cimbelli and leaflets.
In short, this would be a typical day, ideal, for the lover of mail, but we all know well that generally at the beginning of the migratory story not all the aforementioned conditions occur at the same time. It will start with a decent day for thrushes, then the good one will happen for the doves and by mid-October we can hope to come across a good morning for a little bit of everything. The debut, however, is invariably full of thrush. In this regard, before the step "breaks" in a decisive way, those who know bottacci friends well for a few days will have begun to frequent the post office with assiduity, because these birds allow some small moves in advance, and since the last days of September the very first hours of the morning give some sporadic satisfaction. These are generally the contingents of birds that have nested in the north of our country or even on the higher areas of the central regions. But already for the first week of October the first consistent wave of pace is to be expected. It is unlikely that the initial decade of October does not know a day of intense flow of birds, which is then followed by a train in which the passage is rarefied until the first change in weather or lowering of temperature. In short, for fans of hunting thrush from the post, the first rule to be respected is that of constancy: giving up an exit due to lack of confidence can mean losing an unrepeatable opportunity.
The magic of sberlume
When the time comes the thrushes start to move, and from this point of view they present differences compared to the wood pigeons, which delay the migration until the weather conditions are not ideal. Bottacci and blackbirds no: their time has come, they begin to move and it is up to us to be ready to wait for them at the gate. Apart from the temperature (how can we not notice the climatic changes that have affected the first part of autumn in the last twenty years, with October turning from a semi-winter month into a semi-summer month), the weather still matters a lot, not so much for the passage of the birds as for the choice of the hunting site. Thrushes are not very sensitive to prohibitive weather conditions, so much so that some of the best days of passage that hunters remember are often those characterized by precipitation, when the rain falls steadily in the absence of wind or in the presence of a light breeze. In short, if the wood pigeons anticipate the disturbance or wait for it to pass (that is, they want the good weather to sharpen to move in complete tranquility), the thrush on the contrary, he often and willingly rides the buriana, unless it is accompanied by strong sea winds such as libeccio and ponente. But the light and humid sirocco tempts them to move no less than the north wind. Of course, it is necessary from time to time to evaluate where it is appropriate to wait for them, whether on the coastal strip or rather in the interior. days, when luck will smile on colleagues better positioned for those particular weather conditions. But in general, Mother Nature and son thrush manage to please everyone within the month and a half "indicted". The heart of October, from the fifteenth to the end of the month, represents the period in which at the post office you can come across a continuous row of favorable days, with birds moving in small groups of three to six individuals, up to ten o'clock. morning, feeding in the strategic points of transit that brawl that will have no way of repeating itself during the hunting season. Those who want to make the most of a day of hunting thrushes and blackbirds cannot ignore a fundamental rule: get out of bed early and be ready, before sunrise, on the hunting spot.
The reason is simple: for these small winged wild animals the moment of the morning exit is undoubtedly crucial and the true enthusiast knows how important it is to take advantage not only for the game bag but, or perhaps above all, for the intense emotions that in that short span of time you can savor. The first shots are made when the light is still struggling to take over the darkness. For some they are the most thrilling shots. We share this impression: the satisfaction that comes from being able to hug a fleeting shadow that would escape our sight in a few moments is really great; however, in the event that hunts are hunted from posts placed at ground level, these shots can prove to be very delicate, and require the hunter to have the utmost coolness to be able in a moment to assess whether it is appropriate to hold and make fire or rather give up to avoid putting the safety of others at risk. In fact, in the dark, the birds whiz at leaf height which, in the case of the coastal Mediterranean scrub, corresponds exactly to the height of man. In any case, the period of time in which the wood, as if by a miracle, seems to feel the irresistible frenzy of awakening, is always short, as if its creatures had to hurry to move before the sun peeps out. Concentration must be at its maximum, the mind must be free from all thoughts, the eye must be fresh, alert and mobile, and the sensory capacities stretched to agony. There must be only the narrow horizon of light above the foliage and our nerves, ready to shoot at the slightest opportunity. The shot will always be reactive, instinctive and of pure bracing, reasons why the second shot hardly has time and way to be exploded.
The jab is usually aimed at the point where there is the instant sensation of having intercepted the target, without any advance calculation and perhaps with the only precaution of being found by the game already partially set in the direction of the segment of sky where the chances of seeing him dart are higher, but still ready to make a quick rotation of the torso. Then the thrushes begin to transit at high altitude, and then, in addition to being equipped with a valid means of recall (by mouth or manual, if you do not have any cages), respect for mimicry becomes essential if you want to be able to make the most of it. the opportunities that the birds will want to grant us over the next two hours. It is the moment in which the hunters, after seeing the small black dots approaching on the horizon, are called to carry out, with the right choice of time, the classic shots set: those who anticipate in time, hoping that the birds do not change direction. suddenly, that some shots do not come to take away the coveted emotion, those reasoned that test the aim, those that should be carried out only when the distance of the target is adequate, those, finally, impossible to make mistakes and that however not infrequently they leave us amazed, disenchanted, with a bitter taste in the mouth and the mad desire to make up for it as soon as possible.
Flying in the foam of the waves
Then come the wood pigeons. There are those who have the opportunity to hunt them in the high ground and those, like us Tuscans, especially by the sea. We will also be biased, but we must say that the hunt for these migrants acquires a particular charm when the deep blue of the sea is the background to the passage of flocks in addition to the blue of the sky. All tastes are tastes, and it is natural that each of us is particularly fond of our land and "its" landscapes. Landscapes that evoke sensations, sensations that bring to mind past seasons, live only in that instinctive part of memory that represents the hard core of our identity. As far as we are concerned, there are many kilometers of the Tuscan coast along which the green of the hill is lost in the intense blue of the sea, more or less gently, being preceded by thin tomboli and sandy shores, but also abruptly, plunging into it precipitously with the its rocky shoulders on which, up to the last meters, the dense bushes of the Mediterranean scrub are perched. The Argentario promontory or Punta Ala, in the Grosseto area, as well as, moving a little further north in the Labron area, the Piombinese promontory that connects Salivoli Al passo dalla "posta" In flight among the foam, fall into this type of coast of the waves in Populonia and, finally, the coastline that goes from Castiglioncello to Livorno, in the locality of Marroccone, passing through Quercianella and Montenero. Here the landscape appears marked by tightened and deep mouths perpendicular to the coastline, which follow one another uninterruptedly and that the cliffs of Romito and Calafuria and, beyond the claw on which the silhouette of Castel Sonnino stands out clearly and imposing, those of Campo Leccano and delle Forbici, seem hardly to contain. Savory cliffs of salt and an intoxicating cocktail of arboreal flavors: above all in October a sharp and penetrating odor of juniper. It is no coincidence that in the past we had to title our intervention on the hunt for pigeons "rock pigeons", because years ago the local hunters, in the days of great lashings, did not hesitate to place themselves close to the sea to undermine the clouds of wood pigeons totally at the mercy of the elements and therefore completely vulnerable.
Even today, the first good hunting spots for the doves (as long as the wind blows hard) they are only a stone's throw away from the blue of the sea, so much so that it is not uncommon to see a wounded bird end up in the whirlpools when the wind blows violently. In these places, where the shrub vegetation is the master, the hunting of the pass has made history, and at the time when ATC and other limitations did not yet exist, it was usual to witness the hunting colonization of the Labronian coast by brigades in October of side-by-side from Lucca, Pistoia and Florence. After all, it is useless to deny that these were other times in many respects: huntable species and weather conditions in the first place. And it was obligatory for every inveterate migrator, wherever he lived, to set sail for the sea in an attempt, and indeed with almost absolute certainty, to intercept migratory birds, which, in making their long journey, supported the continuous currents en masse. of air blowing from the eastern quadrants, sharpening its flight along the Tyrrhenian coast. This was hunting on the sea: bitter cold, sharp smell of burning dust, continuous crackling of the lead charges that fell to the ground after a few good shots. And then, to warm up or enjoy a frugal, but delicious breakfast based on dried meat or sausages, some bonfires lit here and there, and the skewers made from the dry branches of the crate sharpened with a cutlass on the side of the fork. Finally, the return to the machines, with the cartridge belt lightened beyond belief, and with the pleasant burden of a good bunch of birds at the side, secured to the loan shark in leather or rope. And on the street, on the gabbriccio of paths dug in the middle of the green, the finding of some other people's prey, fallen and not recovered, and of some wounded who ended up in the aviary unscathed, provided that the empirical care of the tender heart on duty was overcome unscathed, often worse than the same shot. But how colorful that game bag was. There was a bit of everything because everything could be there then. And there was something for everyone. By the end of the month, sometimes even earlier, the brawl was over. What had to pass was now over, and the appointment was postponed to the following season, when the overwhelming wave of the assorted migratory people would again, invariably, storm the rocky stalks of our beloved Tyrrhenian Sea.
Today, hunting on the sea still has a way of being practiced; in fact, it counts very many scholars, but undoubtedly it appears very different from its past garments. The meaning continues to be given to it by the step of the wood pigeons, even if from the environmental point of view things have changed radically. The past season, with an October too cold and marked by continuous and furious northeastern winds, was an exception in the context of the last twenty years (where, apart from October 2009, those winds that make mythical blue bird? Where did those north winds that for three days in a row forced the large flocks to rub the sea foam and the bristly hair of junipers?). And if for the hunt for pigeons from the post by the sea it is essential to be able to count on the presence of rather strong air currents from the northeast, no one escapes how these, which once represented the rule, have become very rarefied. Thus, as a rule, the bulk of the birds pass through the interior and over the sea on most occasions all that remains is to "suck their fingers".
Furthermore, the step of the pigeons appears postponed and "shuffled", in the sense that the fifteen days between the end of September and the beginning of October are now lost, completely fruitless, and the step itself, from the moment it "breaks", knows pauses sudden and prolonged, which cause part of the birds to make the move in late November. In short, once it was almost certain that for twenty days on the sea there would be fun without stopping, today it is no longer the case. Now losing an auspicious day means losing one of the few chances that will be granted to us for that year, in the worst case even the only one.
… Read the article in Pdf format taken from DIANA N ° 19/2010