Don October 28, 1982, my first ever hunting day, this "shack" here saw me return. Every year, loyal, I to him and he to me. It is my cathedral of hunting, it's my home!. " Mirco greets me in the dark at the foot of the wooden ladder that leads to his shed, perched on a luxuriant hillock of the lower Maremma Tuscany. It sheds light with the bulb to illuminate the details and finishes of a structure that has maintained very well over the years. “Baracco” is the term he usually uses to define the fixed post, but this sculpture of wood and foliage is much more. "A long time before this place became a fixed stopover with my friends we were coming here. It was more than 30 years ago… at first we took a tent to occupy the place, there were even 10 of us! We all ate together as in a military camp, in the morning we took turns holding mirrors to shave. smiles softly.
Then we bought two used caravans, we had evolved! I've always hunted here. I know every branch, every tree. By now I can guess the direction of the wind, the angle from which they will emerge the thrushes, their trajectories as a function of air currents. The parasol made of leaves to cover the glare of the sun from the east, I could orient it blindfolded according to the time. Each branch that grows or is cut does so according to its role here: summer and winter, in every month of the year, I come up to the "I shack”To check and correct the vegetation. Everything is functional to these few, magical, passing days ".
Mirco looks up over his head, the rods of the little 28 follow his eyes. Two quick blows anticipate the dull thud of the first thrush of the year. Like cotillons, hundreds of lead fragments fall to the ground with the sound of rain. The show begins….
See the Photogallery: Thrush hunting in Maremma.
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