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Notes on the Behavior of Pintail Ducks in a Hailstorm [1919] Leopold's lifelong bent toward natural history and his acute powers of observation in the field, so evident in Sand County Almanac, were illustrated early in his career in a series of short notes and articles he published in the Condor, the journal of the Cooper Ornithological Society. Leopold recast many of these items, such as this note on pintail ducks, from his field journals, where he carefully recorded each of his hunting expeditions and other outings. On October 20,1918, I was hunting ducks on the Rio Grande south of Los Lunas, New Mexico. I was sitting in my blind on a sandbar, with some dead ducks set out as decoys, when a very severe hailstorm set in. During the thick of the storm I discovered that a flock of about forty Pintail Ducks (Dafila acuta) had settled among my decoys not twenty yards distant. Each bird was facing toward the storm, and each had his head and bill pointed almost vertically into the air. The flock presented a very strange appearance, and I was puzzled for a moment as to the meaning of the unusual posture. Then it dawned on me what they were doing. In a normal position the hailstones would have hurt their sensitive bills, but pointed up vertically the bill presented a negligible surface from which hailstones would naturally be deflected. The correctness of this explanation was later proven by the fact that a normal position was resumed as soon as the hail changed into a slow rain. Has any other observer noted a similar performance in this or other species of ducks, or in any other birds? 60 -'~o:-:~zrr.".:"""'~~S:'~-r;:7:'Jj:-::-~-:------: o~ c,f ~O, /((/ ~ d_"o' I.V~, ,,~, {~.t "'d,ox'1 W"ifA.c..L.~~. '/- 3 ""1 ;z. ~""d.J3 .. - - - '-3!C:'j o.~8 1..wt ~"w..eIr.. 1~.3"n .t..o..i ~ ' - ":j ~ f,.......t.,t,."'.,. c......t ~ ,d......,... - .t.c..J :l"cU.at,- ~ a--...u..... -'t' 1...r .......01.. .........._...r/...... ~~ orft-o... t~ """.t.~.t ko-Ce. >tc 4~,.......... ~",,"tQ.oUd,,~ ""'" A4t o.1t. ~ ~t'" fuu- 1..t- .:.., ~ ~1-lv"(r t,~ ......,{.. .....U I"~. LV""/.-"'" «...~ ~ ~ ~}I>~J "-t...._o.r~"-tq.l.."{ "f"~" D i.c..J - 'wl",~~ t;;(,,L••,.J.. ~~......t. , , I" 0 t 20 1918 showing the field observations that Entry from Leopold's "New MexIco Journa ~np' c "'I D' ks i~ a Hailstorm." (Leopold Collection Leopold reported in "Notes on the BehavIOr 0 mtat uc X25 2276, UW Archives) 61 ...

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