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Game Bird Conditions in Sutter County, California

F. W. Henshaw

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I have just come from a shooting trip at the West Butte Country Club, in Sutter County, California. The shooting grounds comprise a swamp and overflowed land along Butte Creek. The birds there - the ducks and geese - are in numbers beyond description. There must be several thousand swans, and there are certain favorite localities in which all these birds seem to congregate at certain times. The rice fields adjoining are now all drained. Great quantities of the birds go to the rice fields at night and there feed upon the waste rice that has been threshed out by the wind, blackbirds, etc. The farmers regard this as a Positive benefit, since it cleans their land of what would otherwise be an annoying and worthless volunteer crop during the following year. All the farmers bear testimony to this, and their grounds are all posted forbidding shooting. Toward daylight the birds move down to the marshlands literally in myriads. Some of the Mallards are fairly wobbling in their flight, and their crops and necks distorted, with the rice they have eaten.

San Francisco, November 21. 1916

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