Chapter 1 WELCOME TO DUCK HUNTING A boy and his mother hike down a prairie lane The sun is just coming up in the east Both hunters wear waders and hold a shotgun The boy carries a pail filled with supplies for the 4
Ducks use small bodies of water like prairie potholes to feed and breed day His mother has a bag of duck decoys slung over her back The pair arrives at a prairie pothole a shallow pond surrounded by cattails It is late September so a few mosquitoes buzz about 5
Hunters identify birds using their size shape and color Male blue-winged teal are small birds with patches of light blue on their wings The mother wades out with the sack and places 17 decoys in a special formation designed to attract ducks The hunters then wade over to a point where the cattails poke into the pond The water is only knee deep They stand in the cattails and wait until it is light enough to shoot Their waders will keep them dry As the sun rises several flocks of ducks fly by Feathers make whooshing and whistling sounds against 6
the air Ducks circle the pothole and set their wings to land When the birds are over the decoys the boy and his mother raise their shotguns and shoot Boom Boom Boom Boom Two ducks drop into the water The hunters quickly reload Another flock swoops past The boy gets a shot off but misses The mother wades out quickly and picks up their ducks They are good-looking birds with black beaks and powder-blue wing patches blue-winged teal By the time the morning flight ends a couple hours later the hunters have killed 11 ducks The mother lines up the ducks in the prairie grass to admire them There are five blue-winged teal two green-winged teal a mallard a northern shoveler and two wood ducks The hunters soak up the warm autumn sun and unpack their breakfast Duck Hunting History People have hunted ducks for a long time Archaeologists have found 2,000-year-old duck decoys in Nevada 7
