He had returned to the Lake Pleiades system on 21 September 1906. He had fathered the next generation of sockeye on the twenty-fifth, and now on the last day of the month he was dead. He had lived five years, six months and had discharged all obligations courageously and as nature had programmed him to do.
For three miles his dead body drifted downstream, until waves washed it to sanctuary in a backwater where ravens, familiar with the habits of the river, waited. He reached their domain about four in the afternoon of an increasingly cold day when food was essential, and by nightfall only his bones were left.
ONK-OR
In the remote wastes of northern Canada, where man was rarely seen except when lost and about to perish, a family of great geese, in the late summer of 1822, made their home on a forlorn stretch of Arctic moorland. Mother, father, six fledglings—because of a freak of nature they had come to a moment of terrifying danger.
The two adult birds, splendid heavy creatures weighing close to fourteen pounds and with wings normally capable of carrying them five thousand miles in flight, could not get off the ground. At a time when they had to feed and protect their offspring, they were powerless to fly. This was no accident, nor the result of any unfortunate experience with wolves; like all their breed, they lost their heavy wing feathers every summer and remained earthbound for about six weeks, during which they could only hide from their enemies and walk ineffectively over the moorland, waiting for their feathers to return. It was for this reason that they had laid their eggs in such a remote spot, for during their moulting period they were almost defenseless.
Onk-or, the father in this family, strutted about the bushes seeking seeds, while his mate stayed near the nest to tend the fledglings, whose appetites were insatiable. Occasionally when Onk-or brought food to the younglings, his mate would run long distances as if pleased to escape the drudgery of tending her brood, but on this day when she reached the top of a grassy mound she ran faster, flapped the wings she had not used for six weeks and flew back toward her nest, uttering loud cries as she did so.
Onk-or looked up, saw the flight and knew that within a day or two he would be soaring too; always her feathers grew back faster than his. As she flew past he spoke to her.
Maintaining a medium altitude, she headed north to where an arm of the sea intruded, and there she landed on water, splashing it ahead of her when her feet slammed down to act as brakes. Other geese landed to eat the seeds floating on the waves, and after weeks of loneliness she enjoyed their companionship, but before long she rose on the water, flapped her wings slowly, gathered speed amid great splashing, then soared into the air to head back to her nest. From long habit, she landed short of where her fledglings lay, moved around them casually to deceive any foxes that might be watching, then collected bits of food, which she carried to her children. As soon as she appeared, Onk-or walked away, still unable to fly, to gather more food.
He and his mate were handsome birds, large and sleek. Both they and their children had long jet-black necks, with a broad snowy white bib under the chin and reaching to the ears. When their wings were folded, as they were most of the time, the heavy body was compact and beautifully proportioned, and they walked with dignity, not waddling from side to side like ducks. Their heads were finely proportioned, with bills pointed but not grotesquely long, and their pleasingly shaped bodies were feathered in differing shades of gray. Their subdued coloring was so appropriate to the Arctic moorland that an observer, had there been one, could have come close to their nest without noticing them.
On this day there was an observer, an Arctic fox who had not eaten for some time and was beginning to feel acute pangs of hunger. When from a distance he spotted the rough nest on the ground, with the six fledglings tumbling about and obviously not old enough to fly, he took no precipitate action, for he had learned respect for the sharp beaks and powerful wings of full-grown geese like Onk-or.
Instead he retreated and ran in large circles far from the nest, until he roused another fox to make the hunt with him. Together they returned quietly across the tundra, moving from the security of one tussock to the next, scouting the terrain ahead and developing the strategy they would use to pick off the young geese.
During the brightest part of the day they lay in wait, for long ago they had learned that it was easier to attack at night, when they would be less conspicuous against the Arctic grass. Of course, during the nesting season of the geese there was no real night; the sun stayed in the heavens perpetually, scudding low in the north but never disappearing. Instead of blackness, which would last interminably during the winter, there came only a diffused grayness in the middle hours, a ghostly penumbra, with geese, young and old, half asleep. That was the time to attack.
So as the sun drifted lower in the west on a long, sliding trajectory that would never dip below the horizon, and as the bright glare of summer faded to an exquisite gray matching the feathers of the geese, the two foxes moved slowly forward toward the nest where the six fledglings hid beneath the capacious wings of their mother. Onk-or, the foxes noted, lay some distance away with his head under his left wing.
It was the plan of the foxes that the stronger of the pair would attack Onk-or from such a direction that the big male goose would be lured even farther from the nest, and as the fight progressed, the other fox would dart in, engage the female briefly, and while she was awkwardly trying to defend herself, grab one of the young geese and speed away. In the confusion the first fox might very well be able to grab a second fledgling for himself. If not, they would share the one they did get.
When the foxes had attained a strategic position, the first made a lunge at Onk-or, attacking from the side on which he had tucked his head, on the logical supposition that if the great goose was not instantly alert, the fox might be lucky and grab him by the throat, ending the fight then and there. But as soon as the fox accelerated his pace, knocking aside grasses, Onk-or was aware of what was happening. He did not try evasive action or do anything unusual to protect his neck; instead he pivoted on his left leg, swung his moulted wing in a small circle and with its bony edge knocked his adversary flat.
Onk-or knew that the fox would try to lure him away from the nest, so instead of following up on his first blow, he retreated toward the low pile of sticks and grass that constituted his nest, making sharp clicking sounds to alert his family. His mate, aware that the family was being attacked, drew the fledglings under her wings and studied the ominous grayness.
She did not have long to wait. As the first fox lunged at Onk-or again, the second swept in to attack the nest itself. She had only one flashing moment to ascertain from which direction the attack was coming, but she judged accurately, rose, spread her wings and pivoted to meet the fox. As he leaped at her, she struck him across the face with her powerful beak, stunning him momentarily.
He soon recovered to make a second attack. This time she was prepared, and a harsh swipe of her wing edge sent him sprawling, but this terrified her, for instinct warned her that he might cunningly have seemed to fall so as to distract her. If she struck at him now, he would slyly dart behind her and grab one of the fledglings. So as the fox fell, she wheeled on her right foot, placing herself and her extended rear wings between him and the nest. As for the rear, she had to depend upon Onk-or to protect that from the other fox.
This he was doing. In the half-light he fought the clever fox, fending him off with vicious stabs of his beak, knocking him down with his powerful wing thrusts and filling the Arctic air with short cries of rage and challenge. The fox, who had never been confident that he could subdue a grown male goose, began to lose any hope that he could even hold his own against this infuriated bird. Furthermore, he saw that his partner had accomplished nothing at the nest and was, indeed, receiving an equal thrashing.
Hoping in vain that the two geese would make some fatal mistake, the two foxes battled on for a while but finally recognized the futility of their attack and withdrew, making short, chatt
ering noises to one another as they did.
When daylight came the two parent geese knew how necessary it was that their children proceed with learning the art of flying. So on this day Onk-or did not leave the nest to forage for his family; he stayed by the odd collection of twigs and grasses and nudged his children out onto the moorland, watching them as they clumsily tried their wings.
They were an ungainly lot, stumbling and falling and vainly beating their long wings, but they were gradually attaining the mastery that would enable them to fly south to the waters of Maryland. Two of the young birds actually hoisted themselves in the air, staying aloft for short distances, then landing with maximum awkwardness and joy.
A third, watching the success of her siblings, flapped her wings clumsily, ran across the rocky ground and with great effort got herself into the air, but as soon as she did so, Onk-or felt a rush of terror, for he saw something she did not.
Too late! The gosling, unable to maintain flight, fluttered heavily to the ground, landing precisely where the two foxes had been waiting for such a misadventure. But as they started for the fallen bird, Onk-or, with supreme effort, flapped his wings, which were not yet ready for flight, rose in the air and endeavored to strike down the foxes. His wings were not equal to the task, and he, too, fell, but he was quickly on his feet and charged at the two foxes. Insolently, the first fox grabbed the gosling, killing it with one savage snap of the jaws, and sped away. The second fox ran in circles, tantalizing Onk-or, then disappeared to join his partner in their feast.
What did this family of seven think as they reassembled? Onk-or and his mate, like their fellow geese, were unusual in the animal kingdom in that they mated for life. They were as tightly married as any human couple in a conventional suburban town; each cared desperately about what happened to the other, and Onk-or would have unhesitatingly sacrificed his life to protect that of his mate. Four times they had flown together down from the Arctic to the Eastern Shore, and four times back. Together they had located safe resting spots up and down eastern Canada and in all the seaboard states of America. Aloft, they communicated instinctively, each knowing what the other intended, and on the ground, when nesting in the Arctic or feeding along the Choptank, each always felt responsible for the safety of the other.
In this habit of permanent marriage they were like few other birds, certainly not like the lesser ducks, who mated at will, staying close to each other only so long as their ducklings needed protection. Beavers also married for life—perhaps because they had to live together during their winters in lodges frozen over—but few other animals did. Onk-or was married to his mate, eternally.
His first response, therefore, as the foxes disappeared with one of his daughters, was to assure himself that his mate was safe. Satisfied on this crucial point, his attention shifted to his five remaining children. They must learn to fly—now—and not stumble into traps set by enemies.
His mate, who had remained on the ground during the loss of the fledgling, had not been able to ascertain what was happening with the foxes, for the incident had occurred behind a cluster of tussocks, and for one dreadful moment she had feared that it might be Onk-or the foxes had taken. She was relieved when she saw him stumbling back, for he was half her life, the gallant, fearless bird on whom she must depend.
But she also possessed a most powerful urge to protect her offspring; she would surrender her own life to achieve this, and now the first of them had been stolen. She did not grieve, as she would have done had Onk-or been killed, but she did feel an intense sense of loss and, like her mate, determined that the other five must quickly learn to fly. In the days to come she would be a rigorous teacher.
As for the goslings, each knew that a fox had stolen the missing fledgling. Each knew that tragedy, from which their parents tried to protect them, had struck, and the nascent urges that had caused them to attempt flight were intensified. They had never made the long pilgrimage to the feeding grounds of Maryland, but intuitively they knew that such grounds must be somewhere and they should ready themselves for the migration. They were determined to master their wings; they were determined to protect themselves from foxes.
Of course, these birds were too young to have selected partners, nor had they associated with other geese. But even at this early stage they were aware of the difference between the sexes, so that the three young males were looking for something quite different from what the two remaining females were awaiting, and as other families of geese flew overhead, each fledgling could differentiate the children in that tentative flock. They knew. At seven weeks it was incredible what these young geese knew, and if by some ill chance both their parents were killed, leaving them orphaned in the Arctic, they would know how to fly to Maryland and find the Choptank cove that had been designated as their home. All they needed for maturity was the strengthening of their wings and the selection of a mate from the other fledglings born that year. They were a doughty breed, one of the great birds of the world, and they behaved as such.
In mid-September, as in each year of their lives, Onk-or and his mate felt irresistible urges. They watched the sky and were particularly responsive to the shortening of the day. They noticed with satisfaction that their five offspring were large and powerful birds; with notable wing spans, and sustaining accumulations of rat, they were ready for any flight. They also noticed the browning of the grasses and the ripening of certain seeds, the unmistakable signs that the time of departure was imminent.
At all the nests in the Arctic this restlessness developed and birds bickered with one another. Males would suddenly rise in the sky and fly long distances for no apparent reason, returning later to land in clouds of dust. No meetings were held; there was no visible assembling of families. But one day, for reasons that could not be explained, huge flocks of birds rose into the sky, milled about and then formed into companies headed south.
This southward migration was one of the marvels of nature: hundreds, thousands, millions of these huge geese forming into perfect V-shaped squadrons flying at different altitudes and at different times of day, but all heading out of Canada down one of the four principal flyways leading to varied corners of America. Some flew at twenty-nine thousand feet above the ground, others as low as three thousand, but all sought escape from the freezing moorlands of the Arctic, heading for warmer feeding grounds like those in Maryland. For long spells they would fly in silence, but most often they maintained noisy communication, arguing, protesting, exulting; at night especially they uttered cries that echoed forever in the memories of men who heard them drifting down through the frosty air of autumn: ‘Onk-or, onk-or!’
The wedge in which Onk-or and his family started south this year consisted of eighty-nine birds, but it did not stay together permanently as a cohesive unit. Sometimes other groups would meld with it, until the flying formation contained several hundred birds; at other times sections would break away to fly with some other unit. But in general the wedge held together.
The geese flew at a speed of about forty-five miles an hour, which meant that if they stayed aloft for an entire day, they could cover a thousand miles. But they required rest, and through the centuries during which they had followed the same route south and north their kind had learned of various ponds and lakes and riverbanks that afforded them secure places to rest and forage. There were lakes in upper Quebec and small streams leading into the St. Lawrence. In Maine there were hundreds of options and suitable spots in western Massachusetts and throughout New York, and the older geese like Onk-or knew them all.
On some days, near noon when the autumn sun was high, the geese would descend abruptly and alight on a lake that their ancestors had been utilizing for a thousand years. The trees along the shore would have changed, and new generations of fish would occupy the waters, but the seeds and the succulent grasses would be the same kind. Here the birds would rest for six or seven hours, and then as dusk approached, the leaders would utter signals and the flock would scud across the surfa
ce of the lake and wheel into the air. There they would form themselves automatically into a long V, with some old, sage bird like Onk-or in the lead, and through the night they would fly south.
Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, Pennsylvania! The states would lie sleeping below, only a few dim lamps betraying their existence, and overhead the geese would go, crying in the night ‘Onk-or, onk-or,’ and occasionally, at the edge of some village or on some farm a door would open and light would flood the area for a while, and parents would hold their children and peer into the dark sky, listening to the passing of the geese. And once in a great while, on such a night when the moon was full, the children would actually see the flying wedge pass silhouetted against the moon, and they would speak of this for the rest of their lives.
No goose, not even a powerful one like Onk-or, could fly at the head of the wedge for long periods. The buffeting of the wind as the point of the V broke through a path in the air turbulence was too punishing. The best a practiced bird could do was about forty minutes, during which time he absorbed considerable thrashing. After his allotted time in the lead position, the exhausted goose would drop to the back of one of the arms of the wedge, where the weaker birds had been assembled, and there, with the air well broken ahead of him, he could coast along in the wake of others, recovering his strength until it came his time again to assume the lead. Male and female alike accepted this responsibility, and when the day’s flight ended they were content to rest. On especially favorable lakes with copious food they might stay for a week.