Traditionally, the cockies around here reckon the season breaks on or about Anzac day. Either way, leading up to this time of year, laying in firewood for the coming winter, when it's had a long drying summer, and before the season breaks, is a priority. I have plenty of state forest within a couple of kilometres, but state forest here is mostly stringybark. There's a reason the ads in the newspapers call it "common" and discount it by $30-40/ton behind sugargum and redgum. As luck would have it, I still have access to what was the family farm since the neighbour (who is also a good family friend) bought it; there's plenty of mature sugargum plantations, and the swamps are fringed with redgum. There also happens to be an abundance of small game - quail, rabbits, hares and ducks; specifically, a dam which has always held wood ducks (also known as maned goose, Chenonetta jubata). I need little more excuse to drive a bit further west to collect a ute load of wood and have a shot.
I also recently filled another hole in my battery: a 6 lb WW Greener facile princeps patent box lock, non-ejecting, damascus barrelled game gun in 12 gauge, 2 1/2" dating to 1886. The particular hole I convinced myself I needed it to fill doesn't really matter...
While the bores are a bit pitted, there's still 25-30 thou and more in the walls, and externally it's in good order - sound wood and metal, nicely finished. It's an F 16 grade - a low to middling grade of gun. Aware of Greener's own rule of 96 (that a gun ought weigh 96 times its intended charge weight) I had loaded up some 7/8 #8 and 1 oz #5 over light black powder charges.
This new addition needed test firing, just to be sure...
After the tyre test, I quickly learned that even modest 1oz loads are brisk in this gun. But I'm a man, and I could take it.
As I was finishing cutting and loading my load of good wood (bugger spending $100/ton; spending an hour, a litre or so of fuel and oil, and a bit of time and diesel in transit is considerably cheaper and better for mind, body and soul) the weather closed in with howling wind and biting rain; good weather for ducks, really.
So I wandered dam-wards.
The wind had made them skittish, and a good sized flock were wheeling nervously; yet more were still on the ground though - perhaps 50 or more all told. All I had to do was stroll into the wind, pop my head over the bank to put them to flight - held up in the wind, and fire. I did that, and took a right and left.
All too easy, really. Except for the rain. And the wind. And the wood chips and ants which had found their way down my shirt. And the aching muscles from wielding a chainsaw and stacking the results of my handiwork...

I checked a couple more dams, but found nothing. I also went to a private, spring fed lake - covered in ducks - and still got nothing more, 'cos they kept flying away from me before I could get near them...
Theres another reason to get another load of wood next weekend...

Postscript:
It would be nice to come home to a piping hot meal and pipe, slippers and scotch. But I drew the short straw and got to cook. So we had duck breast pan fried in olive oil, sliced and seasoned with salt and pepper as an appetiser. The mere morsel I got had the only #5 pellet any of us found...

I'm making it sound like a bittersweet day. It wasn't: it was magnificent.
RG