Dan's Feathursday Feature: Gadwall

I lived and worked for a while in Tokyo. The work day was usually long, and I would find myself walking home from the subway station every evening usually around 9:00 or so. It was a short ten-minute walk down narrow streets, past the noodle shops and the pachinko parlors, dodging groups of tipsy businessmen and avoiding eye contact with the hawkers.

To break the monotony I had several routes I would take. One of them took me past a small mahjong parlor. Light spilled from the frosted windows. There was no music; instead, the low and steady murmur of male voices oozed from the windows and doorway, punctuated occasionally by a loud cry and a cascade of clicking sounds. It was a sound that I can’t find the words to describe. The many voices somehow became one, as if the building itself were humming. Sometimes I paused beside the sign that read 麻雀, trying to make out snippets of conversation. Many nights I wanted to step inside, if for no other reason than to share in the apparent camaraderie, but I was always repulsed by the tidal wave of smoke that billowed from the doorway. I think if you stand in front of a mahjong parlor long enough you could get both lung cancer and a bad liver just by osmosis.

Many years later, imagine my surprise when, while birding in a marsh in the Calumet region south of Chicago, I came across a mahjong parlor. Early one November morning I was standing at the edge of a large patch of cattails and phragmites that surrounded a shallow lake. I could not see the lake; the reeds were too high and too dense. But there was no mistaking the sound of a mahjong parlor with a lively game in full swing. And that unusual sound triggered my psyche in surprising ways. For a brief instant I could see the façade of the Tokyo mahjong parlor. The moist ground beneath my feet turned to asphalt. I smelled—even tasted—cigarette smoke, with a hint of shochu. It’s not that I was nostalgic for those smells, but the sound of mahjong released a flood of emotions and sensations from those years I spent in Japan—the sounds, the smells, the friends, the work.

And then I thought, “This is weird.” I’ve seen some unusual things in the marshes in the Calumet area, but whatever it was those men were doing on the other side of those cattails, I wanted nothing to do with it. I quietly backed away and moved on.

Several weeks later I was scanning a waterfowl covered lake, trying to prise a positive ID from every bundle of feathers floating there. A fellow birder gave me hints on how to pick the Gadwalls out of the crowd. “Don’t worry about plumage color. Look for a plain, gray-brown, large floating loaf of bread, with one end burnt black and the other sporting a teapot-spout head. That’s a Gadwall. And if you ever come across a bunch of them together, no need to even look. Just listen. They sound like a bunch of men sitting around talking and playing poker.”

“No kidding,” was the only response I could muster. Now I knew the source of that mysterious murmuring several weeks back. Since my birding friend is American, it’s understandable that his Gadwall play poker. But I have no doubt that my Gadwall were playing mahjong.

Beyond its card-playing, at first blush there isn’t a lot to say about the plain Gadwall. I’ve heard it described as the “Coors Light of ducks.” That’s actually a good description for a pretty nondescript duck. The female is a mottled brown, like most female ducks. The male is gray on the side, light gray below, light gray above, with a hint of brown. Even the bill is gray. Only the black rear-end saves the bird from total monotony.

But take the time to look closely at the Gadwall’s plumage and you’ll see delicate and intricate patterns, like the countless tiny daubs of an impressionist painting. Rather than plain, it is best described as distinctively subdued. Far from being a Coors Light, the Gadwall might be likened to a crisp Czech pilsner—simple in color, complex in taste. (A note to any Coors Light drinking bird lovers: It’s never too late to discover true beer….)

The next time I visit Tokyo, and walk past a mahjong parlor, I will not be at a loss for words to describe the sound. The low murmuring will remind me of a flock of Gadwall. And as I stand beside the sign that reads 麻雀, the asphalt beneath my feet will soften, the sweet/sour smell of the wetland will replace the cigarette smoke, and my heart will carry me away and set me down among the head-high cattails of a Calumet marsh where I will listen to the Gadwall as they set up another game of mahjong.

Dan's Feathursday Feature is a regular contribution to the COS blog featuring the thoughts, insights and pictures of Chicago birder, Dan Lory on birds of the Chicago region.