Look at the wild geese

A few weeks later, the sky was dark and the stars were twinkling on the horizon. It is 3.15 am and my alarm clock orders me to wake up. I take a shower; have a breakfast, get ready and go out to meet my friend Jean Sebastien, a hunter, who asked me to meet up in front of my place at 4.15 am. We gather with his friend Guillaume and arrive in two big fields already harvested along the Saint Lawrence River after the village of Petit-Matane. Today we are hunting waterfowl: snow geese, Canada geese and ducks. We must act quickly, we only have about an hour to install ducks decoys, cut herbs to camouflage the hunting graves, park the cars at the entrance of the field and load the rifle while hiding into the cage.

The sun is slowly awaking, it’s half past five in the morning and the first duck just flew above us. The hunt is a matter of minutes! We are on the lookout. By hundreds, squadrons of birds are merging from afar. It’s now that all the hunter’s efforts gain meaning. Put aside the plastic birds used as bait and the fact of being hidden, the migratory bird hunt is prior to everything a technique of animal calling. I don’t know where to look, I am overwhelmend with emotions, it’s truly an aerial parade. The sun is emerging from the far off hills and reflects in the plumage of the beasts that shreds a perfect blue sky. The birds are making tailspins and other acrobatics in order to find where the hunters calls are coming from. That’s when a bunch of wild geese are spinning down to us. I hear Guillaume’s countdown for the battle to come.

I go along with the game myself and I pop up of my hiding place and press the button of my camera as if it was the trigger of a 12millimeters gun. That’s the precise moment where I realize the beauty of gesture and the harshness of the relentless track to kill the beast. The wild goose rears up, slows down and tries to flea in a flap of wings to avoid danger. But it’s too late. The feathers are flying into pieces following the rhythm of the gunshots. The dog runs toward the remains lying down on the ground in a hurry to take them to his master. For several hours, we will attend this defile of wild birds looking for the last seeds remaining in these empty fields. It’s time to make accounts and to pack our things. It’s eleven in the morning and we are heading to Guillaume’s place for the defeathering of the birds. Everyting is meticulosly cut, cleaned and packed. Each one of us will leave with his share of the spoils, a smile on his face and already thinking of the next hunt. I decided to unveal trough this reportage one of the most beautiful days in my life.

This documentary is avaibale on vimeo (on french only)

https://vimeo.com/115613204

Octobre 2014 © Photographe : Thibaut Ketterer