BIRDS OF AUTUMN AND WINTER.
- Dimly I catch the throb of distant flails:
- Silently overhead the Hen-hawk sails,
- With watchful, measuring eye and for his quarry waits.
During the last week in August there is a decided stir, among the feathered folk. The summer residents who have been moulting in seclusion for the last month, emerge from their retreats and are joined by flocks of others of similar species, who have summered further north and who will remain with us for several weeks before beginning their downward trip.
By calling certain species resident, it does not necessarily mean that the same individuals remain in one place for the entire year. Except in the breeding-season all birds rove about, even if they do not absolutely migrate, guided in their course by the food supply and the weather. The food supply is the more potent motive of the two, for many insect-eating birds like the Flycatchers and Vireos could winter with us in the protection of hedges and evergreens; but with the coming of frost their food is cut off. Even the seed-eating birds, like the hardy Goldfinches, Buntings, and Juncos, are often driven to begging about barns and granaries when a sudden snow-storm covers the low herbs and grasses upon Whose seeds they subsist.
It is during the last week in August that the Baltimore Orioles gather, and pipe with an anxious note in their voices, as much as to say, “It is very pleasant here still, but we must be off before the leaves grow thin and betray us to our enemies.” The Kingbirds swoop and call, going nearer to the house than usual. With September comes the first decisive gathering of the bird clans. The Swallows flock in the low meadows and on the edge of the beaches,
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