Hardly any two birds have wings exactly similar in shape, every wing being exquisitely adapted to its owner’s needs. The gull soars or flaps slowly on his long, narrow, tireless pinions, while the quail rises suddenly before us on short, rounded wings, which carry it like a rocket for a short distance, when it settles quickly to earth again. The gull would fare ill were it compelled to traverse the ocean with such brief spurts of speed, while, on the other hand, the last bob-white would shortly vanish, could it escape from fox or weasel only with the slow flight of a gull. How splendidly the sickle wings of a swift enable it to turn and twist, bat-like, in its pursuit of insects!
You may be able to identify any bird near your home, you may know its nest and eggs, its song and its young; but begin at the beginning again and watch their wings and their feet and their bills and you will find that there are new and wonderful truths at your very doorstep. Try bringing home from your walk a list of bill-uses or feet-functions. Remember that a familiar object, looked at from a new point of view, will take to itself unthought-of significance.
| Whither midst falling dew, While glow the heavens with the last steps of day, Far, through their rosy depths, dost thou pursue Thy solitary way? William Cullen Bryant. |
THE BIRDS IN THE MOON
The lover of birds who has spent the day in the field puts away his glasses at nightfall, looking forward to a walk after dark only as a chance to hear the call of nocturnal birds or to catch the whirr of a passing wing. But some bright moonlight night in early May, or again in mid September, unsheath your glasses and tie them, telescope-fashion, to a window-ledge or railing. Seat yourself in an easy position and focus on the moon. Shut out all earthly scenes from your mind and imagine yourself wandering amid those arid wastes. What a scene of cosmic desolation! What vast deserts, and gaping craters of barren rock! The cold, steel-white planet seems of all things most typical of death.
But those specks passing across its surface? At first you imagine they are motes clogging the delicate blood-vessels of the retina; then you wonder if a distant host of falling meteors could have passed. Soon a larger, nearer mote appears; the moon and its craters are forgotten and with a thrill of delight you realise that they are birds—living, flying birds—of all earthly things typical of the most vital life! Migration is at its height, the chirps and twitters which come from the surrounding darkness are tantalising hints telling of the passing legions. Thousands and thousands of birds are every night pouring northward in a swift, invisible, aerial stream.
As a projecting pebble in mid-stream blurs the transparent water with a myriad bubbles, so the narrow path of moon-rays, which our glass reveals, cute a swath of visibility straight through the host of birds to our eager eyes. How we hate to lose an instant’s opportunity! Even a wink may allow a familiar form to pass unseen. If we can use a small telescope, the field of view is much enlarged. Now and then we recognise the flight of some particular species,—the swinging loop of a woodpecker or goldfinch, or the flutter of a sandpiper.
It has been computed that these birds sometimes fly as much as a mile or more above the surface of the earth, and when we think of the tiny, fluttering things at this terrible height, it takes our breath away. What a panorama of dark earth and glistening river and ocean must be spread out beneath them! How the big moon must glow in that rarefied air! How diminutive and puerile must seem the houses and cities of human fashioning!