Page:Bird Haunts and Nature Memories - Thomas Coward (Warne, 1922).pdf/73

Rh succession; alike in wind or calm the stream flowed on towards the south. Many times we counted, and found that the average rate of passage was about fifty birds per minute, or, for eight or nine hours per day, 3,000 per hour. Whence came they? Whither bound? Who shall say?

Redwings, a few fieldfares, many blackbirds and song thrushes occupied the red-berried bushes all one day, but by evening they were restless. At dusk several parties rose, mounting higher and higher as they circled round, but finally, when a mere group of specks, heading for the south. On the same evening the woodcock came; they had been anxiously watched for by men with guns, for they gather a woodcock harvest at times. Only a few arrived, however; the big passage, so I was informed, came later. As I crossed the ridge that night, stumbling in the dark and the momentary blinding beam of light, I heard the curious paper-ripping sound of their wings as they rose at my feet, and occasionally, before the lighthouse beam swung round and pitchy darkness followed, caught a glimpse of the shadowy retreating forms. A few snow buntings haunted the beach, and a brambling or two accompanied the chaffinch flocks round the farms, forerunners of later immigration.

Round the landmark, where the tide has left a wide stretch of sand, the waders gathered, ringed plovers and dunlins in countless packs, restlessly swinging to and fro in may aerial evolutions, or packing closely on the sand, every bill tucked into back plumage, and hopping forward on one leg when the water reached them. Early in September, when the last of the terns were passing, the knots monopolised this beach, covering it as with a grey carpet, so closely do they crowd together. In that month, too, warblers, pied flycatchers, redstarts, and other summer visitors were trailing south; but in October the winter visitor was more in evidence.