Page:Bird Life Throughout the Year (Salter, 1913).djvu/163



in early April we had all the promise of spring before us, early June carries that season to its completed perfection and rounded fulness. When, as sometimes, though, alas, not always, happens, its third week brings those "perfect days in June," when the garden is full of roses and when the first strawberries ripen, we feel that the coming months can have nothing quite so fair to offer. For all too soon the longest day is reached; the flowery wealth of the hay-meadows falls before the scythe; there is the blaze of charlock and the flaunting scarlet of poppies amongst the corn, and one feels that summer is here. Towards the close of the month many birds become silent; we hear only solitary voices in place of the full chorus of its opening days, and this is especially the case if the weather is hot and dry. In no other month are our birds so stationary as in June; migration is at a standstill; there are neither goers nor comers.

June may be characterized as the month of young birds. Innumerable broods of fledglings are launched upon the world to swell the bird population of copse and hedge and thicket, their parents being frequently