Page:Bird Life Throughout the Year (Salter, 1913).djvu/283

Rh are undoubtedly immigrants. Such unlikely birds even as jays have been known to reach our shores in large numbers. The movement is in general terms from the north-east, for one must remember that the winter not only in Scandinavia but also in northern Germany is much more severe than our own.

A thick, close night without a moon, at any time after the twentieth of the month, never fails to bring a rush of migrants, and there is no more favourable locality for observing the phenomenon than the cliffs of the Yorkshire coast. All night long the light-house acts as a magnet. A crowd of feathered wayfarers emerges from the gloom to flutter moth-like in the dazzling rays, some to pass on, others to beat and buffet themselves against the glass. Wild-ducks have been known to come with such force as to crash right through it. Out of the darkness one hears on all sides the single "gluck" which is the call-note of the redwing. The first gleam of daylight shows that the skylarks are still coming in from the sea in thousands, and, as the sun breaks through the mist, goldcrests are seen swarming all over the cabbages in the lighthouse keeper's garden, tiny wanderers who have braved the North Sea passage of three hundred miles while one would suppose that a flight into the next parish represented the limit of their powers. A fisherman who is early astir finds a tired woodcock sheltering under the side of his boat; others have dropped into