'For, lo ! the winter is past." Song of Solomon 



Patterns of Local Movement 



Listen! . . . No, it's only the wind. 



"But listen ! Quiet, Tim, you fool hound-dog." No, it is only the children 

 at their game. 



"Listenl . . . No, it is nothing at all." A heavy black cloud hangs in the 

 west ; through a rift the sun bathes the marsh in gold. The evening flight has 

 begun; small parties of ducks lift from the bay, flying into the northwest. 

 The tall poplar by the channel is dark with a thousand blackbirds creaking 

 and tinkling. 



"Listen, listen] . . . Yes, it is the swan! The Whistling Swans are back\" 



Our eyes scan the purple east. There they are: fourteen great white birds 

 halfway across the bay, coming straight toward us, their high-pitched voices 

 yodeling loud and clear. They swerve, moving north to the lake. They turn 

 again, swinging wide; now they are coming back, the south wind on their 

 breasts. Now they are overhead. What a sight to behold! They are dropping, 

 dropping. A dozen yards above the water their necks arch, they set their 

 wings, spreading feet wide like Canvasback. Then softly they alight near 

 Archie's Point. Another leg of their northward journey is completed. 



A band of Whistling Swan seen in the evening light of the first day of 

 spring stirs the heart and soul of a man so that, for a moment, his communion 

 with the wilderness is complete. Yet tonight I feel more than the beauty of 

 the scene itself. Here, mind you, in the fading day when you or I might lose 

 ourselves in the maze of marshland, this band of swan has come from far 

 beyond the horizon to a place they have not visited since last spring. There 

 was no faltering; they came unerringly to this small corner of marsh that 

 has been the April rendezvous of Whistling Swans for at least forty years. 

 Tomorrow there will be more, and more again on following days, until the 

 chorus of their multitudes will not let us sleep. Then, sometime in mid-May, 

 they will be on with their journey and Archie's Point will be swanless until 

 next April. . . . 



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