DELAWAKE VALLEY ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB. 39 



6:15 p. m. — 3,000 birds on one small section of lawn. They 

 do not seem to be feeding, merely waiting for darkness. 



6:20 p. m. — The flight is about over and the birds are walking 

 about on the lawn or flying about in the trees keeping up a 

 continual clatter. There are a few Robins on the lawn with the 

 Grackles but they are silent. Only rarely is a Robin heard. 



6:S0 p. m. — Only a few hundred birds now on the lawn and 

 the birds in the trees are at least a little less noisy. As it grows 

 darker under the trees the volume of sound grows gradually less. 

 As the Grackles subside the Robins can be more plainly heard 

 and at the present time (6:35) about five hundred are calling. 

 They are scattered all about among the Grackles. 



6:^5 p. m. — Darkness and silence reign. 



The gardener employed ujDon the place, informs me that after 

 the storm of September 13th, he picked up over a peck of dead 

 Robins — 50 or 75 birds or about seven per cent, of the number 

 then using the roost. Not one Grackle was found dead although 

 they outnumbered the Robins nearly 100 to 1. 



On the morning of October 2nd I had an opportunity of ob- 

 serving the birds of the northwestern flight as they left the 

 roost. They flew as a single flock, stretching out in a long 

 column from 50 to 100 feet wide and were ten minutes in pass- 

 ing over. There were no Robins in this flight. They leave the 

 roost in small scattered flocks and in pairs, from fifteen to thirty 

 minutes ahead of the Grackles. 



December 18, 1905. — With considerable regret I am compelled 

 by conditions at the roost to add this final observation, probably 

 the last that will ever be made at this roosting site. 



Extensive building operations accompanied by heavy blasting, 

 and the reopening and enlargement of several quarries in the 

 vicinity of the roost has had its inevitable result, and the Over- 

 brook Grackle Roost as an extensive roosting site is a thing of 

 the past. 



These heavy blasts have left their mark upon the entire bird 

 life of this vicinity. Numbers are much diminished and often 

 the birds seem dazed and listless. I have several times picked 

 up birds stunned by the concussion of some of the heavier shots 

 and unhatched eggs have been very common the past two years 



