7^2 Eatox, Spring Bird Migraiiou, igoj. Ttul'' 



ter we have taken the observations of several workers at the same 

 time, and thereby seek to determine the true time of arrival and 

 degree of abundance of each species. It is quite surprising at our 

 weekly meetings to learn that some common bird has been in the 

 environs of the city for four or five days, perhaps, before many of 

 us have seen it at all. By comparing and verifying observations 

 we get much closer to the real facts. 



Without burdening any one with a mass of detail, we wish to 

 present some of the conclusions which have been reached as the 

 result of observations made near Rochester during the spring of 

 1903. 



First, regarding the yearly migration of hawks, it has been con- 

 firmed that an incredible number of these birds pass each spring 

 along the southern shore of Lake Ontario and move toward the 

 east over the country south of the lake, evidently making their way, 

 around its eastern end, toward the north. The height of the mi- 

 gration occurs during the latter part of April and the first Aveek in 

 May. The birds are mostly Sharp-shinned and Broad-winged 

 Hawks. A sprinkling of Marsh and Pigeon Hawks is always pres- 

 ent, but surprisingly few of the Cooper's Hawk when its general 

 abundance in many parts of the State is considered. It also seems 

 unusual, at a time when Red-tailed and Red-shouldered Hawks are 

 nesting in western New York, to see many of these species also, 

 soaring high in the air and wheeling toward the east. This is not 

 like the spring soaring of the Buteos over their nesting woods. 

 Many are often seen together or in the same field of view and, as 

 far as I have noticed on these occasions, they are absolutely silent, 

 and when one party has passed off the scene another appears going 

 in the same direction. Thus there is a constaT-ii: whirling stream 

 passing over, sometimes during the greater part of the day. When 

 the wind is high the Hawks fly low, with less circling. The Sharp- 

 shinned species flies lowest of all, and even in calm fair days, when 

 Buteos are circling almost out of sight, this hawk moves mostly 

 within gunshot. One morning at least one hundred of these birds 

 passed over a single observer within two hours, and on another 

 occasion we saw twenty-five of this species lying in one pile back 

 of the little hotel on Buck Pond, where the proprietor had been 

 trying his marksmanship after breakfast. 



