96 THE MIGRATION OF BIRDS 



to him as an observer or to the goldcrests ? Surely 

 the birds did not aim for Fair Island ; were not 

 these weak-winged birds probably making for the 

 south, when the south-east wind caught them and 

 drifted them to the west ? Fair Island was a refuge, 

 but hardly the objective of their flight (17). 



Compare this with Cordeaux's notes of another 

 goldcrest immigration, this time to the Lincolnshire 

 coast (23). On October 13th the wind was north 

 to north-east in the afternoon, light but increasing 

 in force, the weather clear and bright a few birds 

 arrived. They had started under favourable circum- 

 stances. Shortly after midnight on the morning of 

 the 14th, the wind got full east, with quite half a gale 

 and heavy beating rain, continuous to the morning of 

 the 16th ; the nights were very dark. ' During this 

 time the immigration was immense," and most of the 

 birds were goldcrests. Cordeaux's idea that these 

 were not normal immigrants but birds which were 

 passing probably from north-east to south-west, when 

 the easterly gale caught them, is probably correct. 



I have referred to birds starting at a high eleva- 

 tion. Service says that in normal departure from 

 the Solway, most birds mount to a high altitude, 

 but " a strong beam wind will bring the birds 

 even those of strongest power down to 200 to 500 

 feet of the surface, and it is interesting to see whole 

 flocks with heads turned almost completely to 



