VIII 



! 



A YEAR OF BIRDS 



WITH the going of the swallows and martins and 

 the coming of the fieldfares and redwings, it may be 

 said we end and begin a fresh year of English birds. 

 I should say mid-October, taking one season with 

 another, is the time when the bulk of the swallows 

 and martins leave, and the time when the first large 

 parties of the winter birds reach England. True, 

 a few days or a week after we have given up the 

 swallows and martins, parties of them may reap- 

 pear one bright morning and hawk over the fields 

 and by the streams as if the spur of migration 

 were not yet urging them south. This will happen 

 through October, whilst a pair or two will mysteri- 

 ously reappear at their old haunts even in November 

 once or twice in 1909, for example, on the South 

 Coast I have seen a pair actually coming in from 

 the sea then. But by then the bulk of them has 

 been in Africa or the South of Europe for weeks. 



A year of English birds in its signal features 

 recurring season after season is a good thing to think 

 over in October, whether we are bent on recalling 

 what has passed or are reckoning on what is to come. 

 Of course, the bird diary varies somewhat, both in 

 its events and dates, according to the character of 



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