THE CANADIAN FIELD-NATURALIST 



VOL. XXXIV. 



JANUARY. 1920. 



No. 1. 



FALL MIGRANTS. 



By L. McI. Terrill, St. Lambert, Que. 

 (Read before the Province of Quebec Societ]) for the Protection of Birds.) 



An airman recently expressed .the belief that the 

 increasing interest in air navigation would eventually 

 tend to induce a seasonal movement on the part 

 or the human race. Even now many wealthy peo- 

 ple spend the winter in Florida and California. In 

 the days of the stage-coach, less than a century ago, 

 this was unthought of. At that time a journey to 

 the nearest town, even to one's nearest neighbor, was 

 often an event. Only with the harnessing of steam 

 and electricity was the Californian or Floridan trip 

 possible to the northerner. Who can say what 

 the mastery of the air will produce within another 

 century. 



Such thoughts should stimulate us in the study of 

 bird movements — the migrations of these pastmasters 

 in aeronautics. However, anyone who has become 

 well launched in this study needs no such stimulant. 

 Each recurring season he is refreshed by the return 

 of familiar birds and thrilled with a glimpse of 

 others that journey on to a more northern home. 

 In the fall the southward journey completes the two 

 movements known as bird migration — or rather I 

 should reverse the order — the spring movement is 

 the return home. Should it happen that certain 

 birds, moving south in the fall, were to remain there, 

 they would be emigrants from our point of view and 

 immigrants from the southerner's viewpoint. Migra- 

 tion entails a return journey. 



In this latitude the spring migration may be said 

 to commence in February and finish in June; while 

 the fall migration commences in July and extends 

 into the winter, making an almost continuous move- 

 ment of one sort or another, throughout the year, 

 with the exception of three or four weeks during 

 June and July, which marks the height of the nest- 

 ing season in the north. Thus the fall migration 

 covers late summer, autumn, and early winter, and 

 the term is one of convenience as it marks the height 

 of the movement. 



To the novice, who has watched the return of 

 birds in the spring for the first time, there is a vast 

 difference in watching their fall departure. If you 

 consider merely the facility in naming birds as they 



pass and repass, the spring time is the most favor- 

 able for observation. In the first place, after our 

 long winter we are eagerly awaiting the birds that 

 we associate with warmer weather, and so most 

 northerners are to some extent familiar with the ap- 

 pearance of our common birds in spring, although 

 it IS often the song that is welcomed — if it were 

 not for the song many birds might escape notice. 

 When recording the return of our summer resident 

 birds one has these advantages. The bird is in full 

 plumage (with rare exceptions) limited at most 

 to two phases (male and female) ; it is generally in 

 song, and one is more keenly on the lookout for it. 

 Familiarity with the bird throughout the summer 

 begets carelessness about its departure and the last 

 birds are apt to slip away unnoticed. On the other 

 hand those that merely pass through this district to 

 nest farther north are often in a hurry — they may 

 linger in the states to the south, but when this lati- 

 tude is reached they appear to have an important ap- 

 pointment elsewhere and we miss seeing many of 

 them. 



In the fall these northerners are more leisurely; 

 the call to move south is seldom so insistent and we 

 have more opportunity to watch them. Again, they 

 keep more in the open — one sees birds of the deep 

 woods right at his door-step. Many times before 

 starting on an all-day walk I have taken a prelim- 

 inary survey in my garden, and have seen there the 

 rarest birds of the day. 



The feature that makes fall study at once a 

 delight and a torment is the many different plumages 

 often found in one species. Thus we may see 

 juvenile birds changing into first faJl plumage, those 

 of an earlier brood that have cdready assumed fall 

 dress, and adult birds in various stages of moult, all 

 in the same flock. If, as is often the case, you are 

 watching a mixed flock of birds that contains species 

 with close resemblances and all in constant motion, 

 confusion may reign. 



In regard to classifying birds the disadvantages 

 in studying fall migration are chiefly, comparative 

 absence of song and greater variation of plumage; 



