SCHOOL DEPARTMENT 



Edited by MABEL OSGOOD WRIGHT 



Address all communications to the Editor of the School Department, National 

 Association of Audubon Societies, I4I Broadway, New York City 



AUGUST AND THE FLOCKING TIME 



The nesting season is practicall}' over at middle July, and dingy, faded 

 feathers are everywhere seen as the forerunners of the August time of silence 

 and w^ithdrawal to seclusion for the summer molting. There are but three 

 birds that can be counted on for August music — the Red-eyed Vireo, the 

 Song-sparrow and the Indigo Bunting. 



The novice cannot hope to identify new birds at this time of changing 

 and mixed plumage, and it is no easy task to follow some of the most familiar 

 species through the change and still be able to name them. The clearly 

 marked black, white and bufi male Bobolink of June meadows, now wears 

 the brown stripes of his mate. After molting, the Scarlet Tanager is 

 feathered in olive-green, his wings and tail remaining black; the autumn 

 Goldfinch changes his bright gamboge coat for olive-gray, though his wings 

 are as in summer. 



The birds of more sober plumage remain much the same, though the 

 markings seem less distinct. The brick-red spring breast of the male Robin 

 has faded to a yellowish hue, while the immature plumage of the young 

 birds of the season make the work of naming very difficult for the amateur. 

 In May and June, identification, learning the various call-notes and songs, 

 and watching the various processes of rearing the young, fill the hours to 

 overflowing, so that one day lapses to another, and midsummer comes all 

 too soon. The nesting season shows the personal and individual side of bird- 

 life, while, with late summer and early autumn, the impersonal or gregarious 

 phase begins. This gathering of the clans, as it might be called, under the 

 autumn spell, or flocking impulse, is very interesting to watch, and is in 

 itself a study. 



The smaller birds travel in more or less mixed companions, and as early 

 as the first week in August, flocks of various Warblers arrive from the 

 North and remain for a month or more, according to the season, feeding 

 in the tree-tops. The first of our own summer residents to leave are the 

 Orchard and Baltimore Orioles, the Purple Martin, Yellow Warbler and 

 the Yellow-breasted Chat; and, though they do not finally disappear before 

 the middle of September, their migratory activity begins the last of August, 

 as soon as the molt is over and they have gained fresh strength of wing 

 with the new pinions. 



(177) 



