262 Bird - Lore 



red-mud river. This creek came from tiie cool, clean woods, where it was good 

 drinking-water and had maidenhair berries and wood sorrel along its mossy 

 banks. When it entered the pasture it widened, and brook trout were sometimes 

 found in it. Entering the marsh it came into the red-mud region and from there 

 on it was as bright red as the banks that it flowed through. 



The marsh was full of Sparrows that I could not name, and an occasional 

 Duck or two flew over. Discovering muskrat tracks on the margin of the creek 

 about the bridge, 1 kept on down it to the mouth. Here it widened consider- 

 ably, and I ran across some Least Sandpipers tracing patterns in the mud not 

 far from me. 



After that 1 explored I he marsh every day, finding Bitterns, Herons, Ducks, 

 Sandpipeis, and other birds that I could not get close enough to to identify. 

 After the day's haying was over, if there was no 'cocking up' by starlight to 

 be done, 1 would go down to the river and watch the sun set over the marshes. 

 As things were darkening down and the wind was moaning through the tall 

 grass, I could see the Sandpipers and Ducks at home along the river. 1 

 watched them as long as there was light and then returned to the cozy fire- 

 side at tlie farmhouse. 



At last, when the time came for us to leave 'Willow-bank,' we got into the 

 'J^'ord' and set out. The liarn Swallows circled about us, and I said goodby to 

 them and we left. 



We traveled for several hours through the night, and then, as dawn was 

 breaking, we had a race southward with a Hock of Ducks. 



As we dashed over the St. John bridge, it was low tide below us, and I saw 

 several Sandpi]XM-s. 



I saw muskrats swimming tlie ponds and cardinal llowers blooming along 

 the streams. It made me tliink that in a few hours 1 would be finding cardinal 

 flowers along my own stream. 



Then we saw a white-tailed doe beside the track, gazing calmly at us over 

 her shoulder. I had secii a buck once, about a ciuarter of a mile from home, 

 along the stream. 



The sights became more and more familiar until in the afternoon we arrived 

 home. Then I started off up the stream. The Intervale grass was cut and taken 

 in and fall was beginning to come. I returned to the Intervale every day, check- 

 ing off arriving and departing migrants. 



Those September and October days, with hazy mornings and bright, cool 

 afternoons, were the best time to study birds. Before and after school I made 

 many observations and found many new birds. 



'i'hen the red and brown leaves began to fall, the winds were stronger and 

 the days were cooler and soon the birds were scarce. The Juncos and White- 

 throats flew cheerily about the autumn woods, fed at my lunch-counter, and 

 slept in the evergreen hedge just outside the kitchen windows. They, too. left 

 before the snow came and winter set in in dead earnest. 



