Sky Sweepers 



21 



♦ I SUSPECT THAT NO OTHER BIRDS 



have the world-wide standing of the swallows. Waterfowl 

 are widely distributed, but their usual habits do not bring 

 them close to man; shorebirds are hard to distinguish; gulls 

 have so many plumage changes that identification of species 

 is not easy; many small birds keep pretty well out of sight. 

 But swallows are known almost everywhere. 



I thought of them one day in the football season shortly 

 after I had simultaneously watched the dowitchers and lis- 

 tened to the football game. The fall birds had begun to arrive 

 in the bay. Diving birds fed in various spots: the eared 

 grebes in the areas close to shore and one common loon in 

 the open water near the entrance to the lake. For the hun- 

 dredth time I tried to stalk a loon and get really close to it, 

 but, as usual, its body, slaty gray in fall plumage, disap- 

 peared in a smooth dive and reappeared in unpredictable 

 places, sometimes in front, sometimes to the side, of the 

 canoe, but never close. The western grebes, almost as large 

 and equally proficient as divers, were less wary. Though their 

 underwater directions were never certain, they sometimes 

 came up within a few yards of me. They were graceful birds 



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