GARDINER'S ISLAND 



45 



whistle adds an unexpected bird voice to the chorus of June 

 song. Reaching the regular northern limit of its range in 

 northern New Jersey, this bird is known only as a rare 

 straggler on Long Island; but it appears to have become 

 permanently established on Gardiner's Island, where, half 

 a dozen may be seen or heard or any morning's walk; its 

 characteristic notes give form to mental pictures of south- 

 ern woods, made still more real by the guttural, lisping 

 gurgle of the Parula Warblers, nesting in the thick bunches 

 of usnea moss. 



Common Tern 

 The bird was sitting on six eggs 



Where swamp maples grow in low flooded woodlands, 

 several hundred Night Herons build their rude platform 

 nests of sticks, high in the branches. As, with frightened 

 squawks, the old birds leave the home tree, one might ima- 

 gine one had invaded a hen-roost. In early J une, the streak- 

 ed young are nearly grown, and sit in rows of three and 

 four on the limbs, near the frail structure in which they 

 were reared, waiting for the impulse which will bid them 

 use their newly grown wings. 



The absence from the woods of Blue Javs, Rose-breast- 



