Glendale, Mass.
1911.
Aug. 26
(No 2)
[August 26, 1911]

Cedar birds catching flying insects

skill and certainly, rarely missing their aim. One after another they
would leave the leafy tree top in quick succession until a dozen or more
were hovering and darting to & fro in the midst of the loose swarm
perhaps so near together that as many as four or five might have been
killed with a single charge of fine shot.
At times they looked like so many big butterflies fluttering in a compact body about flowers.
Standing beneath the tree I
could see through my glass their heedless prey followed, overtaken and
snapped up. Sometimes a single Cedar bird could capture as many
as six or eight insects during a single flight of this kind. The
total number taken in the course of the afternoon must have been
very large yet the swarm never appeared to include more than a
score or two at any one time, or to be scattered over an area more
than fifteen or twenty foot square. The birds engaged in their pursuit
and capture with tireless energy and great apparent eagerness. Quite
evidently they were making good use of an exceptionally favorable
opportunity for I have never before known anything like so many
of them to be similarly employed within so limited an area or for
anything like so long a time. What the insects were I cannot
say. Their flight resembled that of honey bees but they looked too
small for that. They may well have been Diptera or perhaps Coleoptera.