Glendale, Mass.
1911. 
Sept 4
(No 2 )
[September 4, 1911]

Extraordinary flight of a large flock of Night-hawks

  At 3 P.M. as I was walking from the studio to the house I
happened to glance upward where I saw, almost directly over me, at an
elevation of fully 200 yards, about 40 Night-hawks soaring in circles on
set wings, not independently, but in a dense cluster or swarm confined within
a space which did not seem to exceed twenty yards in width. Around the
confines of this limited area they glided smoothly, evenly and rather swiftly,
one following another closely and all describing an almost perfect circle
unmarred by obvious deflections from the slightly curving course or by upward turns
or downward "dips". Their wings were held straight & flat like those of soaring Hawks,
not crooked at the cuspid joint as in ordinary flight. As they swung around &
around from right to left (for all moved in this direction) they appeared, of course,
to be crossing one another's line of flight at the centre of the circle as I viewed it,
producing a kaleidoscope effect, although their flight was, as I have said, perfectly
ordered & on the same track, or nearly so, only the outer rim of the circular
space being traversed by any of them. Occasionally a bird would flap
its wings once or twice but it usually circled the entire course without