The first frosts of autumn are a warning to the summer songsters that it
is time to prepare for their long trip to the southland. From pine and
beech and shrub they come, lingering to catch a stray insect or to feast
on the seeds so plentiful at this season of the year, steadily
collecting until dozens and fifties and hundreds of a kind are grouped
together.
Whether the smaller birds, such as the robins, blue birds and ground
birds, select a leader for the trip south, it is difficult to say. Some
birds do so, and follow their leaders, as the sheep of olden time
followed their shepherd. However this may be, these fine-feathered
travelers are careful to remain in a squad as compact as possible, and a
note of alarm from one puts the whole legion to flight.
All birds of short flight travel by night only, perhaps because it is a
time less beset with dangers from the enemy; perhaps instinct is more in
control at night, when there is naught but dreams of the southland to
claim their attention. Some authorities have surmised that the birds,
like the mariner, are familiar with the heavens and, taking some star or
constellation as their guide, fly straight to the summerland of the
world. But this last is not a safe conclusion, for the blue birds and
robins have been known to err in their choice of a wintering place, some
stopping in northern Georgia and perishing there because of their
blunder. Others have remained in the Middle States throughout the
winter, which grave error the best students of bird-nature have been
unable to explain.
But we must not infer from this that birds, as a rule, travel at random
and trust to what man calls “luck.” These little perching birds are the
ones most liable to mistakes, and a sudden change in the weather or an
unusually tempting food supply may lure them to pause too long in these
more northern regions, delaying them until it is impossible for them to
finish their trip. They have a very short flight, compared to other
birds, and it is no slight task for them to accomplish a journey of a
thousand miles or more. Yet they go and come with remarkable precision,
and there are many instances of a pair nesting in the same tree or
crevice or broken limb for several years in succession. When spring
returns, some happy experience of the year before brings them back to
the loved spot, and there they linger till time for the fall migration.
The birds which are most unerring in their time and course of flight are
the water birds. The wild geese are first in this particular, flying
high in the air and with the leader ever in full view of the flock,
remaining on the wing for from twenty-four to forty-eight hours. To be
classed next to these are the herons, the wild ducks and the bittern,
the long-legged waders, and the little sand-pipers. All these follow the
water courses, the Mississippi and its tributaries being their principal
highways.
The ground birds usually follow the prairie countries, though the
clearing away of forests has induced them to frequent eastern Indiana
and Ohio in recent years. But the western prairie states are their
acknowledged summer homes, from whence they gather in companies when
autumn comes and, like their fellows, flee to a warmer clime till their
favorite dunes and marshes are again habitable.
Claudia May Ferrin.