The Bird Study BookPearson, T. Gilbert (Thomas Gilbert)
Science
The Bird Study Book
Pearson, T. Gilbert (Thomas Gilbert)
Birds; Birds -- Conservation
[Illustration: Lighthouses Cause the Death of Many Birds]
During the spring it is not uncommon for strange waterfowl to be found
helpless in the streets or fields of a region in which they are
ordinarily unknown. These birds have become exhausted during the storm
of the night before, or have been injured by striking telephone or
telegraph wires, an accident which often happens. Once I picked up a
Loon after a stormy night. Apparently it had recovered its strength
after a few hours' rest, but, as this bird can rise on the wing only
from a body of water, over the surface of which it can paddle and flap
for many rods, and as {78} there was no pond or lake in all the
neighbouring country, the Loon's fate was evident from the first.
Birds are often swept to sea by storm winds from off shore. Vainly
they beat against the gale or fly on quivering wings before its blast,
until the hungry waves swallow their weary bodies. One morning in
northern Lake Michigan I found a Connecticut Warbler lying dead on the
deck beneath my stateroom window after a stormy night of wind and rain.
Overtaken many miles from shore, this little waif had been able to
reach the steamer on the deck of which it had fallen exhausted and
died. What of its companions of the night before?
On May 3, 1915, I was on a ship two hundred miles off Brunswick,
Georgia. That day the following birds came aboard, all in an exhausted
condition: Brown Creeper, Spotted Sandpiper, Green Heron, and
Yellow-billed Cuckoo. We also encountered three flocks of Bobolinks,
which for some distance flew beside the ship. They appeared to be
lost, for they all left us finally, flying straight ahead of the ship,
{79} which was bound South, yet birds were supposed to be going North
at this season. I wonder if in their bewilderment they mistook the
ship for some immense bird pointing the way to land and safety!
[Illustration: Tired Migrating Birds Often Alight on Ships]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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