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Blue-jays loiter down the old road, making short flights from tree to
tree, moving in the one plane and with slowly beating wings; only
rarely do they fold their wings and dip. Redheads and flickers, like
the other woodpeckers, have a slightly dipping flight. They open and
close their wings in quick succession, not slowly like the
goldfinches; consequently their dips are not so pronounced. The line
of their flight is a ripple rather than a billow.
Chickadee and his family come chattering through the pasture. They had
a felt-lined nest in a fence-post during the warm days of June; now
they find life easy and sweet--sweet as the two notes mingled with
their chatter. Upside down they cling to the swaying twigs, romping,
disheveled bird-children, full of fun and song-talk. It is nothing to
them that the cruel winds and deep snows of winter will be here all
too soon. Summer days are long and joyous, life stretches out before
them; why waste its hours with frets and fears about the future?
Another round of merry chatter and away they flit. Scarcely have they
gone until a blood-red streak shoots down from the elm tree to the
grass. It is the scarlet tanager. For the last half-hour his loud
notes, tied together in twos, have been ringing from an ash tree in
the pasture, near the spreading oak where the mother sat so closely
during June.
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