File:Our search for a wilderness; an account of two ornithological expeditions to Venezuela and to British Guiana (1910) (14566062017).jpg

Identifier: oursearchforwild00nile (find matches)
Title: Our search for a wilderness; an account of two ornithological expeditions to Venezuela and to British Guiana
Year: 1910 (1910s)
Authors: Niles, Blair Beebe, William, 1877-1962
Subjects: Natural history Birds
Publisher: New York, H. Holt and company

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was an almostunbroken wave of birds, flying upward and backward.From this mass of life, giving forth a medley of shrill whistleswhich soon deepened into a perfect roar of wings, single linesof ducks detached themselves, shooting out in all directions,passing up and across the river, or right and left out over thesavanna. They were Gray-necked Tree-ducks 45 with a plen-tiful scattering of the Rufous44 and a very few White-faced.46The great curving wave never ceased for a moment as weapproached, but widened and thickened and wheeled overand behind us until the sky was pitted with their bodies.T took picture after picture with my Graflex, the groundglass reflecting a myriad of swiftly moving forms. Then the Ducks which had first arisen, having flown in agreat circle over the savanna, relurned, and intersecting thenewly arisen host, formed a criscrossing maze which carpetedthe heavens with a close warp and woof of living birds. Evenin Mexico, where we had watched the vast flocks of Ducks
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THE LIFE OF THE ABARY SAVANNAS. 357 and Geese on Lake Chapala, there was nothing to equalthis. The Ducks looked dark against the sunlight butwhenever they veered, the white wing-bands flashed likemirrors. We counted the birds in one short line near us and foundthere were four hundred and twenty individuals. No onecould count those in even one of the flocks but there musthave been at least twenty thousand in the first phalanx weencountered. As we passed on, many hundreds settled again on theirfeeding grounds, where nothing was visible of them save amyriad heads and necks, stretched high and watching uscuriously. As many others however flew far away, the densematted flocks fraying out into long single or double lines,some of which must have been a half mile in length. In this region these birds are Tree-ducks only in name, aslater in the year hundreds of eggs will be found scattered overthe savanna, and sooner or later the flocks will dissolve intopairs, each to nest on some low hummock

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