avian navigation Quotes

I had no more alphabet than the journeying of the swallows, the pure and tiny water of the small, fiery bird that dances rising from the pollen.

Two birds fly past. They are needed somewhere.

Whither away, Bluebird, Whither away? The blast is chill, yet in the upper sky Thou still canst find the color of thy wing, The hue of May. Warbler, why speed, thy southern flight? ah, why, Thou, too, whose song first told us of the Spring? Whither away?

...as the day wore on I watched the birds all flying in one direction, and said, Land lies there.

How do the geese know when to fly to the sun?

The birds fly in the wrong places and there are too many stars in the sky.

To write honestly and with conviction anything about the migration of birds, one should oneself have migrated. Somehow or other we should dehumanize ourselves, feel the feel of feathers on our body and wind in our wings, and finally know what it is to leave abundance and safety and daylight and yield to a compelling instinct, age-old, seeming at the time quite devoid of reason and object.

I believe that for his escape he took advantage of the migration of a flock of wild birds.

Coming, going, the waterbirds, don't leave a trace, don't follow a path.