SUMMMER FLOCKS. * * * * We are accustomed to
taking great congregations of birds as one of the standard signs of autumn. Recently more than one observer has been astonished to see birds flocking in the spring. One correspondent, who reports big flocks of golden plover in Sutherlandshire, says this is normal, but wonders at the cause. Do these consist of immature cocks or of older barren and unmated birds ? Now the golden plover, very numerous last winter even in the home counties, is one of the few birds that is a resident, a summer visitor and a winter visitor—all three ; but it is chiefly a winter migrant, the greater companies coming over at various dates from late August .to November. .They are, I think, the last birds to leave us. Migrants certainly depart in huge flocks in March. But this fact would hardly account for the large Sutherland congregations seen in early summer.
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