WHEN we hitd the snow I looked for the redwings,
but for some reason 1 did not see any. In other years I have always noted them, but seeing none this time, I wondered why they had not been driven in our direction. I might have recorded their absence as a fact had I not disturbed some leaves by the cottage wall and come upon a dead bird. It was a redwing. Whenever there is a cold spell and snow comes, the redwings seem to die in large numbers. One finds them under laurel bushes, sheltering beneath holly or crowding in privet. This poor bird had evidently chosen the lee Of the wall where a few leaves had been blown and trapped. I looked about but could find no more dead birds. It made me think about my powers of observation. If one redwing died, there surely must have been a flock and perhaps several flocks among the shrubs and up along the side of the wood. It was not as though I had not kept an eye open for them, and yet they had come and had gone again without my knowing. It was almost like a summer without swallows. The redwing will not be back in my locality for long months and I can only record that they were here this winter and 'I failed to see them.
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