OCTOBER

THE TENTH MONTH • 2021 OCTOBER HATH 31 DAYS

One star is trembling into sight, And soft as sleep the darkness falls. –W. M., Chambers's Journal

Farmer's Calendar

The summer birds are gone. The last robin, bluebird, swallow have surreptitiously decamped. In the spring, they arrive in big, noisy flights full of greeting, but when they turn south, they go by ones and twos. According to the migration maps, the robin favors Florida in winter, the tree swallow Cuba and the Caribbean. It took a long time to figure that out. The annual disappearance of the common birds of passage remained a mystery longer than seems necessary. For most of history, the best scientists of their times believed that birds hibernated. Not until the 19th century was it known that the same species returned to the same winter ranges year after year.

I have always thought it strange that the solution to the mystery of migration, in its main outlines, should have taken centuries to find. After all, the robins, the warblers, and the rest aren't hiding out down there. They're easy to spot. And, since the Renaissance, navigators and other travelers have frequented the tropics of both hemispheres where migratory birds winter. Those old, bold navigators weren't paying attention, I guess.