Richmond dispatch. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1884-1903, 1885-07-26
A STORM OF BIRDS.

A STORM OF BIRDS.
"You can hardly imagine such a
sight" said the lighthouse keeper.
~ remember one night late in Sep
TENDER there was what we call a dry
fog, the kind that CLEANS and looks
bright sometimes without a light
| went out on the walk around
the light, thinking | heard a curious
noise, and the minute | got out |
tell you was taken back. There
were thousands of birds, | should
say, dartiDg about in the lumi-
nous fog, with the light dancing
on their backs and wings, so it re-
minded me of insects about lamp. The
roar Of their wings and their cries was
such that you couldn't hear yourself
speak or even think, and hung on to
the rail almost crazy from the uproar.
But came to mighty quick, ] can tell
you, for the first thing | knew got a
knock on the head, a bird taking me
right side Of the neck; then, as
turned another struck me in the back g.,
and | don't doubt but that I'd have
been fairly bombarded of if hadn't
got in. The birds kept it up all
! night, and in the morning We counted
over six hundred dead at the foot of the
lighthouse. They were Of all kinds
sparrows, hawks, robins, and mostly
duck and snipe, birds that travelled
along the shore going south. You see.
they had seen the light, and, getting
confused. ran right into it. One night
we were sitting at dinner when the first
thing we knew the window went with a
crash, and some big thing came whiz-
zmg and sprawling across the table,
hitting my man fairly in the chest and
knocking him clean out Of his chair. 1t
was a duck that had seen the light and
came a-pounding through the window,
dropping dead on the table.
Wrecks sometimes come in, but 1t
amt often if the light is kept up. In
one light was We got shut up M agale
Of wind and had to stand right by the
light to keep it a-going; but out it
finally went; something got wrong
with the machinery. After awhile We
thought we heard a yell, and going
down, we managed to get out,
and there was a brig hard and
fast, with her bowsprt sticking a
good ten foot over the rocks, and on it
the crew came ashore, Just like bridge,
not one Of 'em getting lost. 1t WASN'T
our fault, as they couldn't have seen
the light anyway. the sea was breaking
about the house SO, and there was such
a black fog running. Before the Boon
Island light was built Q crew came
ashore there and starved to death right
in sight Of land
IN DENMARK.
The congregation Of birds about
lighthouses is nowhere 80 strangely
illustrated as at Heligolsnd, off the
coast at Denmark. This bleak anC
barren rock lies in one Of the gres
lanes Of bird migration, aud in thu
spring and autumn the island appears
to be fairly alive with birds. A
night they present a marvellous spec
tacle. sweeping about the light il
great clouds, whirling, curving, rising
up a. they approach the glass, OF
again, in seeming bewildsrment, dash
ing fairly at it, and falling by hun
dreds dead and dying to the ground
Thousands Of birds are killed in Thu
way during these seasons. Flocks o
all kinds are continually slighting t.
rest, rising again to continue the jour
ney, their places being taken by others
so that the spot is sort of bird hall
way house between the north and tn
south. :.
The fact that even the young, deli
cate birds fly over great bodies of waite
is borne out by many observations
The writer has seen hundreds OF tn
| uost land hirda aliOht IN the az