Connecticut western news., 1885-08-26
STORMED BY THE BIRDS.
A Lighthouse Keeper of Maine
 Gives His Experience.
The Tower Bombarded with Birds at Night
 and Hundreds Found Dead,

Soo anu ucdE cuTlOuS things ana as TOT monotony it's enough to drive one mad, and has done so in some cases. Married men fare better, as when wo- men and children are around it isn't quite so lonesome; but it's bad enough. My station for number of years was rock about 200 feet long and 100 feet wide, and in a gale of wind the house stood right in the water, with the seas rolling all round. Yes, it was shaky.
 "one night" continued the speaker, '1 remember some fishermen got blowed off shore and came in there, and what night it was About mid night some one sings out, The lamps out And so it was. Up we rushed, half a dozen of us, scared to death, as ten minutes might cost good many lives and a vessel could come within twenty foot of our house before she struck. By the time we got up we found the place full of smoke and see something had fouled the chimney, and what dye suppose it was You'd never guess. It was blow ing fit to take the buttons right off your coat; but some one had to go out side and climb up the rod on the very top of the light and see what was the trouble. It was a close call and we tossed for 1t My mate drew and started. We tied a rope around him and up he went and did the job. He came back alive, but with the whitest face ever see on a live man. He said he wouldn't do it again for love or money.
 "But what dye suppose he found in the chimney, stuck fast? Nothing more nor less than one of these 'ere Mother Carey's chickens, jammed in as tight as 1t could get, and dead, of course We get regularly pelted with birds in the light, and that Is the req son the glass is made so thick, as al- most every night one or two birds hit against it. Sometimes in the spring and fall hundreds of 'em will strike in the course of a night. You see at this time the birds are migrating and flying off shore along the coast and on foggy nights they only see the blaze of the light. They make break for it and down they go, and in the morn- ing the rail, iron and glass will be all blood and feathers.
 "You can hardly imagine such a sight" said the lighthouse keeper. "I remember one night late in September there was what we call dry fog, the kind that gleams and looks bright sometimes without a light I went out on the walk around the light, thinking I heard curious noise, and the minute got out tell you I was taken back. There were thousands of birds, I should say, darting about in the luminous fog, with light dancing on their backs and wings, so it re- minded me of insects about a lamp. The roar of their wings and their cries was such that you couldn't hear your self speak, and I hung on to the rail almost crazy from the uproar. But I came to mighty quick, I tell you, for the first thing knew got knock on the head, a bird taking me right side of the neck; then, as I turned, another struck me in, the back, and I don't doubt but that I'd have been fairly bombarded off if hadn't got in. The birds kept it up all night, and in the morning we counted over 600 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 sit- ting at dinner, when the first thing we knew the window went with a crash, and some big thing came whiz- zing and sprawling across the table, hitting my man fairly in the chest and knocking him clean out of his chair. It was duck that had seen the light and came a-pounding through the window, dropping dead on the table.
 "Wrecks sometimes come in, but it ain't often if the light is kept up. In one light was we got shut up in a gale 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 a while we thought we heard yell, and going down we managed to get out and there was brig hard and fast. with her bowsprit sticking a good ten foot over the rocks, and on it the crew came ashore, jest like a bridge, not one of 'em getting lost. It wasn't our fault, as they couldn't have seen the light anyway, the sea was break ing about the house so, and there was such black fog running. Before the Boon Island Light was built a crew came ashore there and starved to death right in sight of land"