the river islands.

* * * * *

Daintily flitting from one branch to another, the redstart weaves
threads of reddish gold and black, like strands of night and noon,
among the old trees. He has wandered over through the woods from the
creek, where his mate built a cup-like nest in a crotch toward the top
of a slender white oak. Busy always, he stays but a few moments and
then passes on as silently as a July zephyr. The halting voice of the
preacher, the red-eyed vireo, comes out of the thicket; then, from an
oak overhead, where a little twig is trembling, the softer voice of
the warbling vireo queries: "Can't you see it's best to sing and work
like me?", with the emphasis on the "me."

Blue-jays loiter down the old road, making short flights from tree to
tree, moving in the one plane and with slowly beating wings; only
rarely do they fold their wings and dip. Redheads and flickers, like
the other woodpeckers, have a slightly dipping flight. They open and
close their wings in quick succession, not slowly like the
goldfinches; consequently their dips are not so pronounced. The line
of their flight is a ripple rather than a billow.

Chickadee and his family come chattering through the pasture. They had
a felt-lined nest in a fence-post during the warm days of June; now
they find life easy and sweet--sweet as the two notes mingled with
their chatter. Upside down they cling to the swaying twigs, romping,
disheveled bird-children, full of fun and song-talk. It is nothing to
them that the cruel winds and deep snows of winter will be here all
too soon. Summer days are long and joyous, life stretches out before