REFLECTION
DONALD PEATTIE AND THE POWER OF NATURE IN SPRING

The following reflection is a passage (p. 23) from An Almanac for Moderns: A Daybook of Nature (Non Pareil Books 1935) by Donald Culross Peattie. A good book for anyone’s bookshelf, it contains short reflections on nature for every day of the year.

After The long spell of bad weather the birds, who were banked up, I fancy, somewhere in the Carolinas, are coming through in a torrent. There are so many that I can keep but the most delirious count of them. My records are carried away in fluttering confusion, like a wind gauge in a hurricane. Every time I approach the marsh I hear the warning cries of the herons. . . .

I have simply lost all account of the order of arrival of the sparrow tribe, of the swallows, vireos and warblers and wrens. There is no order; they all seemed to come on the same day, and continue to arrive in increasing numbers every day.

Now is the moment when the novice at bird-gazing needs a friend. Flowers are best identified, if one is a neophyte, by one’s self. The mere exercise of tracking them to their names will fix them in the memory. But with the birds, a guide, a friend by the side, to point out what you ought to have seen, to pass you the binoculars and whisper eagerly in your ear, is worth a shelf of books.

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