14,4 Bird - Lore
park. They read: "It is estimated that not less than two inches of water fell in that vicinity during the fifteen minutes, while three inches would not be considered an extravagant estimate. The hailstones ranged in size from one-fourth to one and one—fourth inches in diameter, and were generally almost spherical. A gusty wind accompanied the hail and rain, and a velocity of forty-eight miles per hour prevailed from 9:13 P. M. to 9:24 9.31., with an extreme one-mile velocity of sixty miles at 9:20 P. M.” There can be no doubt that the hailstones ranged larger in certain areas than one and one—fourth inches; of that I assured myself at the time.
Loring Park is a spot favored by our summer resident birds, and great numbers of Bluejays, Robins, Bronzed Grackles, four or five species of - Woodpeckers, and hosts of smaller birds more arboreal in habit—especially of the Vireo and Flycatcher families—are always to be seen here in the summer. Strange to say, a nest in this entire area of thirty or forty acres is a rarity; last year there was one—a Robin‘s; this year not one was built in the park. It is distinctively, then, a day feeding- and play— ground for the birds, but to few species a roosting place. It is due to these facts that so many species so frequently seen in the park in daytime were not to be found among the dead, mutilated and maimed birds on the day following the storm.
My interest in the bird life of this little beauty spot led me to make an early reconnaissance on the following morning. It was an unpleasant sight to behold old and familiar trees robbed of their protecting limbs and often uprooted, but, saddest of all, the park was a veritable avian graveyard. At the very entrance I picked up a Red-eyed Vireo, which had been knocked from the trees by the merciless hail and drowned in the torrents beneath. There were in evidence many others, yet the small and dull»colored birds were difiicult to find, many being washed away into the lake near the center of the park or into the street mains, or lost in the accumulated debris of leaves, sticks and sand. In a few steps I picked up a score of Robins and Bluejays, and thus it was all over certain areas of the park. The Robins and Jays were of the few roosting species and suffered proportionately, constituting most of the dead birds found. The Bronzed Grackles, so numerous in daytime, were not to be found among the dead, indicating that they did not roost at all in the park. This was also true of many other species common in the locality. I had for days previous noticed a number of Black and White Creeping and Yellow-rumped Warblers in the park, but found none on the ground or among the debris; yet they could have been easily overlooked, for no doubt many hundreds of smaller birds found death or injury in the path of the storm, and could not be found for this reason. Many of the large birds were on this account found simply by accident—by a head, a wing or tail projecting from a pile of rubbish.
