On a still,
sunny day in winter, you may see them high in the air over the river,
calmly soaring in wide circles, a hundred perhaps at a time, or
pluming themselves leisurely on the edge of a hole in the ice. When
the wind is violent from the west, they come in over the city from the
bay outside, strong-winged and undaunted, breasting the gale, now
high, now low, but always working to windward, until they reach the
shelter of the inland waters.
In the spring they come in greater numbers, and other species arrive:
the great saddle-back, from the similarity of coloring almost to be
mistaken for the white-headed eagle, as he sits among the broken ice
at the edge of the channel; and the beautiful little Bonaparte's gull.
The ducks, too, still resort to our rivermouth, in spite of the
railroads and the tall chimneys by which their old feeding-grounds are
surrounded. As long as the channel is open, you may see the
golden-eyes, or "whistlers," in extended lines, visible only as a row
of bright specks, as their white breasts rise and fall on the waves;
and farther than you can see them, you may hear the whistle of their
wings as they rise.
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