Bird Behavior Quotes

Say, will the falcon, stooping from above, Smit with her varying plumage, spare the dove? Admires the jay the insect's gilded wings? Or hears the hawk when Philomela sings?

When the eagles are silent, the parrots begin to jabber.

One little bird not larger than a sparrow, it may have been a Phalarope, would alight on the turbulent surface where the breakers were five or six feet high, and float buoyantly there like a duck, cunningly taking to its wings and lifting itself a few feet through the air over the foaming crest of each breaker, but sometimes outriding safely a considerable billow which hid it some seconds, when its instinct told it that it would not break. It was a little creature thus to sport with the ocean, but it was as perfect a success in its way as the breakers in theirs.

Wisdom teaches us that none but birds should go out early, and that not even birds should do it unless they are out of worms.

Birds make great sky-circles of their freedom. How do they learn it? They fall and falling, they're given wings.

The idea of the nest in the bird's mind, where does it come from?

There is an ecstatic mechanism in birds that makes them fly upwards in spite of worms.

As I said in my last book, birds are mean. They're the only pet that, when they escape, the owners are relieved. You can tell a species is evil by doing this simple math. If my blond lab Molly was the size of T-Rex, that would just mean more kibble, more work for the gardener in the backyard, and a harder time moving her to my wife's side of the bed at night. If birds were the size of a T-Rex, the streets would be littered with human remains.

If I associate with chickens, I will learn to scratch at the ground and squabble over crumbs. If I associate with eagles, I will learn to soar to great heights.

The way a crow Shook down on me The dust of snow From a hemlock tree Has given my heart A change of mood And saved some part Of a day I had rued.

I had no more alphabet than the journeying of the swallows, the pure and tiny water of the small, fiery bird that dances rising from the pollen.

I saw a seagull hanging out by a lake, but I said, "Don't worry, Dude. I won't say anything."

Sometimes goldfinches one by one will drop From low hung branches; little space they stop; But sip, and twitter, and their feathers sleek; Then off at once, as in a wanton freak: Or perhaps, to show their black, and golden wings Pausing upon their yellow flutterings.

Right now the day length is exactly the same as in spring when birds key into it and begin singing. The birds are a little confused by it all and the singing isn't very intense. It only lasts a week or so each fall, but it's still cool to hear spring bird songs at this time of the year.

I am no more lonely than the loon on the pond that laughs so loud.

I never for a day gave up listening to the songs of our birds, or watching their peculiar habits, or delineating them in the best way I could.

It wasn't for nothing that the raven was just now croaking on my left hand.

Birds always seem like they're swooping down on you.

The jackdaw, stript of her stolen colours, provokes our laughter.

Whoever invented the word 'grace' must have seen the wing-folding of the plover.

By going and coming, a bird weaves its nest.

There's an unseen force which lets birds know when you've just washed your car.

Sharp is the kiss of the falcon's beak.

A Mocking Bird regularly resorts to the south angle of a chimney top and salutes us with sweetest notes from the rising of the moon until about midnight.