At this year's festival, which took place Sept. 20, the weather was bright and sunny, and around 8 o'clock that morning, a flock of Canada geese sailed over the park, honking as if to herald the opening of the festivities, which included canoe rides, bird-banding demonstrations, bird walks, butterfly walks and, of course, the biggest attraction: the migration.
On a frigid morning in January, a flock of about 60 geese and a companion flock of gulls occupied Clifton Memorial Park and the adjacent high school ball field.
When he wakes up every morning is there a flock of magical doves circling above his bed.
A frosty morning hike led us past a flock of sheep, the neighboring dairy farm, a roadside apiary and beyond.
In the early hours of the morning - following an attack on a flock of sheep and goats - furious villagers, armed with traditional weapons and using vehicles to herd the marauding lions together, made a distress call to Kenya Wildlife Service and held the lions at bay until rangers arrived.
As dawn first colored the sky, a flock of white pelicans, their wings hissing in the still morning air, eased into the backwater.
They slip out of the woods in the middle pasture, a flock of 20-some birds almost every morning.
Mr. Gifford said when he drives his to a local dairy bar on Sunday mornings, "people flock around to see what it is".
Crowded with cycle rickshaws in the early-morning light, the squawking of their horns sounding to his ears like a flock of agitated geese.
But on the morning of 15 January 2009, 100 seconds after we took off from New York's La Guardia airport, I saw a flock of large birds approaching the plane I was flying and realised we were going to collide with them.
