Two passages describe the passing of birds, one by John James Audubon and the other by Annie Dillard. These two authors, though they have similarities, describe the birds unlike one another. These similarities and differences include the descriptions of the flocks and the language used by the two authors. The physical descriptions of the flocks of birds differ between the authors, but also compare similarly. Both Audubon and Dillard describe the flocks as a sort of ordered chaos with “apparent random.” However, Audubon describes the flocks as a whole, as he tried to “count the flocks that might pass . . . in one hour.” This gives the reader an effect of overwhelming numbers, and shows the “immense legions” of birds the narrator was seeing.
