[male] [female] Pheasants on wing. Concord
Ther [Thermometer] Friday, May 4, 1917 Wea [Weather]
Extreme scarcity bird life Perfect.
  First altogether fine day since Apr. 25 [April 25, 1917].
a rarely perfect one, cloudless, windless
comfortably warm. But clouds began to
gather & a chill easterly wind rose in late P.M.
  First noted. Towhee [male in full song] front of house &
near hen yard searching among dry leaves. with
half a dozen or more Peabody birds. Latter
singing freely all day. Not many other 
birds at Farm save Juncos - 20 or more -
and very little singing. Flickers wholly
silent but one seen on lawn. Only
two or three Robins. 3 Tree Swallows. House
Wren singing a little near box.
  At Ball's Hill (2-3 P.M.) dead silence.
Not a single Red-wing [Red-winged Blackbird] or Song Sparrow even
seen or heard. 2 Yellow rumps [Yellow-rumped Warblers] near cabin.
Sharp-shin Hawk [Sharp-shinned Hawk] & [male and female] Bluebirds near Bensen's.
A winter afternoon no more birdless than this.
  At 11 A.M. a [female] Pheasant followed by a cock
flew low over our flower garden at amazing
speed making a strident whistling sound
of wings, as they passed over us.
  Working all day with Brown & his men.
In forenoon we transplanted fruit trees &
flowering plants at Farm. In P.M. we got
22 hemlocks & 8 laurels at Ball's Hill &
set them out in Birch Field.
Concord. Evening Grosbeak, Amorous Creepers.
Bittern in Berry Pasture
Ther [Thermometer] Saturday, May 5, 1917 Wea [Weather]
40 [degrees] Stormy.
  Heavy N.E. [northeast] storm with cold, violent wind,
incessant rain, much sleet & some snow flakes.
  Never before so far as I can remember have birds
of all kinds seemed so very scarce & silent at this
season as they were to-day. Only one - a Song
Sparrow - sang within my hearing. Near the
house I saw one Robin, a Chickadee & 6
Juncos besides a few Crows; in woodland,
during two long walks, 4 Chickadees, 2 Brown
Creepers, 5 Yellow Palm Warblers. These were
literally all, noted all day, except a Bittern
started from the brook in Berry Pasture (just
below pond) where I have never known one
to occur before, & an unseen Evening Grosbeak
heard near north end of Green Field.
The Creepers, evidently a mated pair, slowly climbed
the trunk of a large white pine (Lawrence's woods)
keeping close together, fluttering their wings loosely
like big moths, one or both uttering incessantly
a shrill, wiry Tee ing which I thought at first
must have come from a Cedar bird. This I took to 
be a courtship performance - quite new to me,
  I heard the Grosbeak, very plainly, a dozen
times or more but failed to catch sight of it.
It seemed to be flying westward. It uttered
both the House Sparrow-like call & the double
pee-peer Pinicola-like whistles.
  Timmy & I had two grand long walks
despite the simply atrocious weather. We
went to Green Field & Lawrence's woods in
forenoon (10.30-12); to Birch Field,
Ritchie place & Berry Pasture in P.M. (5-6)                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    