1887
April 12
Concord, Massachusetts.
  To Concord with Chadbourne by 8 a.m. train.
  Taking my Rushton we were soon on our way
down river. Morning perfect, cloudless, dead calm, with
now & then a puff of east wind to temper
the warm sunshine. Swallows playing about the Martin box at the
Manse and a pair around the white maples on the
meadows. Further (only a few, all picta) showing their
heads & one basking on a floating board. The snoring
cry of Rana halecina coming up from the meadows.
Red-wings singing on the maple tops now thick with
blossoms, Song Sparrows singing in the distance.
Near Ball's Hill shot five Red-wings, two Phebees & a
Kinglet (R. calendula). Shot at a kingfisher in the oak
at the landing and missed but afterwards killed him
(or her) at the next hill below.
  Still further down heard a curious cry repeated at
frequent intervals, a low yet penetrating cuck or cuck-cuck
uttered in a purring tone. At first I took it for the call
of a muskrat which It resembled closely but shortly
afterwards we saw a small Hawk fly from an oak and
alight in the top of a pine on the hill where I saw the
Gos-hawks last summer. It was evidently the author of
the cry which it repeated a few times before scaling off
over the woods.
  Paddling noiselessly inshore we entered a narrow channel
and came out into a sheltered lagoon separated from the
river by a small island. We were skirting the margin
next to the mainland when in an oak on the hillside above
I spied a Cooper's Hawk sitting erect & still on a dead prong.
The next moment I fired bringing it down with a broken