1887
Aug. 14
Concord, Massachusetts.
Clear and cool. Nearly dead calm all day.
  In the afternoon paddled to Fairhaven taking
tea there and returning after dark.
  Within the past week the singing of birds has
almost wholly ceased. No species can be said
to sing regularly now except the Song Sparrow
which closes as well as opens the singing season.
I heard perhaps a loon to-day. I also heard 
an Oriole, a Meadow Lark, and a Bluebird.
A week ago Towhees, Field Sparrows, Robins and 
Yellow Warblers were singing regularly and Red-eyes
quite as steadily as in June.
  August is the month of the Wood Pewee. For the 
past week the woods have been alive with them.
I heard a loon or more yesterday and five or
six to-day. It is singular where they all come
from.
  As I was sailing down river in the twilight,
or rather drifting before a barely perceptible air,
two Whippoorwills began singing on the hill just
south of Dugan's Brook. The song is very [?];
only five or six repetitions of the notes & then a 
long interval of silence. They sang for only eight
or ten minutes in all, then became silent for the
rest of the night, probably. At this same point
I heard many times a single sharp penetrating
cry which I think was the same as that made
by an Owl on Cambridge River, Me., last autumn
& which I also think is the cry of the Long-eared
Owl. The bird  seemed to be in a large solitary
swamp oak on the meadow.
  After it became dark I startled many larger