April 30th 1889
Concord Massachusetts
Clear and cold with high N. W. wind.
  To Concord with Spelman by 8 A. M. train returning at
6.40 P.M. We spent the day on the river going as far up as
Fairhaven Bay.
  The weather was so unfavorable that the birds sang but little
and probably spent the day in sheltered places. At least
we saw and heard but very few. As we passed the 
Hoar garden several Grackles were flying about among
the trees and Robins hopping over the lawns. Just below the
new granite bridge we heard a Least Flycatcher. Above the
railroad (Fitchburg) bridge a Meadow Lark was whistling and
on the French farm I heard another. In the Dugan Brook
meadow a [female] Marsh Hawk was beating about. Above
Nine Acre bridge where we landed to take a photograph a
Quail was whistling "Bob-white" at regular intervals. Doubtless
it was one of the bevy that Chadbourne and I found there
last October. I do not remember to have heard the Bob-white
calls o early in the season before.
[margin]Quail calling
"Bob-white"[/margin]
  We landed next at the tall pines opposite the Cliffs. As
we approached them a Red-tailed Hawk appeared and
alighted in a maple. We looked carefully for its nest but
in vain. There were several birds in these pines, a Parula
(which I shot) two Pine Warblers and a Minotilla, all in full
song, and a Sitta canadensis whining. Spelman shot one
of the Pine Warblers for me. As we were eating lunch in
the wood path that traverses these woods we heard what
I took to be an Osprey whistling although the notes were
coarser and less shrill. Rushing down to the meadow I saw
a pair of Red-tails high in air over the Cliffs the [female]
soaring in circles, the [male] about 20 feet above her, poising; his
wings beating rapidly but with a loose butterfly like
motion. The next instant he swooped down past her, when
[margin]Parula[/margin]
[margin]Sitta canadensis[/margin]
[margin]Buteo borealis[/margin]