1890
March 12
Banana Creek, Florida 1890.
Clear and warm, wind E. to S.E.
  Off with Cory at 8 a.m. on horseback going
up the beach. I stopped at the first pond
while C. went a mile further to Bald Pate Pond.
He bagged two Shovelers and a number of Yellow-legs
& Stilt Sandpipers but I had only one shot at
a fine adult [male] Mergus serrator which alighted in
the pond close to the bank just as we were
approaching the boat. I walked down to the water
and found the bird swimming directly under the
side of the boat. It rose and I knocked it
down dead. It had an ugly wound in the
side of the head apparently made by a fish as
a large piece of skin seemed to have been bitten
out.
  There were eight or ten Shovelers near the
place where I put out my decoys but although
I sat in my stand several hours neither
they nor any other Ducks came near me.
Occasionally a Royal Tern or a Louisiana Heron
passed over or near me and Kingfishers
were busily fishing about me. There was a
Maryland Yellow-throat in the mangroves on
my island and on the opposite shore several
Boat-tailed Grackles were rasping thin "corn stalk
fiddles". This was practically all the bird life
about this pond.
  About noon I became discouraged and
taking up the decoys started for home.
The ride back along the beach was wholly 
uneventful. I saw almost nothing except
a Bonaparte Gull lying on the beach in