1890
March 9
[Banana Creek, Florida]
finally gave up the chase.
  Off my stand a number of Widgeon and
Gadwal collected and went to "pipping up".
Among them was a Red-head, a fine [male]
whose chestnut head & neck glistened in the
sunlight. He also tipped up like the rest &
some Scaups were doing the same thing. There
was also a small bed of Coots, perhaps 5000,
a solid black mass dotted with immeasurable
white points (their bills) with flashes of snowy
spray rising at a hundred different places at
once as they splashed the water over their backs.
  I left this place about noon and drifted
down Banana Creek for a mile firing six
or eight shots at high flying Scaups & missing
them all. Saw several Duck Hawks. One passed
me down wind in pursuit of a Scaup. The
latter was going at frightful speed its wings
making a loud [hustling?] but the Falco*[Falcon] went two
yards to its one, overtook it with the utmost
ease then turning slightly to one side, shot
past it within a few inches, apparently, and 
with a sharp wheel soared straight upward
fifty feet above it and let is pass on. It 
was decidedly the finest exhibition of flight
that I have ever seen. The Hawk evidently did
not want the Duck & chased it merely for sport.
I next made a stand of eel grass on a point
where two birds a Blue winged Teal & a Lesser
Scaup came to my decoys. I killed them both
in two shots. Coming home up the bay saw
a Loon. Water very low but no waders except 
four "Peeps" seen to-day.