1890
June 6
Cambridge, Massachusetts.
There were two Marsh Wrens singing in the cat-tails as usual
one of them giving his peculiar wit-wit-wit-wit-wit addition
with great effect & very frequently.
Green Herons flying about as on yesterday. A single Wood Duck also.
  At 4 P.M. we left the Pout Pond swamp at 4 P.M. *[repeated text]
and crossed to the big meadow south of the Central where we
beat the extension belt of cat tails rather superficially. Scarcely
had we entered there when a [male] Least Bittern rose about
20 yds. ahead and after flying some 60 yds dropped into
the flags again. Near where he started I found a nest which
had evidently been made by a Least Bittern but which apparently
was a last year's one. It was scarcely half the size of the
Pout Pond one and was composed wholly of flags and placed
only 8 or 10 inches above the water in an open situated
among short, sparse cat tails. It first caught my eye at 
fully 20 yds. distance.
  Faxon left me here and I went on alone taking a
beautiful set of 5 eggs with the nest (also a beauty) of the
Red-winged Blackbird and fining another Gallinule's nest 
perfectly new but empty, water-soaked, and, I fear, abandoned.
It was in the middle of a dense bed of tall cat-tails & was
supported by thin broken down stems as well, perhaps, as by its
own buoyancy for it seemed to be floating on the water. I 
did not go very near it & dared not examine it closely.
In a willow by Alewife Brook a Wood Pewee, the only one I
have seen in the swamps this year, was uttering its
mournful note. Very few Swamp Sparrows seen & only three heard.
  Next crossed the Fitchburg and secured the nest of the Carolina
Rail found on the 24th with 12 eggs. taking tussock & all, a hard
and tedious job. The young Swamp Sparrows in the nest near this
Rail's were fully feathered & sprang from the nest as I touched them.
I took & killed two. Passed through the Maple Swamp out. Two
Yellow-billed cuckoos & a Vireo flavifrons the only birds singing then.