1890
July 19
Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts
visit Great South Pond.
Clear and warm with a very heavy thunder shower early
in the afternoon. Wind S. W. to N. W. blowing strong at times.
  Our rest during the night was more or less broken by
the outrageous noise made by the Night Herons which were
all around us fishing in the shallow water along
the edges of the pond for the most part unsure in the
darkness but occasionally visible against the star-lit heavens
as they flapped their way low over our camp. On rising
early in the morning we found them still engaged in
fishing an occupation which they apparently prosecuted
at all hours of the day & night for many were
still thus employed when we left this place at 11 a.m.
I had a fine opportunity to watch some of them
at close quarters - in a herring ditch which connected
the large with the smaller pond. Creeping to the edge
of the bank I lay for an hour or more looking
directly down on a dozen or more Herons which
were posted along the water's edge within 8 to 20 yds
of me. All but two or three were young birds of this year.
  Early in the morning we saw a Greater Yellow-leg
standing on a sand bar in the pond and Least
Flycatchers in small flocks were continually flitting
about. At sunrise Towhees & Maryland Yellow-throats
sang in the oak scrub near our camping place.
We found the fresh track of a fox which had
passed my canoe within 6 or 8 ft during the night.
  We were about to start out on the pond when
a shower drove us to shelter in a gunner's shanty.
There was a Barn Swallow's nest which the
young had just left on a rafter in this house.
The birds must have entered through one or other