1891
April 14
no 2.
Early morning on Payson Place
Mass. 
Belmont) oak and hickory grove and two Palm Warblers 
(D. hypochrysea)) chirping in the tree tops. the chorus 
of Robins swelled up on every side. Crows were 
cawing and flying overhead, a blue Jay uttering 
its bell-note. Soon Faxon discovered a Sparrow
Hawk in one of the tall oaks. It flew from tree to 
tree as we advanced and presently scaled off 
over the lawn but soon returned. Presently we 
heard it screaming shrilly and behold it was 
now accompanied by its mate who finally 
entered the nest, a wide slit in the trunk 
of a pignut hickory. She came out again 
quickly but both birds remained in or near the 
grove during our entire stay. Doubtless the brood 
of young which I saw on this place two years 
ago were reared in this same hole. 
[margin]Sparrow Hawk[/margin]
  But the grove now harbors even more interesting 
birds, nothing less, in fact than a pair of 
Wood Ducks! We did not actually find their
nest but the female probably came directly 
from it when we first saw her skimming down 
from among the trees out over the lawn to 
the little artificial pond in which she alighted 
as confidently and gracefully as if it had 
been some lovely sheet of water in the heart 
of the forest instead of a pool scarce fifty 
feet across [delete]with[/delete] enclosed in a wall of masonry 
with a heron granite coping! We stalked her 
easily enough behind a cluster of arbor vitae
and peeping through the branches saw her 
swimming about in company with her mate
[margin]Wood Ducks[/margin]