1892
Feb.28
Concord, Massachusetts.
[margin]Ripley's Hill.[/margin]
Mass.
Concord:- Cloudy and cold with occasional flurries
of powdery snow. The eighth consecutive day of E. wind.
  Did not go out until half-past five o'clock
P.M. when I walked to Ripley's Hill via the
Manse grounds. The evening was gloomy and
forbidding and I saw no birds until, on
my return from the hill, I was approaching
the Simmons house when a Screech Owl began
wailing, apparently in the pines that shade the
avenue, where I have heard one several times before
this winter. Quickening my pace I was walking
down Monument Street towards the entrance to
this avenue when the bird came flying across
the open field on my left and alighted in
a large maple directly over my head. It sat very
still and looked, against the sky, like a black
ball about as large as one's fist. On the other
side of the same tree I now perceived another
small black ball, apparently the duplicate of the
first. While I was wondering if it could be another
Owl the first ball opened its wings and flew
across the triangular field to the large trees on the
lane at the foot of the hill flapping pretty
rapidly & very steadily until near them when the
wings were set and the line of flight inclined
first downward and then sharply upward, the
bird pitching upward at the last precisely like
a Buteo when about to alight. & again choosing
a perch high in the tree. The next instant
the other black ball followed and alighted again
in the same tree with its mate for they
[margin]Screech Owls
in the
twilight[/margin]