1892
Aug. 13
(No 2)
[margin]Fairhaven Bay at sunset.[/margin]
Concord, Massachusetts.
Mass.
Concord.- On reaching Fairhaven I set my sails and beat twice
across the bay eating my supper the while. The sun was
setting and the air breathlessly still when, as happened every
few minutes, the gentle S.E. breeze failed. For fifteen minutes
or more I did not hear a bird of any kind save some
young Cooper's Hawks whining in the pines at the base of Lee's Cliff.
At length, however, a Black & White Creeper gave the warbling summer
song twice in quick succession; next a King bird mounted skyward
and went through the song flight performance; then almost simultaneously
a Maryland Yellow-throat, a Song Sparrow and a Swamp Sparrow
sang (the first and the last on wing) and a Carolina Dove began
cooing somewhere in the distance – just on the extreme border of
ear-range – towards the Cliffs. A little later I heard another Maryland
and Swamp Sparrow and saw a second King bird rise. This was
literally the sum total of the evening singing until half-an-hour
later when [delete]I heard[/delete] a Whippoorwill began on the hill W. of Heath's bridge
gave first five, and shortly afterwards ten, repetitions of its song note
and then relapsed into silence.
[margin]Birds singing
at sunset[/margin]

[margin]Whippoorwill√√[tick marks][/margin]
  Most of the Swallows must have left the Concord River valley for
the roosting flight this evening was very slight, not above twenty-
five birds passing over Fairhaven. These were nearly all Barn Swallows
but I identified two Eave Swallows and one Martin among them.
As I was passing Martha' Point shortly after sunset three
Rose-breasted Grosbeaks flying high and close together and uttering
the autumn call-note came in from the S. and pitched down
into some oak woods.

  The migrations are now fairly under way. After dark I
heard the lisping notes of Warblers every few minutes and once
or twice the calls of Wilson's Thrushes. The Frogs are fast relapsing
into silence; indeed the Green Frogs are the only species heard
regularly now. There were no Bull Frogs to-night. At 9.30 P.M. as
I was putting up my canoe a Screech Owl began wailing near Flint's Bridge.

[margin]Migrations
fairly under way[/margin]
[margin]Batrachians[/margin]