1892.
Sept. 9
(No. 3)
Concord, Massachusetts.
Mass.
Concord. show himself again. This happened about
10 a.m. and confirms my previous impression that
the Bittern is diurnal in all its habits.
  A little below Hunt's Pond I started a Wood Duck from 
the bushes on the right bank. I was paddling silently
and keeping close in so that the bird did not discover
me until it saw the bow of the canoe within a few
yards when it rose with a heavy flutter and came out
past me within ten or fifteen feet. It was, as I could
plainly see, a drake in mixed plumage probably an
old bird moulting & changing from the summer plumage to the
full autumn dress.
[margin]Wood Duck[/margin]
Scarcely had the Wood Duck disappeared in the
distance than a Red-shouldered Hawk came sweeping 
down on a steep incline and pounced on something,
a frog, I thought, on the left bank about a hundred
yards from me. Whatever the prize was it gave the
Hawk much trouble for he flopped clumsily about in
the grass beating his great wings with such energy that
I suspected he might have got caught in a trap but
presently he disentangled himself from the grass and
to my surprise flew directly towards me passing
within less that ten yards of my canoe and then
alighting for a moment in a maple some
thirty yards off. He was a young bird in good autumn
plumage. Either he had swallowed the prey on which he
stooped before he came past me or it escaped him
for he bore nothing in his talons.
[margin]Red-shouldered Hawk stoops[/margin]