1895
April 5
  Although the roads and flooded meadows froze hard last
night and a keen and blustering north wind blew all day
there was a subtle quality of spring in the air unlike
anything that we have had before this season. The sun seemed
warmer, the air balmier, there was more color in the landscape.
The sky was cloudless up to ten o'clock after which clouds
gathered and drifted rapidly towards the south trailing
great shadows over the fields and hillsides.
  I went up river, taking my camera and sailing all the
way to Fairhaven but landing repeated[ly] to take pictures. The
strong wind drove the canoe through the water at a rapid
rate of speed but it also interfered seriously with photography.
I exposed a dozen plates, nevertheless, with fairly good results.
  As I was at the boat house launching the canoe I heard my
first Bluebird, warbling on the hill near the Buttericks'. I
afterwards heard another at Clam-Shell Hill. A Kingfisher
was flying about the North Bridge in the morning & again at
evening. Four White-bellied Swallows were circling over the meadows
near the French's landing and a flock of six Fox Sparrows scratching
in the thicket at the pasture bars. I started four Partridges
in the pine woods opposite the Cliffs landing and saw a
fine Red-tailed Hawk soaring above the Cliffs and every
now and then poising and ranging as if suspended by a wire
merely altering the adjustment of his wings & tail and making
no leeway. He would poise over one spot for nearly or quite
a minute without flapping. I have seen a Red-tail do
this only once before - at Newry Maine last September.
[margin]B. borealis
poising[/margin]
  Three Musk-rats swimming & a very white Marsh Hawk beating the
meadow thickets. Not a Duck all day. Leopard Frogs croaking
at 1 P.M. under the shelter of Heath's Bridge causeway. They are the
first Frogs I have heard this year.
[margin]First Leopard
Frogs.[/margin]