Concord, Mass.
1896
April 27
[April 27, 1896]

  A duplicate of yesterday, cloudless, the early morning calm,
a strong east wind rising at about 10 a.m. and holding
well into the night.
  Spent the day at Ball's Hill paddling down in the morning
and sailing back at night. I walked through the woods
to Bensen's in the forenoon and sailed down to Birch Island
in the afternoon to oversee the cutting of a number of
oaks for a fence about the Mason field.
  Brown Thrashers are here in force at last. I heard
three different males in full song - one at Ball's Hill
in the oak on the edge of the Holden meadow.
  The Red-winged Black birds [Red-winged Blackbird] puzzle me this spring.
Up to to-day I have seen fewer than usual but
there were a good many scattered along the river this
afternoon and besides them a flock of fairly sixty feeding
in a field near the Y-tree. The latter kept flying up
into the tree & singing in medley acting altogether like
newly arrived birds. There were a few females among them.
  The Concord gunner with a crutch was hobbling over
Great Meadow in the rear of his dog the whole
forenoon. He fired six or eight shots doubtless at
Snipe.