Lake Umbagog.
1896
May 16
[May 16, 1896]

  A fair day with strong N.W. [Northwest] wind and sky filled with driving clouds

Herring Gulls
Black Duck
Wood Duck [male]

  I spent the forenoon working on the new canoe with Jim & finally sailing
over to the Lake House to get some arsenic to preserve the Lincoln's Finch
which I shot yesterday. Three adult Herring Gulls circling over the Lake.
Flushed a Black Duck near the floating island and a fine [male] Wood Duck
in a cove of B. Point. The latter flew only a few yards, then dropped back
into the water among some drift wood.

Partridge nests.

  Watrous spent the morning searching the Woodcock coves in the Sargent
opening. He found a Partridge's nest with bird sitting but did not
disturb her. He also found two Song Sparrows', one with 5 the other with
2 eggs. Immediately after dinner he found another Partridge's nest (his
fourth in four days on the wooded hillside just east of Lakeside & only
about 3 yards from the road. He saw the sitting bird about 15 yards off.
We visited this nest together an hour later & again an hour after that. The
bird was on both times. At 6 P.M. she was absent & the nest proved to
contain 5 eggs. At 7 P.M. she was also not sitting but I think I heard
her quit. The [male] was drumming at 5 P.M. in the hillside about 30 yds. fr. [from] nest.

Woodcock's nest

  Last night we heard a Woodcock peeping & singing (for the first time) on the
knoll S.E. [Southeast] of the house. We searched for the nest this P.M. following the
edge of the woods from the hilltop down. About 50 yds. below the road
Watrous flushed a bird among dense spruces. 30 yds. further down on the
edge of the little fern-grown opening within 2 yds. of the Lake - the opening
where I have shot so many Woodcock in Septembers past - I found the nest.
It was at the foot of a little balsam (2 ft. high) on a mound covered with
dry brakes & so conspicuously placed that I saw the two eggs 15 yards away
(for the bird was not sitting). This nest was within 20 yds. of one that I
found in 1880.