Lake Umbagog.
1896
May 22
(no 2)
May 22, 1896

Birds singing at evening on Pine Point

  I added a number of species to the list just given. The shower
had passed and the sky was perfectly cloudless while the sun, low in the
west, sent a strong, clear light deep into the recesses of the woods,
penetrating and illuminating places which are ordinarily densely shaded.
The wind had fallen and there was scarce enough to shake the
drops from the foliage wet with the recent rain. A fresh damp fragrance
of balsam & innumerable other delicate odors came from every side.
One could walk along the leaf-strewn path without making the
slightest noise. It was one of those rare & precious hours that come
but a few times in a season even in this beautiful wilderness.
How the birds sang and chirped and twittered! Probably every one
of them that had a voice, good bad or indifferent, was using it.
The woods seemed alive with Warblers, Thrushes, Nuthatches etc.
Blackburnian Warblers were the most numerous, Parula Warblers next
in numbers. I heard three Bay-breasts [Bay-breasted Warbler] singing between the camp &
Duck Cove and saw a fourth, an unusually handsome male, at
Osgood's camping ground where a loose flock of ten or a dozen birds
including a Wilson's Black-cap, a Canadian Warbler, two Redstarts,
two Blackburnians [Blackburnian Warbler], a Black & Yellow [Black and Yellow Warbler], a Yellow-rump [Yellow-rumped Warbler], a Nuthatch
and a Chickadee were flitting about low down, feeding. They were
so low down and in such a strong light that their varied and
beautiful colors and markings showed to unusual advantage.
In the birch grove a pair of Least Flycatchers were quarreling &
chirping petulantly. From two or three places along the shore rose at
short, regular intervals the gushing songs of as many Water Thrushes.
A Winter Wren sang well back in the woods. Swainson's Thrushes
were out in great force calling & singing in every direction & flitting
on ahead of us among the thickets of young balsams & spruces.
Flycatcher calling, and now and then the ringing song of a
White-throated Sparrow. A King Bird [Kingbird] rose above the woods tinkling &