Lake Umbagog.
1896
May 24
[May 24, 1896]

Pine Point

  Early morning slightly hazy but sunny, warm and dead calm.
Afternoon cloudy with fresh S.E. [Southeast] wind.

Birds singing in early morning
Philadelphia Vireo.

  We breakfast at 5.30 to 6 o'clock here. The woods rang with bird
songs as we sat at table in the open camp this morning
for Swainson's Thrushes, a Winter Wren, numerous Blackburnian [Blackburnian Warbler]
and Parula Warblers, two or three Bay-breasts [Bay-breasted Warbler], a Black-throated
Green [Black-throated Green Warbler], a Yellow-rump [Yellow-rumped Warbler], a Water Thrush, two Red-eyed Vireos & a Yellow-bellied
Flycatcher were flitting about in the bushes close around the
camp. Half-an-hour later I walked to Osgood's camping
ground. In the tall birches near the point a Philadelphia
Vireo was gleaning a leisurely breakfast. It was a very yellow
specimen, silent, slow & listless of movement - keeping fifty 
feet or more above the ground. 

Deer signs

  Deer are using our paths freely. I saw perfectly fresh tracks
in several places within fifty yards of our camp.

Nest of Canada Nuthatch

  Soon after returning from this walk I heard a Robin &
a Pine Linnet and found a Red-bellied Nuthatch's nest
in a paper birch stub on the edge of the little opening at
the west end of the point. The [female] was sitting but she came
out when I rapped at her door. I spent a good part of
the remainder of the day watching this nest with great interest
& some profit. With regularity at intervals varying from 10 to 15
minutes the [male] came to it with a bill full of insects - large,
gauzy-winged Diptera they looked like. He always alighted at
exactly the same spot a little below & to the right of the hole
and invariably, just after getting his foothold, called whee-whee
whee (a note new to me) in low but incisive tones. Instantly
the bill of the [female] would appear at the opening (I could see nothing
but her bill) and after thrusting the food into it the male
would fly off in silence for a fresh supply.