Lake Umbagog.
1896
May 28
[May 28, 1896]

  Cloudless and warm, the forenoon dead calm, a brisk S.E. [southeast] wind 
and gathering clouds in the afternoon followed by heavy rain
in the evening & through the night.

Nest of a Sapsucker
Woodland birds.

  We breakfasted at 5 a.m. and immediately afterwards started
off on the Lake, Jim & Watrous in the large boat, I in the run
sailing canoe. We landed first in Glaspy Cove and went to
a Yellow-bellied Woodpecker's nest in a hardwood forest on the
crest of the ridge near Chase's camp. The nest was in a
dead prong of a living rock maple at a height of about 40 ft.
It contained five slightly incubated eggs which we took with
the stump. I photographed the tree, a rock on which grew
a fine yellow birch, a large dead hemlock riddled with the
mortise holes made by Pileated Woodpeckers and last of all
the ox-hovel of the lumber camp.The woods were exquisitely
beautiful with the early morning sunlight throwing through
openings in the foliage which, with most of the trees,
is now fully out. There were the usual birds, Blackburnian [Blackburnian Warbler],
Bay-breasted [Bay-breasted Warbler], Black & Yellow [Black and Yellow Warbler], Parula [Parula Warbler],  Black-throated Blue [Black-throated Blue Warbler] and Canadian Warblers,
a Black-throated Green [Black-throated Green Warbler], Redstarts, Yellow-bellied [Yellow-bellied Woodpecker] & Hairy
Woodpeckers, Swainson's Thrushes, Red-eyed Vireos, Water Thrushes,
a Winter Wren, Canada Nuthatches etc.

Nest of Downy W. [Downy Woodpecker]

  We then crossed the Lake to my old camp ground on the
point south of Moll's Rock where Watrous & I found a Downy
Woodpecker's nest yesterday in a paper birch stub on the
waters edge and not ten feet high. It was a fine chance
for a photograph for the birds would alight on the stub
and try to enter the hole whenever I remained motionless
for a few minutes. I exposed four plates & got two very good
negatives both, I think, of the [male] Woodpecker although I
made one snap at the female.