Lake Umbagog
1896
June 12
(No 3)
  Late in the afternoon, while Jim was getting the boat from the mill
pond into the Lake, I took the old cart path that starts in behind
the Lake House barn and followed it over the knoll, across the
pasture and well into the woods beyond. This walk brought
back countless memories of the old days when with Deane, Maynard,
Bailey, Purdie, Harrington, Will Stone & others I tramped over this
old wood road in pursuit of birds & nests day after day &
week after week. In respect to its turns & windings, to the bogs &
brooks which it crosses and the extent & situation of the woods
& openings which it traverses it has not changed very much. All
the spruces & balsams & most of the hemlocks of any size have
been long since taken to the mill and the forest is now chiefly
made up of hardwood trees which in the openings the evergreen
saplings four or five feet high in which we used to hunt for
Magnolia Warblers nests are now trees 25 to 30 feet in height.
The bird fauna, too, has changed. I could find no traces of
the Bay-breasted, Cape May or Tennessee Warblers nor did I hear a
single Hermit Thrush & there were others of the old familiar species
apparently wanting. On the knoll behind the barn I heard two
Robins, a Least Flycatcher, a Redstart, a Red-eyed Vireo, two Song
Sparrows, a White-throated Sparrow, a Chippy, a Winter Wren, a
Swainson's Thrush, a Black & Yellow Warbler, and a Blackburnian
Warbler, but in the woods beyond the pasture I neither heard nor
saw a bird of any kind. In the pasture itself were a Junco
several Chippers & a few Song Sparrows.
[margin]Lake House[/margin]
[margin] Birds noted
near Lake
House[/margin]
  After launching our boat under the old elm we paddled down into
the steamer cove where just below the school house I was surprised
to hear a Wilson's Black-cap singing. Landing I spent an hour or more
searching for its nest. The [male] bird came within two yards or less
[margin]Wilson's 
Black-cap[/margin]