Concord, Mass.
1896
October 27
  Clear and very warm with almost no wind, the
river dead calm for hours at a time.
  On the way down river this morning I saw little
of interest besides a large flock of singularly tame
Crows. There were upwards of a hundred of them
perched in the trees on both banks between Barrett's
Bar and Hunt's Pond. They scarcely seemed to
notice me and I paddled past or under scores
of them within thirty feet or less. Others flying
across the river passed directly over me within
a few yards. Not one so far as I could make out,
either left its perch or changed its course because
of my presence but several birds cawed at me
derisively. Some of them clucked and once I
heard the "gobble". Evidently these were northern
birds fresh from some region where Crows are
not much molested by men.
[margin]A flock of
tame Crows[/margin]
  At about 3 P.M. I was returning from Davis's Hill
when I heard a number of small birds chirping &
scolding loudly and continuously in a cluster of young
pines near the bottom of the Glacial Hollow. Suspecting
that they were mobbing an Owl I went at once to
the spot and found [delete]a [?][/delete] five or six Chickadees.
two Canada nuthatches, several Juncos & a Fox Sparrow
hopping excitedly from twig to twig in the upper
branches of a pitch pine. As usual in such cases they
were moving in a circle and I had only to
scrutinize the central space closely to discover the
Owl, a pretty little Acadian sitting on a stout