79
Lake Umbagog.
1897
May 25
  Although the sun set clear last evening it began raining
again in the night and through nearly the whole of to-day
there was a steady & at times heavy downpour.
  We spent most of the day on the boat but late in
the afternoon I sailed through the "gut" and across
the Sweat Cove. Jim, whom I met there looking for a
piece of cedar to make a paddle of, told me that a
pair of Barred Owls had been hooting steadily for an
hour or more on the west shore.
[margin]Sweat Cove[/margin]
[margin]Barred Owls
hooting.[/margin]
  During the entire day birds sang freely in the woods
about the cove where our vessel lies at anchor. I heard
the Brown Creeper, Winter Wren, one of the Cape May
Warblers and a Scarlet Tanager besides a host of
commoner species.
[margin]Birds sing
freely[/margin]
  Watrous tells me that there are fully as many Martins
and Eave Swallows at the Gibbs (Haywood) place as
there were last year. I seldom see the Martins about
our cove but the Eave Swallows visit it daily in
numbers in company with Barn, Tree & Bank Swallows.
Yesterday I heard Martins near Bear Island & on the
22nd I saw a number flying over the fields of the
Gibbs farm.
[margin]Swallows
about
Gibbs farm[/margin]
  The vegetation has advanced very slowly yet rather steadily
this past week. The poplars & paper birches are now in 1/4 to 1/2 leaf.
Shad bush is in full bloom. Rhodora buds are scarcely
swelled as yet. Where the forest growth is of beach, yellow
birch & maple there is as yet scarce a tinge of green.
[margin]Vegetation[/margin]