351
Cambridge, Massachusetts.
1897
Nov. 26
  On my return from Concord I learned that waterfowl
in unusual numbers have been frequenting Fresh Pond
for a month or more past.
  Mr. Walter Deane saw 27 Black Ducks there on Oct. 23rd
and a flock of 14 Herring Gulls the next day.
  Mr. Oliver Ames Lothrop who has ridden around the
pond on his bicycle nearly every day since early in
October told me that Black Ducks, in numbers varying
from 15 or 20 to 60 or 70, have visited the pond daily
during this period. Unless disturbed (as seldom happened)
they would spend the entire day, flying off towards
the eastward late in the afternoon. 
  Lothrop has also seen in Fresh Pond this autumn
three or four Ruddy Ducks, several Buffle-heads and
two Red-breasted Mergansers, the last adult males.
A few days before Thanksgiving (about Nov. 22) he
shot an adult Pied-billed Greebe in the pond
but failed to secure it.
  Steered by these reports I drove around Fresh Pond
this morning. The weather was clear and rather
warm with a light W. wind. Near the middle of
the pond floated a bed of Herrings Gulls containing,
I should think, fully 1000 birds and covering a
space of a least six or eight acres. Near them
were about thirty Black Ducks. Gulls were
continually joining and leaving the flock and
looking off the S.E. I could see literally
hundreds of them dotting the sky.