262
Concord, Mass.
1898.
October 3
(No 2)
  As we were at breakfast this morning a Solitary Vireo
began singing loudly but rather brokenly in the
large mountain ash that shades the house on the
eastern side. It is unusual to find one of these
birds so near a house and so far from the woods.
[margin]Solitary Vireo [/margin]
  The Rusty Grackles have established an enormous 
roost in the pickerel weed (already blacked and
withered by the early frosts) and recent grass about
the edges of the shallow little lagoon at the head
of Beaver Dam Rapid (ie just below Dakin's Hill).
As I was leaving the cabin I saw several flocks
flying up river and when I searched the lagoon
(5 P.M.) they were coming in from every direction
but chiefly from that of Concord. The flocks varied
in size from ten or a dozen to forty or fifty birds
each. As they came over the lagoon they crested
once or twice and then swooped down on set
wings. As I was watching them arrive, the entire
body of birds already settled were seized with a
sudden panic and took flight in two detachments
each of which must have contained nearly two
hundred birds. The noise made by their wings was
like that of a gale blowing through pine trees. Many
of them returned to the reeds after a short flight
but upwards of 200 settled among the branches of
a nearly leafless maple covering it as with a black
pall and keeping up their jingling melody until
I had passed beyond hearing. As I kept on up
river, flock after flock of these Blackbirds passed me
on their way to the roost. In all I certainly saw 500 birds.
[margin]Roost of
Rusty Grackles [/margin]