Cambridge, Mass.
1899.
January.
(No.2).
  With the exception of two trips to Boston my ramblings
during the month have been confined to short morning walks in
the immediate neighborhood of our place and a single drive to
Mt. Auburn and Fresh Pond. Those of my friends who have been
further afield report birds exceedingly scarce with no rare
or irregular visitors present. O.A. Lothrop has found
in the Fresh Pond swamps only a few Song Sparrows, two or
three Tree Sparrows, a flock of twelve Meadow Larks (near
Fresh Pond, Jan. 8th) and one of ten Chickadees. For the first
time in years no Shrikes and neither the Red-tailed nor the
Red-shouldered Hawk have been seen in these swamps but I found
a Shrike at Fresh Pond Grove on the 17th. On the 8th Walter
and George Deane walked from Arlington to Waverly through
woods and cedar grown pastures looking carefully for birds but
meeting with only two Brown Creepers, about six Chickadees and
five Crows. Two Kingfishers have been seen, on at Mystic
Pond, by W. Faxon, on the 15th, the other in Boston, on the
Beacon St. sea wall just west of Harvard Bridge, by A. Hathaway
on the 24th. Hathaway also saw a female Red-winged Blackbird
at the Bay State Clay Pit on the 7th. Herring Gulls and
Whistlers have frequented Charles River Basin whenever this
sheet of water has been reasonably free from ice but the
Whistlers have been much less numerous there than is usual at
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