Concord, Mass.
1899.
May 20
(No 2)
  Visited Davis's Hill twice during the day & found
a great many birds there; Water Thrushes, Canadian Warblers,
Wilson's Black-caps, Peabody birds [White-throated Sparrow], Cat-birds, Wilson's Thrushes & a [female] Towhee
in the thickets by the river; in the large trees on the crest
of the ridge the Yellow-throated Vireos (males singing), two
Least Flycatchers, a Blackburnian Warbler, a Pine Warbler,
a Black-throated Green, a Hummingbird & a Cedar bird.
[margin]Birds at
Davis's Hill[/margin]
  In Prescott's pines I heard another Blackburnian but
almost nothing else save the omnipresent Oven-birds,
Chestnut-sided Warblers, Redstarts etc.
  Saw two pairs of Rose-breasted Grosbeaks this morning, one
near the cabin, the other on the river slop of the Blakemore
woods. Both females were collecting building material and I saw
the Blakemore Hill bird go to the nest which was in the top
of a tall slender [blank space] on the hillside about 40 yards from
the river. The males followed their mates closely but rendered
no assistance whatever. Neither sang but both kept up a
low, tender, call (woi-em woi-e or woi-e-e) which was
also occasionally given by the females. The [female] at the cabin
was collecting dry grass at the river bank. Her mate
finally left her still at work & flying off to the
east end of the Hill began singing almost out of hearing.
Earlier in the morning (the nest building was at 8 A.M. (I
saw the pair at the cabin probing the blossoms of a black
oak with their big bills fluttering from branch to branch &
keeping up the woi-e call.
[margin]Rose-breasted
Grosbeaks
building.[/margin]
[margin]Love call.[/margin]
  As I was paddling back to the cabin this evening I
heard a Big Grunter in the marsh opposite Davis's Hill. It had
a tremendous voice. It called only once - the grunting call not
the quacking. I do not remember hearing it here before.
[margin]Rallus
elegans ?[/margin]
87