Concord, Mass.
(Ball's Hill)
1900.
April 21
  Sun shining dimly through thin clouds. Light
S.W. wind. Ther. 37 degrees - 73 degrees. Air moist & rather sultry.
  When I awoke at daybreak a Partridge was
drumming at short regular intervals. Although the door
& windows were closed and the bird must have been
at his regular station on the stone wall beyond the
high ridge behind the cabin the sound came distinctly
if faintly to my ears.
Penetrating
quality of the
sound made
by a drumming
Partridge
  The early morning singing was brief but there was
a full chorus while it lasted; Robins, a Chickadee, a
Pine Warbler, Song Sparrows, Red-wings & a Flicker taking
part. The Phoebe seems to have left us.
Early morning
singing near
cabin.
  Walking to the E. end of the hill just after breakfast
I came upon a pair of Chickadees busily engaged in 
excavating a hole in a birch stump. Like the birds
seen yesterday they entered the hole alternately, filled
their bills with fragments of the rotten wood and carried
their loads thirty or forty feet away before dropping
them. Each bird had a favorite perch on which it usually
alighted to drip its load but occasionally each would
fly to some tree other than the one it usually visited.
They worked very rapidly & systematically & were evidently
making rapid progress. They paid not the slightest
attention to Purdie & me although we stood for
sometime talking within fifteen yards of the nest.
Chickadees
excavating
hole
  I spent the entire day overseeing the transplanting
of a lot of pines, in the sandy field near the
wood stood Robins, Pine Warbles, Flickers (2), Song
Sparrows, A Field Sparrow & Red wings were singing 
most of the day in or near this opening. Blue Jays
Birds singing
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