Concord, Mass.
1902.
Oct. 1
  Cloudy with N.E. wind and incessant rain, very heavy
in the later afternoon. Since September 23rd the sun has shown
only once - for an hour or two about noon on the 28th.
Prolonged cloudy weather.
  At the farm, where I spent the entire day, there were
very many birds, chiefly Bluebirds, Chippies & Black-poll
Warblers which drifted back & forth through the orchard
occasionally visiting the elms about the house. With them
were also a Nuthatch, a Downy and a very few Yellow-rumps.
A young Song Sparrow singing feebly & brokenly, two Towhees and
a Cat-bird spent the day in the thickets of bushes near
the well. Crows were heard crossing & Blue Jays screaming
in the distance. Among some dense pines I caught
faintly but with absolute distinctness the twitter of a
Junco. I also heard a Brown Creeper & several Chickadees.
Late in the afternoon I flushed a bevy of 12 Quail
from some ploughed land on the borders of the Berry
Pasture. No doubt they were the same birds which I started
in this pasture on August 24th last but on that
occasion there were 16 in the bevy.
Quail
  At evening a flock of 17 Rusty Blackbirds passed
over the house flying north-east. These Blackbirds
have evidently failed to reestablish their roost in the
lagoon just above the Beaver Dam Rapid where they
assembled by the hundreds in the autumns of 1900
& 1901. Probably they have deserted it because so
large a part of the button bushes were carried away
by the ice last spring.
Rusty Blackbirds not roosting at Beaver Dam this autumn.
  A Partridge which I flushed this morning rose with a
loud hurtling sound instead of the usual whir. I wonder
if this was because his wings were wet.
Partridge's wings make unusual sound.
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