Concord, Mass.
1902.
Nov. 7
  Clear with high N.W. wind. Early morning mild but
temperature falling steadily through the day & evening very cool.
  About eight o'clock this morning I was standing near the
farm house when I heard a sound closely resembling that made
by the wings of the Golden-eye Duck. Indeed I glanced upward
at once fully expecting to see one or more of these Ducks
passing overhead. Instead my eye was instantly accosted
by an immense flock of Crow Blackbirds flying at a height
of at least five hundred feet and moving towards the south west.
There must have been more than two hundred of them and
without question they were migrating. The peculiar hurtling
sound of their wings (not unlike that of a humming top)
continued to reach my ears until the birds had nearly
faded out of sight in the distance. Under precisely
similar conditions (ie at nearly the same hour of an
equally blustering north-west-wing morning) on October 29th
last I saw a still larger flock passing near West Bedford
Station towards the south west. The birds seen on that
occasion were, however, less than one hundred feet above the
earth and moving in a very compact flock whereas
those observed this morning were so evidently spread out
laterally as to form a double or triple line fully
two hundred yards in length.
  On several occasions within the last week when 
the weather has been raining or the grass & bushes
dripping with dew I have heard a rising Partridge
make a hurtling instead of whistling sound & I am
satisfied that this was due to the fact that its
wings were soaked with moisture.
113