1903.
March 22
  Cloudy most of the day with showers of fine rain in A.M.
N.E. wind falling calm at evening.
  Dr. C. W. Townsend of Boston spent most of the day
with me. We devoted the forenoon to the Ball's Hill region
and in the afternoon went to the Green Field, Prescott's
Pines and Birch Island. The woods were nearly barren
of bird life but we found the fields & springs alive
with Robins, Bluebirds & Sparrows. Phoebes were heard
near the West Bedford Station, at Ball's Hill, at Benson's,
and at the farm, a single male being in full song at
each of these localities. The only arrival noted was a Grass Finch
which we startled from the ground in Pine Park. It alighted
in an oak & permitted us to approach closely & identify
it beyond any question. (We saw its white tail feathers
distinctly). If I remember rightly this is the earliest
date on which I have ever found the Grass Finch in
Eastern Massachusetts.
  There was a Fox Sparrow in full song, most of the day,
at the farm and I startled five others from a patch of
woods in Pine Park.
  Two Red-Shouldered Hawks, the first I have noted this spring,
were screaming loudly about over in the woods to the
north-west of the farm.
  As I was standing near the farm house at evening I 
heard the whistling of a Woodcock's wings & the next instant 
the bird passed me and rising abruptly shot over the roof
of the shed clearing the ridge pole by only a few inches. I 
heard either the same bird or another, a little later, piping
in the Blueberry Pasture but it finally ceased without singing.
  Four Whistlers passed high over the house in the evening twilight.