1903.
May 30
  A. M. cloudy with a fine, drizzling rain. P. M. brilliantly
clear with light W. wind.
  Spent the entire forenoon near the farm house. Birds
of all kinds sang freely almost until noon. There are a 
few northern migrants still lingering for I heard two
Black-polls in the orchard. There was also an Alder
Flycatcher in the thickets along the brook that flows
through our berry pasture across the road. I heard his
emphatic que-witchy a dozen times or more about 9 A.M.
The Great Crested Flycatchers were exceedingly noisy to-day.
They appear to roam about over a wide territory for I
often hear them in Birch Field and sometimes in
Prescott's pine woods.
  A Wood Thrush sang all the morning in the Barrett run
& I heard the same or another bird in the woods beyond
the berry pastures yesterday & this evening.
  As I was passing through Birch Field just after
sunset I heard one of the Great Horned Owls hooting
in Lawrence's woods. His notes were regularly hoo,-hoo-hoo-hoo,
hoo-hoo-hoo,-hoo given very hurriedly. I am afraid that
his mate has been killed for I have heard only one bird
this spring & he always gives this peculiar
hoot.
  The Brown Thrashers have been very silent for a
week or more but I heard one near the house this
morning, two up the road in the afternoon & two
more at evening at the eastern end of Birch Field
a place where I go nearly every day but where I 
have not noted a Thrasher for fully two weeks. All
the birds heard to-day were singing finely.