Concord, Mass.
1901
Oct. 11
  Early morning densely foggy; remainder of day brilliantly
clear with little or no wind. Very warm for the season.
  There was a dense fog this morning. It had not begun
to lift at 8 A.M. when I started down river in the 
open canoe but when I reached Pad island I could make
out the line of woods that bordered the meadow all the
way from Ball's Hill to Davis's Hill. The trees looked 
immensely tall and the shore wholly unfamiliar. The
maples appeared like pillars of flame obscured by smoke.
A Dipper was floating on the glossy water and Jays
were screaming in the distance.
  As I passed Davis's Hill I saw four or five small birds
in the top of a tall birch hopping & flitting about among
the terminal twigs. They acted so very like Warblers that
I was surprised on approaching nearer to find that
they were all White-throated Sparrows. The birches are
infested with immense numbers of greenish insects
("mealy bugs" Mrs. John Thayer tells me Charles Sargent calls
them) and the sparrows were apparently eating them.
I get simply covered with them every time I pass
through a thicket of birches for they shake down in
showers wherever the stems are jarred.
  I have never before seen Swamp Sparrows so numerous
along Concord River as they were this morning. I 
could hear them chirping in the grass in every 
direction and I saw a dozen or more flying
from place to place or perched on the taller reeds.
  At the farm where I spent the day there 
were Yellow rumps and a few Black-polls flitting
about among the birches and oaks just behind the barn.
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