34
Concord, Mass.
Spring and early summer
1913

80.  Night hawk. May 21-31. North-bound flight lighter than usual. No
birds noted after it had passed. On the 21st [May 21, 1913], 23rd [May 23, 1913] and 30th [May 30, 1913] one spent
the entire day in the big elm in front of our barn at the Farm 
betraying his presence there but [by] uttering every now and then his loud
call-note, pa-a-p. No doubt he was crouched lengthwise in one of
the big lateral branches high in the tree but Gilbert & I scrutinized
them vainly on each occasion. On the evening of the 31st [May 31, 1913] I saw
a bird flying northward high in air. No booming heard this spring.

81.  Hairy Woodpecker. - February 11 - July 2. Seen or heard rather
frequently in our woodlands oftenest at or near Ball's Hill where a 
pair doubtless nested as usual, probably in the maple swamp just
to the westward of Pine Park. Here on April 24 [April 24, 1913] I watched a [female]
exploiting the posts that support the wood shed roof for grubs.
Those of the shed near our cabins have been almost denuded of
bark by these Woodpeckers. At the Farm single birds often
visited the elms close about the house and the locust tree 
in front of it attracted two birds on July 1 [July 1, 1913]. No doubt they
come to the locusts for the larvae of the beetles that bore 
into these trees so numerously and injuriously.

82.  Downy Woodpecker. March 20 - June 14. At the Farm we had,
as usual, a breeding pair nesting - for I think the ninth season - 
in a dead branch of the elm that overspreads the east end of the
wood-shed. In this branch they invariably drill a new nesting burrow
every year enlarging its entrance after their young have left it to make it
serve more conveniently as a winter sleeping place. Weakened by such
progressive excavation the branch, eight or ten inches in diameter &
originally at least fifteen feet in length has broken off from time to
time so that now there is only a short stub left. (perhaps 15 [inches] long).
The male drummed on its upper side persistently & sometimes all day long,
from March 20 [March 20, 1913] to May 24 [May 24, 1913]. The [female] began work on the entrance hole May 4 [May 4, 1913].
If any young were reared or hatched I neither saw nor heard them.
I occasionally saw an old bird at Ball's Hill but none were noted elsewhere.