Concord, Mass.
1907.
Aug. 20
  When I awoke this morning the sky
near the horizon line in the East was glowing with
the light of approaching dawn but the woods still
slumbered in almost total darkness. Two birds were
calling to one another among the oaks on the hillside 
just above the cabin, both uttering a note familiar
to me since boyhood but concerning the authorship 
of which I have been hitherto in doubt. It is
a short, staccato cry, commonly monosyllabic but not
infrequently divided into two syllables, given with either
a rising or a falling inflection, usually clear and
resonant but sometimes guttural and occasionally
even harsh or strident. Although thus variable in
form and tone it possesses nearly always a wild, almost
weird quality which makes it a peculiarly interesting
and indeed attractive sound. It is so very loud and
penetrating as to carry fully a mile when the air
is still and it is positively startling in its abrupt
intensity when coming from near at hand. I
have heard it only by night and oftenest on
Lake Umbagog late in August or early in September
when heavy flights of Warblers were passing. Often
when lying wakeful in my tent at Pine Point have
I listened to it for hours in succession, studying its
alternating variations of inflection and intonation and
speculating fruitlessly as to the identity of its author.
On these occasions it came invariably from birds
which quite evidently were on wing at no great height
above the tree tops and moving swiftly southward.
During some nights they seemed to be passing in
endless procession yet rarely in close companionship.
Ball's Hill
Night call of Veery