Concord, Mass.
1909.
March 28
(No 3)
next ten minutes she did not once shift her
perch but the inclination of her body changed
from time to time, varying from horizontal or crouching to
nearly erect, and her head was rarely still for more
than an instant. Indeed she kept it in rapid and
almost constant motion as she darted it out on every
side and sometimes upward, picking off and swallowing
the poplar buds much as a hungry domestic fowl eats corn. At least this is what I knew
she must be doing although I could not see the buds
at that distance, of course. My view of the bird (a small
female) was obscured only (and but slightly) by the
long pendant catkins with which the tree was thickly
hung but as I had her silhouetted against the
bright light in the west I could trace her outlines &
her movements accurately enough. It was growing dark
(at 6.30) when she left her perch (a slender branch 20 ft. above
the ground near the top of the tree) and whizzed (no sound of
wings, however), across the road in the red pine grove where I
heard her strike either a branch or the ground with a loud swat.
(This record should be compared with that made here in March several years
ago of 8 or 9 Partridges budding in apple trees)
Hen Partridge budding in poplar.