England.
Motor ride Oxford to Dorchester
1911.
July 5
( No 2 )
[July 5, 1911]

Yellow Hammers
Corn Buntings
Cirl Bunting.

motor ride to Dorchester in mid afternoon dozens of Yellow Hammers
perched on telegraph wires along the road and three or four Skylarks
soaring over the grain fields, were in full song. There were also on the
wires a few large Finches of a generally plain drab color & looking not
unlike [female] House Sparrows, which had a monotonous, unmusical song that
recalled, but was not closely like, that of our Grasshopper Sparrow.
(These, no doubt, as I learnt by referring to Collett's book, were Corn Buntings)
A somewhat similar, but more spirited and emphatic song, was
uttered at evening by a bird perched in a hawthorn on the river bank.
Although I had a good view of it I failed to recognise it. It seemed
to be generally dark in color with a black or blackish head and of about
the size and build of a House Sparrow. (Afterwards identified, by
reference to Collett's manual, as a Cirl Bunting.)

Thrushes & Skylarks.

  It is quite evident that most of the familiar birds here have
nearly or quite ceased singing and that those which have not, with the
exceptions of Thrushes and Skylarks, are no longer at their best.
The Larks were in apparently full song all the afternoon but I hear
the Thrushes only at morning & evening when their musical fervor seems unabated.