Bethel, Maine
1912
January 4
(No 2)
[January 4, 1912]

made hard-trodden paths running almost perfectly straight
for considerable distances where there were no obstructing thickets
or windfalls to divert them. The finely-braided trails of Mice
were also very numerous. A Fox had covered almost every
part of the woods, trotting ceaselessly. The number of Red Squirrels
present here this season evidently far exceeds anything that I 
have ever noted in previous years. We heard them everywhere
to-day and the snow bore the imprints of countless foot marks.
There were more birds, too, than I have ever found before
in winter. In addition to the Chickadees, Nuthatches & Redpolls,
- whose voices greeted us every few minutes, wherever we went, we
saw a solitary Blue Jay and heard a Golden crested Kinglet
and a Pine Grosbeak. I am somewhat at a loss to account
for this unusual abundance of Squirrels and of winter birds. The
visable [visible] food supply fails to explain it for the evergreen trees have
comparatively few cones and the gray birches not many seeds
although the canoe birches are rather heavily fruited.