Cambridge, Mass.
1906.
Feb. 26
  Clear and warm with light W. wind.
  There has been no real winter this year but
simply November weather prolonged through the months
of December, January and most of February. Early
spring is already here, two weeks or more before its time.
The last snow disappeared on the 21st of February
and the next morning I found a dozen or more
big white snow drop buds in the bed in front of
the Museum. They were partly open on the morning of
the 23rd and fully open on the 25th. This
morning I saw yellow, white and purple crocuses in
bloom in front of a house on Chauncey Street. The
grass is faintly green on the lawns and strongly so on
snowy banks. There has been little frost in the ground
at any time and the streets and garden paths are
now dry and apparently settled.
  Flickers began 'shouting' on the morning of the 20th.
I have since heard them in the Garden almost every
morning but their 'shouting' calls have been somewhat
abbreviated and disconnected, as well as lacking in
spirit, until this morning when I heard two birds
uttering the full spring song at short, regular intervals
for many consecutive minutes. One was in the
pines in the Smith place on Brattle Street, the
other in an elm near the Botanic Garden.
One or two Flickers have frequented our garden daily
of late to feed on the fruit of the Parkman's apple.
On the morning of the 12th I saw certainly three and I
think four different birds in this garden.