1906.
October 29
  Clear & cool with strong N.W. wind.
  While waiting for the train at the West Bedford Station
this morning I noted a flock of six White-winged Crossbills,
the first I have seen here since November, 1903. They were
on wing, flying over the open fields, and they passed
within forty yards of me. I heard one or more of them
utter repeatedly both flight calls the peenk note and the
dry woodeny chatter which so clearly resembles that of the
Lesser Redpoll. I now believe that similar sounds which
I heard only very faintly, yesterday morning, in Prescott's Pines
and which I suspected at the time to come from White-
winged Crossbills were really made by that species. However
that may be there is no question whatever as to the
identification of the birds seen to-day.
  As I was returning to the farmhouse this evening
from the river I passed through Birch Field. It was
past six o'clock and all the light had faded from
the west but in the east a nearly full moon shone
at intervals through rents in the curtain of dark
clouds that nearly filled the sky. Earlier in the day
they had brought much wind but at this hour only a
faint breeze stirred in the tops of the naked birches, I
had stopped to admire the whiteness of their stems in the
moonlight when a Saw-whet Owl called about a hundred
yards off. I imitated its double whistle (hew-hew) & the
next moment I distinctly heard its wings flutter in a
pitch pine within 30 yards of me. Soon after this the bird
called again but I could not see it. Several minutes elapsed
and again the whistle sounded but the bird had moved further off.
I heard it twice after this but I followed the sound in vain.
Once the bird gave four whistles (hew-hew-hew-hew) & once three but