46

1916

70. Bobolink. First noted on May 1 [May 1, 1916], when a single [male] passed
over our orchard at 4 P. M., flying high in air, heading due south
and indulging in frequent brief outbursts of rollicking song, especially
good to hear thus coming out of the sky, at so exceptionally early a
date. After all the Bobolinks had arrived and settled for the season
there were no more than last year and hence only a very few
as compared with those we used to have breeding throughout the
Concord Region not so very long ago. Many, indeed, of their former
accustomed summer haunts have been complely [completely] deserted of late
and even those most favored now are but sparsely populated.
Within half a mile or so of the Farm I noted certainly this spring
no more than three different breeding pairs, one in Lawrence's fields
another in Howe's meadow, at the rear of Holden's Hill, the third
in Bigelow Brook Meadow, above the road. The male of the first-named
pair was always to be heard plainly from our farm house and
sometimes sang for half an hour at a time perched among the upper
branches of the big elm by the roadside or somewhere in our grassy
field beyond. He continued in full song up to the middle of 
June and did not altogether cease to sing listlessly & breifly [briefly] until
the close of that month. 
  Elsewhere than in the immediate neighborhood of our Farm
Bobolinks were nowhere numerously represented this season if I 
may judge from what little was seen of them by me
during occasional motor rides along roads leading through
open, grassy country where they once bred abundantly.

71. Cow-bird [Cowbird]. Seen of heard occasionally in April, May & June,
usually in our orchard or flying past the house. Four birds (2 [males] 2 [females])
feeding in newly ploughed field on April 5 [April 5, 1916], six together on wing on the 27th [April 27, 1916].
By May 18 [May 18, 1916] a Chippy had finished her nest in a little red cedar