Ampelis cedrorum flock of 15 - Watertown A. Frazar [Abbott Frazar]
MASS. (Middlesex Co.) [Massachusetts Middlesex County] Corvus Am. [Corvus americanus] migrating - Flocking habits of Sialia.
1976. March 22- 1876
1876
March 22 [March 22, 1876] Clear and cold with very high N.W. [Northwest] wind. In P.M.
drove up to Maynards taking my gun in
the buggy. In the Winchester place I spied
two crows sitting in a willow tree and
firing a very long shot at one of them
from the buggy it fell dead after flying
some twenty or thirty rods; Its companion
or mate which had flown on ahead returned
and hovered over it until driven off keeping
up a great outcry. In Waltham I
killed another crow one of a large flock
that was feeding in a field near the
road and here again the whole flock
hovered over the prostrate bird, bawling
themselves nearly hoarse and sweeping
down at intervals acting in fact
almost precisely like terns under
similar circumstances. All these crows
were I think migrants from the
S. [South] as I saw large loose flocks all day
winging their way northward
against the high wind. Saw also
in Waltham an immense flock
of Aeg. phoeniceus, [Aegialitis phoeniceus] at least two hundred:
they lit in a huge oak fairly blackening
it with their sable members and uttering
their varied notes in the usual jingling
discordant strain. Abbott Frazar shot three
cedar birds from a flock of fifteen in
Watertown, this afternoon, this is their
first appearance - very late. He
also saw a flock of about thirty blue
birds feeding on cedar berries. The
snow was all carried off by yesterdays
heavy rain storm, but there is much
frost left in the ground still.