7 
CONCORD, 
1899 
May 19 
Hill 
Yellow - 
bellied 
Flycatcher 
Birds swarming A g^eat "bird day". A small migratory flight must 
at Bail’s have arrived last night for there was a marked increase in 
the numbers of Black-polls and Water Thrushes and I heard 
the first Yellow-bellied Flycatcher, but the unusual 
abundance of small birds on and about Ball’s Hill was chiefly 
due, no doubt, to the lowering, easterly weather which 
always, at this season, causes them to congregate here. 
More than 100 Chimney Swifts were circling all day about the 
oaks on the crest of the Hill and the meadows were alive 
with low-skimming Swallows of all five species. The trees 
along the south slope of the Hill and the thickets bor¬ 
dering the river were simply swarming with birds — Red¬ 
starts, Maryland Yellow-throats, Black-polls, Water 
Thrushes, 2 Canadian Warblers, a Wilson's Black-cap, 2 
Lincoln’s Finches, 2 White-throated Sparrows, Cat-birds, etc., 
etc. I spent the forenoon watching these birds. In the 
afternoon I paddled down to 3irch Island. As I passed 
Davis’s Hill I heard a Blackburnian, a Wilson’s Black-cap, 
and three Least Flycatchers and saw several Water Thrushes. 
Almost nothing at Birch Island or in the neighboring 
Mason woods. 
Evening Walking around the east end of Ball’s Hill last 
walk around evening I heard a Yellow-bellied Flycatcher in the blueberry 
Ball’s Hill 
swamp, a Wilson’s Snipe drumming (twice) over Holden’s Meadow, 
Snipe drums „ . „ ,., . . . 
---- two solitary Sandpipers calling high overhead. A 
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