IPSWICH RIVER BIRD TRIP. 
1921. 
Ralph Lawson. 
The present year marks the successful completion of fif¬ 
teen consecutive trips, and is noteworthy in that for the 
first time over one hundred species were identified between 
the usual hours of two o’clock on Saturday afternoon and 
six o’clock on Sunday evening, and within the valley of the 
Ipswich River between Howe station and the sea, or about 
the mouth of the river at Ipswich. 
From now on, our list will include all observations made 
within the county of Essex, Massachusetts, but a separate 
record will also be made each year covering the area so 
faithfully and eagerly searched since 1907. 
The winter of 1920-1921 was unusually mild and open, 
and spring came remarkably early, so that in April the Club 
selected May 14th and 15th as the most promising days, and 
plans were made accordingly. This was the earliest date 
ever chosen. After the dates were set, four weeks of almost 
continuous east winds so checked vegetation that by early 
May general conditions were only about normal, and in some 
instances even backward, and there was talk of postponing 
the trip one week. Reports, however, from the interior of 
the state and from points south indicated that Eastern Mass¬ 
achusetts had been held back far more than the other sec¬ 
tions, and so on Saturday morning, May 14th, three canoes 
left Middleton Paper Mills to make the morning trip inaugu¬ 
rated three years previous between South Middleton and 
Howe. Saturday the 14th had dawned rather inauspi- 
ciously, with a light rain which had continued through from 
the day before, but the wind had swung away from the 
east and for a few hours had blown from the southwest, 
which evidently brought a wave of migrants to the coast. 
55 
