Page:Early Spring in Massachusetts (1881).djvu/45

water or with ice where the snow is washed off, has shone in the sun as it does only at the approach of spring, methinks, and are not the frosts in the morning more like the early frosts in the fall,—common white frosts? As for the birds of the past winter, I have seen but three hawks, one early in the winter, two lately; have heard the hooting owl pretty often late in the afternoon. Crows have not been numerous, but their cawing was heard chiefly in the pleasanter mornings. Blue jays have blown the trumpet of winter as usual, but they, as all birds, are most lively in spring-like days. The chickadees have been the prevailing bird. The partridge common enough. One ditcher tells me that he saw two robins in Moore's swamp a month ago. I have not seen a quail, though a few have been killed in the thaws,—four or five downy woodpeckers. The white-breasted nuthatch four or five times. Tree sparrows, one or more at a time, oftener than any bird that comes to us from the north. Two pigeon-woodpeckers, I think, lately. One dead shrike and perhaps one or two live ones. Have heard of two white owls, one about Thanksgiving time and one in midwinter; one short-eared owl in December, several flocks of snow buntings in the severest storm in the last part of December; one grebe in Walden, just before it froze com-