Wednesday, September 23, 2015

A screech owl in moonlight/confusing fall warblers


September 23.

Small sparrows, with yellow on one side above eye in front and white belly, erectile (?) crown divided by a light line. 

Those weeds, etc., on the bared meadow come up spontaneously. 

8 P. M. — I hear from my chamber a screech owl about Monroe’s house this bright moonlight night, — a loud, piercing scream, much like the whinny of a colt perchance, a rapid trill, then subdued or smothered a note or two. 

A little wren-like (or female goldfinch) bird on a.willow at Hubbard’s Causeway, eating a miller: with bright-yellow rump when wings open, and white on tail. Could it have been a yellow-rump warbler?

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 23, 1855

I hear from my chamber a screech owl — a loud, piercing scream, much like the whinny of a colt. See   June 2, 1860 ("I soon hear its mournful scream. . . not loud now but, though within twenty or thirty rods, sounding a mile off.”); June 25, 1860 ("At evening up the Assabet hear four or five screech owls on different sides of the river, uttering those peculiar low screwing or working, ventriloquial sounds.”); August 14, 1854 (“I hear the tremulous squealing scream of a screech owl in the Holden Woods.”); October 9, 1851 ("Heard two screech owls in the night")

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