Field Notes from the Past #8

Being a continuation of field-journal entries from the springs of 1962 and 1963 when I was a budding ornithologist of just 15 or 16 growing up in the rural village of Galien in Berrien County, Michigan.

April 14 [1963], Easter Sunday

Went bird-watching early in the morning and set out one bluebird house along the railroad tracks [east of Galien]. I collected some minute organizms [sic] from a small pond on the floor of the woods. In the evening I examined them under a microscope. I saw organisms which resembled a small clam, a transparent ball, and one which I swear was a spider. It was round in shape and bright red with four pairs of legs. I also observed "wigglers", the larvae of the mosquitoe [sic]. I saw the first migrant Brown Creeper and added the Hermit Thrush to my [life] list, number 111.