I see the fish hawk again... As it flies low, directly over my head, I see that its body is white beneath, and the white on the forward side of the wings beneath, if extended across the breast, would form a regular crescent. Its wings do not form a regular curve in front, but an abrupt angle. They are loose and broad at tips .
This bird goes fishing slowly down one side on the other, forty to sixty feet high, continually poising itself almost or quite stationary, with its head to the northwest wind and looking down, flapping its wings enough to keep its place, sometimes stationary for about a minute. It is not shy.
This boisterous weather is the time to see it. I see the myrtle-bird south of the Island woods, as formerly. Thus are the earliest seen each spring in some warm and calm place by the waterside, when it is cool and blustering elsewhere. The barn swallows and a martin are already skimming low over that small area of smooth water within a few feet of me, never leaving that spot, and I do not observe them thus playing elsewhere. Incessantly stooping back and forth there.
April 28, 1858