A flock of snow buntings not yet very white.

November 29. 

P. M. — To Copan.

There is a white birch on Copan which has many of the common birch fungus of a very peculiar and remarkable form, not flat  but shaped like a bell or short horn,  as if composed of a more flowing material which  had settled downward like a drop. As C. said, they were shaped like icicles, especially those short and spreading ones about bridges.

Saw quite a flock of snow buntings not yet very white. They rose from the midst of a stubble-field unexpectedly. The moment they settled after wheeling around, they were perfectly concealed, though quite near, and I could only hear their rippling note from the earth from time to time.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, November 29, 1859

The common birch fungus of a very peculiar and remarkable form. See January 17, 1858 ("The common birch fungus, which is horizontal and turned downward, splits the bark as it pushes out very simply, thus”)

I could only hear their rippling note from the earth from time to time.  See November 7, 1858 ("Their soft rippling notes as they went off reminded me [of] the northeast snow-storms to which ere long they are to be an accompaniment."); January 2, 1854 ("A flock of snow buntings flew over the fields with a rippling whistle, accompanied sometimes by a tender peep and a ricochet motion."); January 6, 1856 ("While I am making a path to the pump, I hear hurried rippling notes of birds, look up, and see quite a flock of snow buntings coming to alight amid the currant-tops in the yard. It is a sound almost as if made with their wings.”);  January 6, 1859 (“They made notes when they went,—sharp, rippling, like a vibrating spring.”); January 21, 1857 (“Beside their rippling note, they have a vibratory twitter”). March 3, 1859 ("I heard a faint rippling note and, looking up, saw about fifteen snow buntings sitting in the top of the oak.”) See also A Book of Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Snow Bunting