Snows this forenoon, whitening the ground again

March 9.

As I recall it, February began cold, with some dry and fine driving snow, making those shell-shaped drifts behind walls, and some days after were some wild but low drifts on the meadow ice. I walked admiring the winter sky and clouds.

March began warm, and I admired the ripples made by the gusts on the dark-blue meadow flood, and the light-tawny color of the earth, and was on the alert to hear the first birds. 

For a few days past it has been generally colder and rawer, and the ground has been whitened with snow.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, March 9, 1860

On the alert to hear the first birds. See April 9, 1856 ("You have only to come forth each morning to be surely advertised of each newcomer into these broad meadows. [A] cunning ear detects the arrival of each new species of bird.“)