Peetweets

July 2.  

Nowadays hear from my window the constant tittering of young golden robins, and by the river fields the alarm note of the peetweets, concerned about their young.

H.D. Thoreau, Journal, July 2, 1860

See July 2, 1853  ("The peetweets are quite noisy about the rocks in Merrick's pasture when I approach; have eggs or young there, which they are anxious about.")

At this season the shores and marshes resound with the quick, clear, and oft-repeated note of peet weet, peet weet, followed up by a plaintive call on the young, of peet, peet, peet? peet? If this is not answered by the scattered brood, a reiterated 'weet, 'weet, 'weet, 'wait, 'wait, is heard, the voice dropping on the final syllables. The whole marsh and the shores at times echo to this loud, lively, and solicitous call of the affectionate parents for their brood; and an imitation of the whistle of peet weet, is almost sure to meet with an answer from the sympathizing broods, which now throng our marshes.

J. J Audubon

July 2. A. M. — To lilies above Nut Meadow.

 The phalaris heads are now closed up, and it looks like another kind of grass, — those heads which stood so whitish some eighteen inches above their broad green leaves. The bayonet rush is not quite out.

The lilies are not yet in prime. A large one measures six and a half inches over by two and a half high.

Nowadays hear from my window the constant tittering of young golden robins, and by the river fields the alarm note of the peetweets, concerned about their young.

Does not the summer regime of the river begin say about July 1st, when the black willow is handsome and the beds of front-rank polygonum are formed above water ?

Yesterday I detected the smallest grass that I know, apparently Festuca tenella (?), apparently out of bloom, in the dry path southwest of the yew, — only two to four inches high, like a moss.