Red-wings

February 26.

Wednesday. Examined the floating meadow again to-day. It is more than a foot thick, the under part much mixed with ice, — ice and muck. 

It appeared to me that the meadow surface had been heaved by the frost, and then the water had run down and under it, and finally, when the ice rose, lifted it up, wherever there was ice enough mixed with it to float it. 

I saw large cakes of ice with other large cakes, the latter as big as a table, on top of them. Probably the former rose while the latter were already floating about. The plants scattered about were bulrushes and lily-pad stems.

See five red-wings and a song sparrow(?) this afternoon.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, February 26, 1851

Five red-wings. See March 6, 1854 ("Hear and see the first blackbird, flying east over the Deep Cut, with a tchuck, tchuck, and finally a split whistle") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Signs of the Spring: The Red-wing Arrives

A song sparrow. See February 24, 1857 (“I am surprised to hear the strain of a song sparrow from the riverside.”); March 11, 1854 ("On Tuesday, the 7th, I heard the first song sparrow chirp, and saw it flit silently from alder to alder. This pleasant morning after three days' rain and mist, they generally forthburst into sprayey song from the low trees along the river. The developing of their song is gradual but sure, like the expanding of a flower. This is the first song I have heard.”) See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Signs of the Spring: The Song Sparrow Sings