Worm-piles and other signs of Spring.

April 9.

Small reddish butterflies common; also, on snowbanks, many of the small fuzzy gnats and cicindelæ and some large black dor-bug-like beetles.  The two latter are easily detected from a distance on the snow. 

The phoebe note of chickadee.

White frost these mornings.

Worm-piles in grass.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, April 9, 1861

Small reddish butterfies. See April 1, 1852 ("Saw the first bee of the season on the railroad causeway, also a small red butterfly and, later, a large dark one with buff-edged wings.");April 8, 1855 (“The great buff-edged butterfly flutters across the river. Afterward I see a small red one over the shore.”); March 31, 1858 (“In the wood-paths now I see many small red butterflies”); March 31, 1860 ("The small red butterfly in the wood-paths and sprout-lands.") See also See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The Small Red Butterfly

Fuzzy gnats. See  April 2, 1859 ("There are many fuzzy gnats now in the air, windy as it is. . . .They are not, perhaps, so thick as they will be, but they are suddenly much thicker than they were, and perhaps their presence affects the arrival of the phoebe, which, I suspect, feeds on them. "); April 5, 1855 (“See this forenoon a great many of those little fuzzy gnats in the air.”) See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Fuzzy Gnats (tipulidæ)

The phoebe note of chickadee. See April 9, 1856 (“For two or three days, have heard delivered often and with greater emphasis the loud, clear, sweet phebe note of the chickadee, elicited by the warmth.”)

White frost these mornings. See April 8, 1855 (“The ground white with frost, and all the meadows also, and a low mist curling over the smooth water now in the sunlight, which gives the water a silver-plated look.”)

Worm-piles in grass. See March 20, 1860 ("Worm-piles in dooryard this morning");  April 14, 1859 (“There are many worm holes or piles in the door-yard this forenoon. How long?”); April 26, 1856 (“Worm-piles about the door-step this morning; how long?”);

Signs of mice.

April 8. 

The pitch pines have been much gnawed or barked this snowy winter. The marks on them show the fine teeth of the mouse, and they are also nicked as with a sharp knife. At the base of each, also, is a quantity of the mice droppings. It is probably the white-footed mouse.

H. D. Thoreau,  Journal, April 8, 1861

The pitch pines have been much gnawed or barked this snowy winter. See July 1845 ("A Norwegian winter it was for them, for the snow lay long and deep, and they had to mix much pine meal with their usual diet."); January 23, 1852 ("The mice have nibbled the buds of the pitch pines, where the plumes have been bent down by the snow."); March 11, 1861 ("C. observes where mice (?) have gnawed the pitch pines the past winter. Is not this a phenomenon of a winter of deep snow only? . . . I do not commonly observe it on a large scale.")

The white-footed mouse. See May 12, 1855 ("A dead white-bellied mouse (Mus leucopus); February 20, 1855 ("It is a very pretty and neat little animal for a mouse, with its wholesome reddish - brown sides distinctly bounding on its pure white belly , neat white feet , large slate - colored ears which suggest circumspection and timidity, — ready to earth itself on the least sound of danger, long tail , and numerous whiskers."); November 14, 1857 ("A deer mouse (Mus leucopus) . . . our most common wood mouse.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Wild Mouse; and McGregor, A Wider View of the Universe, page 160

A walk round the two-mile square.

April 7.

Round the two-mile square. I see where the common great tufted sedge (Carex stricta) has started under the water on the meadows, now fast falling.

The white maple at the bridge not quite out.

See a water-bug and a frog. Hylas are heard to-day.

I see where the meadow flood has gone down in a bay on the southeast side of the meadow, whither the foam had been driven. A delicate scum now left an inch high on the grass  It is a dirty white, yet silvery, and as thin as the thinnest foil, often unbroken and apparently air-tight for two or three inches across and al most as light as gossamer. What is the material? It is a kind of paper, but far more delicate than man makes. 

Saw in a roadside gutter at Simon Brown's barn a bird like the solitary tattler, with a long bill, which at length flew off to the river. But it may have been a small species of snipe.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, April 7, 1861

Hylas are heard to-day. See March 23, 1859 ("We hear the peep of one hylodes somewhere in this sheltered recess in the woods."); April 1, 1860 (" I hear the first hylodes by chance, but no doubt they have been heard some time."); April 5, 1854 ("Hark! while I write down this field note, the shrill peep of the hylodes is borne to me from afar through the woods."); April 6, 1858 (" I hear hylas in full blast 2.30 P. M."); April 8, 1852 ("To-day I hear the croak of frogs in small pond-holes in the woods, "); April 8, 1853 ("The hylas have fairly begun now.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The first frogs to begin calling

The white maple at the bridge not quite out.  See April 7, 1853 ("he staminiferous flowers look light yellowish, the female dark crimson. These white maples flower branches droop quite low, striking the head of the rower, and curve gracefully upward at the ends. ") See also April 9, 1852 ("The maple by the bridge in bloom”) and note to April 6, 1855 ("White maple stamens stand out already loosely enough to blow in the wind.")  and A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, White Maple Buds and Flowers

A bird like the solitary tattler, with a long bill, but it may have been a small species of snipe. [Probably Solitary Sandpiper (Tringa solitaria)] See September 23, 1858 (''In this marsh, saw what I thought the solitary tattler, quite tame. . . Met a gunner from Lynn on the beach, who had . . . what he called a sandpiper, very white with a long bill. Was this Tringa arenaria? [and] what I took to be a solitary tattler, but possibly it was the pectoral sandpiper, which I have seen since."); September 29, 1858 ("See what must be a solitary tattler feeding by the water’s edge, and it has tracked the mud all about. It cannot be the Tringa pectoralis, for it has no conspicuous white chin, nor black dashes on the throat, nor brown on the back and wings, and I think I see the round white spots on its wings. It has not the white on wing of the peetweet, yet utters the peetweet note!— short and faint, not protracted, and not the “sharp whistle” that Wilson speaks of. ") See also September 24, 1855 (" suppose it was the solitary sandpiper (Totanus solitarius) which I saw feeding at the water’s edge on Cardinal Shore, like a snipe. It was very tame; we did not scare it even by shouting. . . . It was about as large as a snipe; had a bluish dusky bill about an inch and a quarter long, apparently straight, which it kept thrusting into the shallow water with a nibbling motion, a perfectly white belly, dusky-green legs; bright brown and black above, with duskier wings. When it flew, its wings, which were uniformly dark, hung down much, and I noticed no white above, and heard no note."); September 25, 1858 ("In the evening Mr. Warren brings me a snipe and a pectoral sandpiper. This last, which is a little less than the snipe but with a longer wing, must be much like T. solitarius, and I may have confounded them. The shaft of the first primary is conspicuously white above.")

*****

Note per All About Birds: The the pectoral sandpiper (Calidris melanotos) has  distinctively stippled breast that ends neatly at a white belly. the solitary sandpiper (Tringa solitaria) has a black-and-white tail, bold eyering, a back marked with small white spots and blackish underwings in flight. 

The genus Tringa was introduced in 1758 by Carl Linnaeus iThe genus  nowcontains 13 species.^[7]

• Green sandpiper, Tringa ochropus
• Solitary sandpiper, Tringa solitaria
• Grey-tailed tattler, Tringa brevipes – formerly Heteroscelus brevipes
• Wandering tattler, Tringa incana – formerly Heteroscelus incanus
• Spotted redshank, Tringa erythropus
• Greater yellowlegs, Tringa melanoleuca
• Common greenshank, Tringa nebularia
• Willet, Tringa semipalmata – formerly Catoptrophorus semipalmatus
• Lesser yellowlegs, Tringa flavipes
• Nordmann's greenshank, Tringa guttifer
• Marsh sandpiper, Tringa stagnatilis
• Common redshank, Tringa totanus
• Wood sandpiper, Tringa glareola

The genus Calidris was introduced in 1804 by  Blasius Merrem with the red knot as the type species.  The genus contain 24 species: including Pectoral sandpiper, Calidris melanotos

Thoreau's Peetweet  is the Spotted Sandpiper  (Actitis macularia). His Upland Plover is the Upland Sandpiper (Bartramia longicauda).  He also obserfve the Lesser Golden-Plover (Pluvialis dominica ) and Piping Plover (Charadrius melodus) See Thoreau's Birds

walk in the spring woods

April 5. 

I am able to take my first jaunt without snowshoes, just around the porcupine loop. How vigorously and swiftly the streams are running.   The sound of the rushing water fills the air with a constant roar, hard to hear anything else.

Avesong, April 5, 2011

April snow.

April 2.

A drifting snow-storm, perhaps a foot deep on an average.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, April 2, 1861

April snow. See  April 2, 1852 (“The rain now turns to snow with large flakes, so soft many cohere in the air as they fall. . . . Looking up, the flakes are black against the sky. And now the ground begins to whiten.”); April 2, 1856 ("Some of the earliest plants are now not started because covered with snow. "); April 2, 1857 ("A great change in the weather. I set out apple trees yesterday, but in the night it was very cold, with snow, which is now several inches deep.”): April 2, 1860 ("Cold and windy. . . the ground slightly whitened by a flurry of snow.") See also April 6, 1852 ("Last night a snow-storm, and this morning we find the ground covered again six or eight inches deep") April 12, 1855 (“ I hear it fell fourteen or fifteen inches deep in Vermont.”); April 13, 1852 ("Snowed all day, till the ground was covered eight inches deep."); April 15, 1854 ("Snow and snowing; four inches deep."); April 19, 1854 (“This is the fifth day that the ground has been covered with snow.”); April 21, 1857 ("It snows hard all day. If it did not melt so fast, would be a foot deep."); April 27, 1858 (“Snows hard in afternoon and evening. Quite wintry. About an inch on ground the next morning.”); April 26, 1860 {“ A man came from Lincoln last night with an inch of snow on the wheels of his carriage”)