First columbine

May 6.

Hear the first warbling vireo this morning on the elms. This almost makes a summer. The first Anemone memorosa, wind-flower or wood anemone, its petals more slightly slightly tinged with purple than the rue-leaved.  See the ferns here at the spring curling up like the proboscis of the sphinx moth. The first Viola blanda (sweet-scented white), in the moist ground, also, by this spring.

The first columbine (Aquilegia Canadensis) to-day, on Conantum.

Shade is grateful, and the walker feels a desire to bathe in some pond or stream for coolness and invigoration.

The willows are now suddenly of a light, fresh, tender yellowish-green. 

A green bittern, a gawky bird. 

As I return over the bridge, shadflies very numerous. Many insects now in the evening sunshine, especially over the water.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 6, 1852

The first columbine (Aquilegia Canadensis) to-day, on Conantum. See May 1, 1854 ("I think that the columbine cannot be said to have blossomed there [Lee's Cliff] before to-day, — the very earliest.”); April 30, 1855 (" Columbine just out; one anther sheds.");  April 18, 1856 (“Columbine, and already eaten by bees. Some with a hole in the side.”);  April 19, 1858 (“Viola ovata on bank above Lee's Cliff. Edith Emerson found them there yesterday; also columbines and the early potentilla April 13th !!!”)

The willows are now suddenly of a light, fresh, tender yellowish-green. See May 2, 1859 (" I am surprised by the tender yellowish green of the aspen leaf just expanded suddenly”); May 17, 1854 (“The wooded shore is all lit up with the tender, bright green of birches fluttering in the wind and shining in the light”); May 18, 1852 ("This tender foliage, putting so much light and life into the landscape "); May 18, 1851("The landscape has a new life and light infused into it. And to the eye the forest presents the tenderest green.")