Sounds of Early Spring. A warm and hazy but breezy day.

April 9.

P. M. – To Second Division. 

The chipping sparrow, with its ashy-white breast and white streak over eye and undivided chestnut crown, holds up its head and pours forth its che che che che che che. 

On a pitch pine on side of J. Hosmer's river hill, a pine warbler, by ventriloquism sounding farther off than it was, which was seven or eight feet, hopping and flitting from twig to twig, apparently picking the small flies at and about the base of the needles at the extremities of the twigs. Saw two afterward on the walls by roadside. 

A warm and hazy but breezy day. The sound of the laborers' striking the iron rails of the railroad with their sledges, is as in the sultry days of summer, — resounds, as it were, from the hazy sky as a roof, — a more confined and, in that sense, domestic sound echoing along between the earth and the low heavens. The same strokes would produce a very different sound in the winter. 

Men fishing for trout.

Small light-brown lizards, about five inches long, with somewhat darker tails, and some a light line along back, are very active, wiggling off, in J. P. Brown ' s ditch, with pollywogs. 

Beyond the desert, hear the hooting owl, which, as formerly, I at first mistook for the hounding of a dog, — a squealing eee followed by hoo hoo hoo deliberately, and particularly sonorous and ringing. This at 2 P. M. Now mated. Pay their addresses by day, says Brooks. 

Winkle lichens, some with greenish bases, on a small prostrate white oak, near base. Also large white ear like ones higher up. 

A middling-sized orange-copper butterfly on the mill road, at the clearing, with deeply scalloped wings. You see the buff-edged and this, etc., in warm, sunny southern exposures on the edge of woods or sides of rocky hills and cliffs, above dry leaves and twigs, where the wood has been lately cut and there are many dry leaves and twigs about. 

An ant-hill covered with a firm sward except at top. 

The cowslips are well out, – the first conspicuous herbaceous flower, for the cabbage is concealed in its spathe. 

The Populus tremuliformis, just beyond, resound with the hum of honey-bees, flies, etc. These male trees are frequently at a great distance from the females. Do not the bees and flies alone carry the pollen to the latter? I did not know at first whence the humming of bees proceeded. 

At this comparatively still season, before the crickets begin, the hum of bees is a very noticeable sound, and the least hum or buzz that fills the void is detected. Here appear to be more bees than on the willows. On the last, where I can see them better, are not only bees with pellets of pollen, but more flies, small bees, and a lady-bug. What do flies get here on male flowers, if not nectar? Bees also in the female willows, of course without pellets. It must be nectar alone there. 

That willow by H.'s Bridge is very brittle at base of stem, but hard to break above. The more I study willows, the more I am confused. 

The epigæa will not be out for some days. 

Elm blossoms now in prime. Their tops heavier against the sky, a rich brown; their outlines further seen. 

Most alders done. Some small upright ones still fresh. 

Evening. — 

Hear the snipe a short time at early starlight. 

I hear this evening for the first time, from the partially flooded meadow across the river, I standing on this side at early starlight, a general faint, prolonged stuttering or stertorous croak, — probably same with that heard April 7th, — that kind of growling, like wild beasts or a coffee-mill, which you can produce in your throat. It seems too dry and wooden, not sonorous or pleasing enough, for the toad. 

I hear occasionally the bullfrog's. note, croakingly and hoarsely but faintly imitated, in the midst of it, — which makes me think it may be they, though I have not seen any frogs so large yet, but that one by the railroad which I suspect may have been a fontinalis. 

What sound do the tortoises make beside hissing? 

There were the mutilated Rana palustris seen in the winter, the hylodes, the small or middling-sized croakers in pools (a shorter, less stuttering note than this to-night), and next the note of the 7th, and to night the last, the first I have heard from the river. I occasionally see a little frog jump into a brook. 

The whole meadow resounds, probably from one end of the river to the other, this evening, with this faint, stertorous breathing. It is the waking up of the meadows. 

Louder than all is heard the shrill peep of the hylodes and the hovering note of the snipe, circling invisible above them all. 

Vide again in Howitt, pp. 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 37, 49, 54, 95. 

Is it the red-eye or white-eye whose pensile nest is so common?

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, April 9, 1853

A pine warbler, by ventriloquism sounding farther off than it was. See April 9, 1856 (" I hear . . . the note of the pine warbler. It sounds far off and faint, but, coming out and sitting on the iron rail, I am surprised to see it within three or four rods, on the upper part of a white oak, where it is busily catching insects, . . . When heard a little within the wood, as he hops to that side of the oak, they sound particularly cool and inspiring, like a part of the evergreen forest itself, the trickling of the sap. Its bright yellow or golden throat and breast, etc., are conspicuous at this season, — a greenish yellow above, with two white bars on its bluish-brown wings."). See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Pine Warbler.

The sound of the laborers' striking the iron rails of the railroad with their sledges. . .echoing along between the earth and the low heavens. See February 24, 1852 ("I now hear at a distance the sound of the laborer's sledge on the rails. The very sound of men's work reminds, advertises, me of the coming of spring.”);February 16, 1855 ("Sounds sweet and musical through this air . . . striking on the rails at a distance.”)

The cowslips are well out, – the first conspicuous herbaceous flower. See April 8, 1856 ("There, in that slow, muddy brook near the head of Well Meadow, within a few rods of its source, . . . find two cowslips in full bloom, shedding pollen; and they may have opened two or three days ago; for I saw many conspicuous buds here on the 2d which now I do not see. . . .What an arctic voyage was this in which I find cowslips, the pond and river still frozen over for the most part as far down as Cardinal Shore! "); April 13, 1855 ("Many cowslip buds show a little yellow, but they will not open there [Second Division]for two or three days. The road is paved with solid ice there."); April 29, 1852 ("At the Second Division Brook the cowslip is in blossom. "). See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Signs of Spring: the Cowslip

Hear the snipe a short time at early starlight. . . the hovering note of the snipe, circling invisible above them all. See  April 9, 1855 ("Some twenty minutes after sundown I hear the first booming of a snipe."). April 9, 1858 ("I hear the booming of snipe this evening, . . . Persons walking up or down our village street in still evenings at this season hear this singular winnowing sound in the sky over the meadows and know not what it is. This “booming” of the snipe is our regular village serenade. I heard it this evening for the first time, as I sat in the house, through the window. Yet common and annual and remarkable as it is, not one in a hundred of the villagers hears it, and hardly so many know what it is. "). See also A Book of Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Snipe

I hear this evening for the first time, from the partially flooded meadow across the river, I standing on this side at early starlight, a general faint, prolonged stuttering or stertorous croak, — probably same with that heard April 7th, — that kind of growling, like wild beasts or a coffee-mill, which you can produce in your throat . . .the first I have heard from the river. . . . The whole meadow resounds, probably from one end of the river to the other, this evening, with this faint, stertorous breathing. It is the waking up of the meadows. See April 3, 1858 ("We hear the stertorous tut tut tut of frogs from the meadow, with an occasional faint bullfrog-like er er er intermingled. . . . Both these sounds, then, are made by one frog [Rana halecina], . . . This, I think, is the first frog sound I have heard from the river meadows or anywhere, except the croaking leaf-pool frogs and the hylodes"); April 5, 1855 ("Hear from one half-flooded meadow that low, general, hard, stuttering tut tut tut of frogs,—the awakening of the meadow.”); April 3, 1858 ("This might be called the Day of the Snoring Frogs, or the Awakening of the Meadows.”);