A frog, an orchid, and a family of hawks.

June 8.

At the last small pond near Well Meadow, a frog, apparently a small bullfrog, on the shore enveloped by a swarm of small, almost invisible insects, some resting on him, attracted perhaps by the slime which shone on him. 

He appears to endure the persecution like a philosopher.

As I stand by this pond, I hear a hawk scream, and, looking up, see, a pretty large one circling not far off and incessantly screaming, as I at first suppose to scare and so discover its prey, but its screaming is so incessant and it circles from time to time so near me, as I move southward, that I begin to think it has a nest near by and is angry at my intrusion into its domains. As I move, the bird still follows and screams, coming sometimes quite near or within gunshot, then circling far off or high into the sky. At length, as I  look up at it, thinking it the only living creature within view, I am singularly startled to behold, as my eye by chance penetrates deeper into the blue, - the abyss of blue above, which I had taken for a solitude, - its mate silently soaring at an immense height and seemingly indifferent to me.

We are surprised to discover that there can be an eye on us on that side, and so little suspected, that the heavens are full of eyes, though they look so blue and spotless. 

Now I know it was the female that circles and screams below. At last the latter rises gradually to meet her mate, and they circle together there, as if they could not possibly feel any anxiety on my account. When I draw nearer to the tall trees where I suspect the nest to be, the female descends again, sweps by screaming still nearer to me just over the tree-tops, and finally, while I am looking for the orchis in the swamp, alights on a white pine twenty or thirty rods off. 

(The great fringed orchis just open.) 

At length I detect the nest about eighty feet from the ground, in a very large white pine by the edge of the swamp. It is about three feet in diameter, of dry sticks, and a young hawk, apparently as big as its mother, stands on the edge of the nest looking down at me, and only moving its head when I move. It appears a tawny brown on its neck and breast, and dark brown or blackish on wings. The mother is light beneath, and apparently lighter still on rump.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, June 8, 1853

The great fringed orchis just open. See June 12, 1853 ("Visited the great  orchis. . . its great spike, six inches by two, of delicate pale-purple flowers, which begin to expand at bottom, rises above and contrasts with the green leaves of the hellebore and skunk-cabbage and ferns. . . in the cool shade of an alder swamp."); June 13, 1853 ("some rare and beautiful flower, which you may never find again, perchance, like the great purple fringed orchis, ") See also A Book of Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Purple Fringed Orchids

At length I detect the nest about eighty feet from the ground, in a very large white pine by the edge of the swamp. See May 1, 1855 ("He [Garfield] climbed the tree when I was there yesterday afternoon, the tallest white pine or other tree in its neighborhood, over a swamp, and found two young, . . .The reason I did not see my hawks at Well Meadow last year was that he found and broke up their nest there, containing five eggs.”);  April 30, 1857 ("[A] pretty large hawk alighted on an oak close by us. It probably has a nest near by and was concerned for its young.”); April 30, 1855 ( It must have a nest there.");  March 23, 1859 (“. . .we saw a hen-hawk perch on the topmost plume of one of the tall pines at the head of the meadow. Soon another appeared, probably its mate, but we looked in vain for a nest there."); March 2, 1856 ("I can hardly believe that hen-hawks may be beginning to build their nests now, yet their young were a fortnight old the last of April last year.”); July 31, 1856 ("Near Well Meadow, hear the distant scream of a hawk, apparently anxious about her young, and soon a large apparent hen-hawk (?) comes and alights on the very top of the highest pine there, within gunshot, and utters its angry scream. This a sound of the season when they probably are taking their first (?) flights.")

June 8. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, June 8

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau

"A book, each page written in its own season,

out-of-doors, in its own locality."

 ~edited, assembled and rewritten by zphx ©  2009-2021