Signs of Winter

November 1. 

As I go up the back road, I am struck with the general stillness as far as birds are concerned. There is now no loud, cheerful effervescing with song as in the spring. Most are gone. I only hear some crows toward the woods. 

The road and ruts are all frosted and stiff, and the grass and clover leaves. At Swamp Bridge, I see crystals of ice six feet long, like very narrow and sharp spears, or like great window-sashes without glass between them, floating on the water. 

Now that the sun is fairly risen, I see and hear a flock of larks in Wheeler's meadow on left of the Corner road, singing exactly as in spring and twittering also, but rather faintly or suppressedly, as if their throats had grown up or their courage were less. 

The white birch seeds begin to fall and leave the core bare. 

I now hear a robin, and see and hear some noisy and restless jays, and a song sparrow chips faintly. 

As I paddle under the Leaning Hemlocks, the breeze rustles the boughs, and showers of their fresh winged seeds come wafted down to the water and are carried round and onward in the great eddy there. 

While getting the azaleas, I notice the shad-bush conspicuously leafing out. Those long, narrow, pointed buds, prepared for next spring, have anticipated their time. 

As I return, I notice crows flying southwesterly in a very long straggling flock, of which I see probably neither end.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, November 1, 1853

The white birch seeds begin to fall and leave the core bare. See  November 4, 1860 ("White birch seed has but recently begun to fall. I see a quarter of an inch of many catkins bare. May have begun for a week. The birch begins to shed its seed about the time our winter birds arrive from the north.") 

A song sparrow chips faintly. See October 26, 1855 (“The song sparrow still sings on a button-bush.”)

Showers of their fresh winged seeds come wafted down. . . See October 31, 1853 ("The hemlock seeds are apparently ready to drop from their cones.”); October 15, 1856 ("A great part of the hemlock seeds fallen."); October 13, 1859 ("The hemlock seed is now in the midst of its fall, some of it, with the leaves, floating on the river.")

I notice the shad-bush conspicuously leafing out. See October 13, 1859 ("The swamp amelanchier is leafing again, as usual."); November 4, 1854 (“The shad-bush buds have expanded into small leaflets already.”).

Crows flying southwesterly in a very long straggling flock, of which I see probably neither end.  November 1, 1851("Counted one hundred and twenty five crows in one straggling flock moving westward."); see also October 20, 1859 ("I see a large and very straggling flock of crows fly southwest from over the hill behind Bull's and contending with the strong and cold northwest wind. This is the annual phenomenon. They are on their migrations."); October 29, 1855 ("I see and count about a hundred crows advancing in a great rambling flock from the southeast and crossing the river on high, and cawing."); October 29, 1857 ("A flock of about eighty crows flies ramblingly over toward the sowing, cawing and loitering and making a great ado, apparently about nothing.") Compare March 5, 1854 ("And crows, as I think, migrating northeasterly. They come in loose, straggling flocks, about twenty to each, commonly silent, a quarter to a half a mile apart, till four flocks have passed, perhaps more. Methinks I see them going southwest in the fall.") Also A Book of Seasons, by Henry Thoreau: The American Crow