In Wheeler's Wood by railroad.
Nuthatches are faintly answering each other, — tit for tat, — on different keys, — a faint creak. Now and then one utters a loud distinct gnah. This bird more than any I know loves to stand with its head downward. Meanwhile chickadees, with their silver tinkling, are flitting high above through the tops of the pines.
Measure the ice of Walden in three places, — Call it then 17 inches on an average. On Fair Haven, in the only place tried, it was 21 inches thick. I think that in an average year the ice in such a pond as Fair Haven attains a greater thickness than the snow on a level.
The other day I thought that I smelled a fox very strongly, and went a little further and found that it was a skunk. May not their odors differ in intensity chiefly?
Observe in one of the little pond-holes between Walden and Fair Haven where a partridge had travelled around in the snow amid the bordering bushes twenty-five rods, and had paused at each high blueberry bush, fed on its red buds and shaken down fragments of its bark on the snow.
H. D. Thoreau, Journal, February 24, 1854
Nuthatches are faintly answering each other, — tit for tat, — on different keys, — a faint creak. See February 25, 1859 (" I heard this morning a nuthatch on the elms in the street. I think that they are heard oftener and again at the approach of spring, just as the phoebe note of the chickadee is; and so their gnah gnah is a herald of the spring.").See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Signs of the Spring: The Spring Note of the Nuthatch
Measure the ice of Walden . . . 17 inches on an average. See February 16, 1856 ("Near the shore in one place it was twenty-two inches.”)
It was a skunk. See February 25, 1860 ("They appear to come out commonly in the warmer weather in the latter part of February.").See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Signs of the Spring; Skunks Active
Paused at each high blueberry bush, fed on its red buds and shaken down fragments of its bark on the snow. See December 18, 1854 ("Where a partridge took to wing I find the round red buds of the high blueberry plucked about the swamps.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Partridge
Measure the ice of Walden in three places, — Call it then 17 inches on an average. On Fair Haven, in the only place tried, it was 21 inches thick. I think that in an average year the ice in such a pond as Fair Haven attains a greater thickness than the snow on a level.
The other day I thought that I smelled a fox very strongly, and went a little further and found that it was a skunk. May not their odors differ in intensity chiefly?
Observe in one of the little pond-holes between Walden and Fair Haven where a partridge had travelled around in the snow amid the bordering bushes twenty-five rods, and had paused at each high blueberry bush, fed on its red buds and shaken down fragments of its bark on the snow.
H. D. Thoreau, Journal, February 24, 1854
Nuthatches are faintly answering each other, — tit for tat, — on different keys, — a faint creak. See February 25, 1859 (" I heard this morning a nuthatch on the elms in the street. I think that they are heard oftener and again at the approach of spring, just as the phoebe note of the chickadee is; and so their gnah gnah is a herald of the spring.").See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Signs of the Spring: The Spring Note of the Nuthatch
Measure the ice of Walden . . . 17 inches on an average. See February 16, 1856 ("Near the shore in one place it was twenty-two inches.”)
It was a skunk. See February 25, 1860 ("They appear to come out commonly in the warmer weather in the latter part of February.").See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Signs of the Spring; Skunks Active
February 24. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, February 24
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau,
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 © 2009-2024
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