Go to new trees and you hear new birds.

April 24.

A. M. — Up railroad. 

The river slightly risen again owing to rain of yesterday morn and day before. As I stand still listening on the frosty sleepers at Wood's crossing by the lupines, I hear the loud and distinct pump-a-gor of a stake-driver. Thus he announces himself.

P. M. — Up Assabet, and thence to Cedar Swamp.

The first red maple blossoms — so very red over the water — are very interesting. 

The larch will apparently blossom in one or two days at least, both its low and broad purple-coned male flowers and its purple-tipped female cones.  

The white cedar female blossoms are open, and as the brown male ones are loosened the next day in the house, I think the 25th may be called their first day. 

Hear amid the white cedars the fine, clear singing warbler of yesterday, whose harsh note I may have heard the 18th, very clear and fast. 

April 24, 2022

Go to new trees, like cedars and firs, and you hear new birds.  They increase the strangeness. Also other strange plants are found there. I have also observed that the early birds are about the early trees, like maples, alders, willows, elms, etc.   

New plant (Racemed andromeda)  flower-budded at Cedar Swamp amid the high blueberry, panicled andromeda, clethra, etc.— upright dense racemes of reddish flower-buds on reddish terminal shoots. 

See a very large hawk, slaty above and white beneath, low over river. 

The kingfisher flies with a crack cr-r-r-ack and a limping or flitting flight from tree to tree before us, and finally, after a third of a mile, circles round to our rear. He sits rather low over the water. Now that he has come I suppose that the fishes on which he preys rise within reach.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, April 24, 1854

The river slightly risen again. See April 22, 1857 ("The river higher than before and rising.") and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, People do not remember so great a flood

The first red maple blossoms — so very red over the water — are very interesting See April 24, 1857 ("I see the now red crescents of the red maples in their prime . . . above the gray stems.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Red Maple

The larch will apparently blossom in one or two days. See May 1, 1854 ("The flowers of the larch which I examined on the 24th ult. have enlarged somewhat and may now certainly be considered in blossom, though the pollen is not quite distinct. I am not certain whether the 26th was not too early. The crimson scales of the female cones are still more conspicuous.") See also A Book of Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,the Larch

Cedar Swamp and white cedar female blossom See April 23, 1856 ("The white cedar swamp consists of hummocks, now surrounded by water, where you go jumping from one to another. The fans are now dotted with the minute reddish staminate flowers, ready to open”); April 24, 1855 ("The sprigs of red cedar, now full of the buff-colored staminate flowers, like fruit, are very rich . . . [Its pollen] is a clear buff color, while that of the white cedar is very different, being a faint salmon.”); April 26, 1856 ("The white cedar gathered the 23d does not shed pollen in house till to-day, and I doubt if it will in swamp before to-morrow."); April 26, 1857 ("The white cedar is apparently just out. The higher up the tree, the earlier")

Go to new trees. . . and you hear new birds. They increase the strangeness. Also other strange plants are found there. See June 9, 1854 ("What musicians compose our woodland quire? They must be forever strange and interesting to me.") See also April 16, 1856 ("By the discovery of one new plant all bounds seem to be infinitely removed."); May 29, 1856 ("Where you find a rare flower, expect to find more rare ones."); July 31, 1859 ("Where there are rare, wild, rank plants, there too some wild bird will be found.")

Singing warbler of yesterday, whose harsh note I may have heard the 18th. See April 18, 1854 ("More like the Tennessee warbler than any, methinks. Light-slate or bluish-slate head and shoulders, yellowish backward, all white beneath, and a distinct white spot on the wing; a harsh grating note[?]"); April 23, 1854 ("Had a glimpse of a very small warbler  on a pitch pine, and heard a pleasant and unusual whistle from him.")

New plant (Racemed andromeda) flower-budded. See June 3, 1857 (“The racemed andromeda (Leucothoe) has been partly killed, — the extremities of the twigs, — so that its racemes are imperfect.”);   June 8, 1856 (“I find no Andromeda racemosa in flower. It is dead at top and slightly leafed below. Was it the severe winter, or cutting off the protecting evergreens?”); June 10, 1857 ("The Leucothoe racemosa, not yet generally out, but a little (it being mostly killed) a day or two.")

The kingfisher flies with a crack cr-r-r-ack. See April 23, 1854 ("A kingfisher with his crack, — cr-r-r-rack"); April 25, 1852 ("Saw the first kingfisher, and heard his most unmusical note.")  and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau. The Kingfisher

Now that he has come I suppose that the fishes on which he preys rise within reach. See April 23, 1852 ("Vegetation . . . follows the sun. Insects . . . follow vegetation. The fishes, the small fry, start probably for this reason . . . fish hawks, etc., follow the small fry;")

Go to new trees

like cedars and firs 

and you hear new birds.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Go to new trees and you hear new birds

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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