The bright crimson-red under sides of the great white lily pads, turned up by the wind in broad fields on the sides of the stream, are a great ornament to the stream. It is not till August, methinks, that they are turned up conspicuously. Many are now turned over completely. After August opens, before these pads are decayed (for they last longer than the nuphars of both kinds), the stronger winds begin to blow and turn them up at various angles, turning many completely over and exposing their bright crimson-red under sides with their ribs. The surface being agitated, the wind catches under their edges and turns them up and holds them commonly at an angle of 45°.
It is a very wholesome color, and, after the calm summer, an exhilarating sight, with a strong wind heard and felt, cooling and condensing your thoughts. This has the effect of a ripening of the leaf on the river. Not in vain was the under side thus colored, which at length the August winds turn up.
The Soft pads eaten up mostly; the pontederias crisped and considerably blackened, only a few flowers left.
It is surprising how the maples are affected by this drought. Though they stand along the edge of the river, they appear to suffer more than any trees except the white ash. Their leaves — and also those of the alders and hickories and grapes and even oaks more or less — are permanently curled and turned up on the upper three quarters of the trees; so that their foliage has a singularly glaucous hue in rows along the river. At a distance they have somewhat of the same effect with the silvered tops of the swamp white oak. The sight suggests a strong wind constantly blowing. I went ashore and felt of them. They were more or less crisped and curled permanently. It suggests what to a slight extent occurs every year.
On the Cliffs so many young trees and bushes are withered that from the river it looks as if a fire had run over them. At Lee's Cliff larger ash trees are completely sere and brown, — burnt up. The white pines are parti-colored there.
Now, methinks, hawks are decidedly more common, beating the bush and soaring. I see two circling over the Cliffs.
See a blue heron standing on the meadow at Fair Haven Pond. At a distance before you, only the two waving lines appear, and you would not suspect the long neck and legs.
Looking across the pond, the haze at the water's edge under the opposite woods looks like a low fog. To-night, as for at least four or five nights past, and to some extent, I think, a great many times within a month, the sun goes down shorn of his beams, half an hour before sunset, round and red, high above the horizon. There are no variegated sunsets in this dog-day weather.
H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 24, 1854
The bright crimson-red under sides of the great white lily pads... See June 29, 1852 ("The wind exposes the red under sides of the white lily pads. This is one of the aspects of the river now"); and June 30, 1859 ("The pads blown up by it already show crimson, it is so strong, but this not a fall phenomenon yet.")
Now, methinks, hawks are decidedly more common, beating the bush and soaring. I see two circling over the Cliffs. See August 24, 1860 ("See a large hen-hawk . .. soaring very high and toward the north. At last it returns southward, at that height impelling itself steadily and swiftly forward, with its wings set without apparent motion, it thus moves half a mile directly.") See also September 16, 1852 ("What makes this such a day for hawks? ") and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau ,The hen-hawk
See a blue heron standing on the meadow at Fair Haven Pond. See August 12, 1853 ("See the blue herons opposite Fair Haven Hill, as if they had bred here.”); August 19, 1858 ("The blue heron has within a week reappeared in our meadows. "); August 22, 1854 ("Thus the drought serves the herons, etc., confining their prey within narrower limits."); August 22, 1858 ("See one or two blue herons every day now, driving them far up or down the river before me."); September 5, 1854 ("Now at sundown, a blue heron flaps away from his perch on an oak over the river before me, just above the rock. ") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Blue Heron
Looking across the pond, the haze at the water's edge under the opposite woods looks like a low fog. To-night, as for at least four or five nights past, and to some extent, I think, a great many times within a month, the sun goes down shorn of his beams, half an hour before sunset, round and red, high above the horizon. There are no variegated sunsets in this dog-day weather.
H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 24, 1854
The bright crimson-red under sides of the great white lily pads... See June 29, 1852 ("The wind exposes the red under sides of the white lily pads. This is one of the aspects of the river now"); and June 30, 1859 ("The pads blown up by it already show crimson, it is so strong, but this not a fall phenomenon yet.")
Now, methinks, hawks are decidedly more common, beating the bush and soaring. I see two circling over the Cliffs. See August 24, 1860 ("See a large hen-hawk . .. soaring very high and toward the north. At last it returns southward, at that height impelling itself steadily and swiftly forward, with its wings set without apparent motion, it thus moves half a mile directly.") See also September 16, 1852 ("What makes this such a day for hawks? ") and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau ,The hen-hawk
See a blue heron standing on the meadow at Fair Haven Pond. See August 12, 1853 ("See the blue herons opposite Fair Haven Hill, as if they had bred here.”); August 19, 1858 ("The blue heron has within a week reappeared in our meadows. "); August 22, 1854 ("Thus the drought serves the herons, etc., confining their prey within narrower limits."); August 22, 1858 ("See one or two blue herons every day now, driving them far up or down the river before me."); September 5, 1854 ("Now at sundown, a blue heron flaps away from his perch on an oak over the river before me, just above the rock. ") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Blue Heron
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