Little flocks of chip-birds

September 16.

Sophia and mother returned from Wachusett. S. saw much bayberry in Princeton. 

September 16, 2016

P. M. —To Fringed Gentian Meadow over Assabet and to Dugan Desert. 

I see a wood tortoise in the woods. Why is it there now? 

There have been a few slight frosts in some places. The clematis is feathered. One Asclepias Cornuti begun to discount. I see many hardhacks in the lichen pasture by Tommy Wheeler’s which are leafing out again conspicuously. 

I see little flocks of chip-birds along the roadside and on the apple trees, showing their light under sides when they rise. 

I find the mud turtle’s eggs at the Desert all hatched, one still left in the nest. As the eggs were laid the 7th of June, it makes about three months before they came out of the ground. The nest is full of sand and egg shells. I see no tracks of the old one. I take out the remaining one, and it begins slowly to crawl toward the brook about five rods distant.  It is so slow that I can not stop to watch it, and so carry it to within seven or eight inches of the water, turning its head inland. At length it puts out its head and legs, turns itself round, and crawls to the water.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 16, 1854

One Asclepias Cornuti begun to discount. See September 10, 1860 ("If you sit at an open attic window almost anywhere, about the 20th of September, you will see many a milkweed down go sailing by . . . notwithstanding that you may not know of any of these plants growing in your neighborhood.") ; September 21, 1856 ("Asclepias Cornuti discounting."); October 19, 1856 ("The Asclepias Cornuti pods are now apparently in the midst of discounting."); October 25, 1858 ("Near the end of the causeway, milkweed is copiously discounting."); November 20, 1858 ("he common milkweed (Asclepias Cornuti) and some thistles still discounting") See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Milkweed.

I see little flocks of chip-birds. See September 1, 1854 ("Now I notice a few faint-chipping sparrows, busily picking the seeds of weeds in the garden."); October 5, 1858 ("I still see large flocks, apparently of chip birds, on the weeds and ground in the yard; without very distinct chestnut crowns, and they are divided by a light line") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Chipping Sparrow 

 I see a wood tortoise in the woods. Why is it there now? See September 15, 1855 ("An Emys insculpta . . . to my surprise found it coupled with another. It was at first difficult to separate them with a paddle.")October 21, 1857 ("I saw wood tortoises coupled up the Assabet, the back of the upper above water. It held the lower with its claws about the head, and they were not to be parted.") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau The Wood Turtlw (Emys insculpta)

The eggs were laid the 7th. See June 7, 1854 ("A snapping turtle . . . had just been excavating.”) \

At length it puts out its head and legs, turns itself round, and crawls to the water. See September 11, 1854 (“At length it put its head out far enough to see if the coast was clear, then, with its flippers, it turned itself toward the water”)  See August 26, 1854 (“Open one of my snapping turtle's eggs. Its eyes are open. It puts out its head, stretches forth its claws, and liberates its tail. With its great head it has already the ugliness of the full-grown, and is already a hieroglyphic of snappishness. . . . I am convinced that there must be an irresistible necessity for mud turtles.”)

September 16.  See A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,  September 16

Flocks of chip-birds rise

along the roadside showing

their light undersides.

A Book of the Seasons,   by Henry Thoreau, Little flocks of chip-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

https://tinyurl.com/hdt-540916