A few clean dry weeds seen distinctly against smooth water between ice.

December 15.

Up riverside via Hubbard Bath, P. M. 

December 15, 2023

I see again a large flock of what I called buntings on the 10th, also another flock surely not buntings, perhaps Fringilla linaria. May they not all be these? 

How interesting a few clean, dry weeds on the shore a dozen rods off, seen distinctly against the smooth, reflecting water between ice!

I see on the ice, half a dozen rods from shore, a small brown striped grub, and again a black one five eighths of an inch long. The last has apparently melted quite a cavity in the ice. How came they there?

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, December 15, 1854

What I called buntings on the 10th. See December 10, 1854 ("Saw a large flock of snow buntings (quite white against woods, at any rate), though it is quite warm."). See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Snow Bunting

 Also another flock surely not buntings, perhaps Fringilla linaria. See December 19, 1854 ("Off Clamshell I heard and saw a large flock of Fringilla linaria over the meadow. No doubt it was these I saw on the 15th. ( But I saw then, and on the 10th, a larger and whiter bird also; may have been the bunting.) Suddenly they turn aside in their flight and dash across the river to a large white birch fifteen rods off, which plainly they had distinguished so far. I afterward saw many more in the Potter swamp up the river. They were commonly brown or dusky above, streaked with yellowish white or ash, and more or less white or ash beneath. Most had a crimson crown or frontlet, and a few a crimson neck and breast, very handsome. Some with a bright-crimson crown and clear-white breasts. I suspect that these were young males. They keep up an incessant twittering, varied from time to time with some mewing notes, and occasionally, for some unknown reason, they will all suddenly dash away with that universal loud note (twitter) like a bag of nuts. They are busily clustered in the tops of the birches, picking the seeds out of the catkins, and sustain themselves in all kinds of attitudes, sometimes head downwards , while about this. Common as they are now, and were winter before last, I saw none last winter.") See also  A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Lesser Redpoll and  December 11, 1855 ("My acquaintances, angels from the north. I had a vision thus prospectively of these birds as I stood in the swamps . . .  The age of miracles is each moment thus returned. Now it is wild apples, now river reflections, now a flock of lesser redpolls.")

How interesting a few clean, dry weeds on the shore a dozen rods off, seen distinctly against the smooth, reflecting water between ice! See December 14, 1854 ("Your eye slides first over a plane surface of smooth ice of one color to a water surface of silvery smoothness, like a gem set in ice, and reflecting the weeds and trees and houses and clouds with singular beauty. The reflections are particularly simple and distinct.")

I see on the ice, half a dozen rods from shore, a small brown striped grub, and again a black one. See December 20, 1854 ("It has been a glorious winter day, its elements so simple . . . If there is a grub out, you are sure to detect it on the snow or ice")

December 15.  See  A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau December 15

A few clean dry weeds

seen distinctly against smooth

water between ice.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The smooth, reflecting water between ice

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 © 2009-2023

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