White maple blossom-buds look as if bursting.

March 17

H. Hosmer says he has seen black ducks. 

I hear the lesser redpolls yet. [the last]

See now along the edge of the river, the ice being gone, many fresh heaps of clam shells, which were opened by the musquash when the water was higher, about some tree where the ground rises. And very many places you see where they formed new burrows into the bank, the sand being pushed out into the stream about the entrance, which is still below water. 

March 17, 2022

White maple blossom-buds look as if bursting; show a rusty, fusty space, perhaps a sixteenth of an inch in width, over and above the regular six scales. 

I see scraps of the evergreen ranunculus along the riverside.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, March 17, 1855

H. Hosmer says he has seen black ducks. See March 13, 1859 ("Garfield says he saw black ducks yesterday."): March 21, 1854 ("Look with glass and find more than thirty black ducks asleep with their heads on their backs, motionless, and thin ice formed about them.") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the American Black Duck

I hear the lesser redpolls yet. [the last] See January 19, 1855 ("At noon it is still a driving snow-storm, and a little flock of redpolls is busily picking the seeds of the pig weed in the garden. Almost all have more or less crimson; a few are very splendid, with their particularly bright crimson breasts. The white on the edge of their wing-coverts is very conspicuous.");  February 12, 1855 ("Under the birches, where the snow is covered with birch seeds and scales, I see the fine tracks, undoubtedly of linarias. The track of one of these birds in the light surface looks like a chain, or the ova of toads. Where a large flock has been feeding, the whole surface is scored over by them  "); March 12, 1855"Lesser redpolls still."); Compare  March 23, 1853 ("The birds which are merely migrating or tarrying here for a season are especially gregarious now, — the redpoll, Fringilla hyemalis, fox-colored sparrow, etc."); March 20, 1853 ("The redpolls are still numerous.'"); March 10, 1856 ("Probably the woods have been so generally buried by the snow this winter . . . I saw perhaps one redpoll in the town; that is all.");   March 6, 1860 ("The linarias have been the most numerous birds the past winter.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Lesser Redpoll

See now along the edge of the river, the ice being gone, many fresh heaps of clam shells, which were opened by the musquash. See November 11, 1855 (" The building of these cabins appears to be coincident with the commencement of their clam diet, for now their vegetable food, excepting roots, is cut off. "); December 23, 1858 ("How perfectly at home the musquash is on our river. And then there is an abundance of clams, a wholesome diet for him, to be had for the diving for them. I do not know that he has any competition in this chase, unless it is an occasional otter"); December 30, 1859 ("Even if the musquash is not there I often see the open clam shell on the edge of the ice, perfectly distinct a long way off, and he is betrayed"); January 3, 1860 ("Melvin thinks that the musquash eat more clams now than ever."); February 9, 1851 ("The last half of January was warm and thawy. The swift streams were open, and the muskrats were seen swimming and diving and bringing up clams, leaving their shells on the ice."); March 10, 1859 ("Here and there I see a musquash sitting in the sun on the edge of the ice, eating a clam, and the clamshells it has left are strewn along the edge. Ever and anon he drops into the liquid mirror, and soon reappears with another clam.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Musquash

White maple blossom-buds look as if bursting; show a rusty, fusty space. See March 7, 1860 ("White maple buds partly opened, so as to admit light to the stamens, some of them, yesterday at least."); March 14, 1857 ("White maple buds . . . have now a minute orifice at the apex, through which you can even see the anthers.”); March 23, 1853 (“The white maple . . . has opened unexpectedly, and a rich sight it is, looking up through the expanded buds to the sky.”); March 24, 1855 (" The white maple buds, too, show some further expansion methinks"); March 25, 1854 ("White maple buds bursting, making trees look like some fruit trees with blossom-buds.");  March 29, 1853 ("The female flowers of the white maple, crimson stigmas from the same rounded masses of buds with the male, are now quite abundant. . . . The two sorts of flowers are not only on the same tree and the same twig and sometimes in the same bud, but also sometimes in the same little cup.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, White Maple Buds and Flowers

I see scraps of the evergreen ranunculus along the riverside.  See December 3, 1854 ("The ranunculus is still a fresh bright green at the bottom of the river. It is the evergreen of the river,")

March 17. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, March 17

Maple blossom-buds

show a rusty, fusty space –

look as if bursting.

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, White maple blossom-buds look as if bursting.

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 © 2009-2025

https://tinyurl.com/hdt-550317