Snow last evening, about one inch deep

March 27.

6.30 A. M. — To Island. The ducks sleep these nights in the shallowest water which does not freeze, and there may be found early in the morning. I think that they prefer that part of the shore which is permanently covered. 

Snow last evening, about one inch deep, and now it is fair and somewhat warmer. Again I see the tracks of rabbits, squirrels, etc. It would be a good time this forenoon to examine the tracks of wood chucks and see what they are about. 

P. M. — To Hubbard’s Close and down brook. Measure a black oak just sawed down. Twenty three inches in diameter on the ground, and fifty-four rings. It had grown twice as much on the east side as on the west. 

The Fringilla linaria still here. See a wood tortoise in the brook. 

Am surprised to see the cowslip so forward, showing so much green, in E. Hubbard’s Swamp, in the brook, where it is sheltered from the winds. The already expanded leaves rise above the water. If this is a spring growth, it is the most forward herb I have seen, as forward as the celandine. 

See my frog hawk. (C. saw it about a week ago.) It is the hen-barrier, i.e. marsh hawk, male. Slate-colored; beating the bush; black tips to wings and white rump. 

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, March 27, 1855


Am surprised to see the cowslip so forward, showing so much green. See March 24, 1855 (" The earliest signs of spring in vegetation noticed thus far are the maple sap, the willow catkins, grass on south banks, and perhaps cowslip in sheltered places."); March 26, 1857 ("The buds of the cowslip are very yellow, and the plant is not observed a rod off, it lies so low and close to the surface of the water in the meadow. It may bloom and wither there several times before villagers discover or suspect it") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Signs of Spring: the Cowslip

Frog hawk/ hen-harrier/ marsh hawk, See  March 27, 1854 "Saw a hawk - probably marsh hawk by meadow .") See also March 29, 1854 ("See two marsh hawks, white on rump.“); April 23, 1855 (" Have seen also for some weeks occasionally a brown hawk with white rump, flying low, which I have thought the frog hawk in a different stage of plumage; but can it be at this season? and is it not the marsh hawk?”)  See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Marsh Hawk (Northern Harrier)