Spring birding - A flurry of snow.

March 20

A flurry of snow at 7 A. M. I go to turn my boat up.

Four or five song sparrows are flitting along amid the willows by the waterside. Probably they came yesterday with the bluebirds. From distant trees and bushes I hear a faint tinkling te te te te te' and at last a full strain whose rhythm is whit whit whit, ter tche, tchear tche, deliberately sung, measuredly, while the falling snow is beginning to whiten the ground, —not discouraged by such a reception. 

The bluebird, too, is in the air, and I detect its blue back for a moment upon a picket. 

It is remarkable by what a gradation of days which we call pleasant and warm, beginning in the last of February, we come at last to real summer warmth. At first a sunny, calm, serene winter day is pronounced spring, or reminds us of it; and then the first pleasant spring day perhaps we walk with our greatcoat buttoned up and gloves on.

P. M. — Up Assabet. It soon clears off and proves a fair but windy day.  I notice havoc along the stream on making my first voyages on it.  

At my landing I hear the F. hyemalis, in company with a few tree sparrows. They take refuge from the cold wind, half a dozen in all, behind an arbor-vitae hedge, and there plume themselves with puffed-up feathers.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, March 20, 1855

Song sparrows are flitting along amid the willows by the waterside . . . I hear . . . at last a full strain whose rhythm is whit whit whit, ter tche, tchear tche, deliberately sung, measuredly, while the falling snow is beginning to whiten the ground. See March 11, 1854 ("They generally forthburst into sprayey song from the low trees along the river. The developing of their song is gradual but sure, like the expanding of a flower. This is the first song I have heard."); March 18, 1852 ("But this snow has not driven back the birds. I hear the song sparrow's simple strain, most genuine herald of the spring, and see flocks of chubby northern birds with the habit of snowbirds, passing north.") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau , Signs of the Spring: the Song Sparrow Sings

The bluebird, too, is in the air, and I detect its blue back. See March 19, 1855 ("I hear my first bluebird, somewhere about Cheney’s trees by the river. I hear him out of the blue deeps, but do not yet see his blue body. He comes with a warble."); See alsoA Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau , Signs of the Spring: Listening for the Bluebird

At my landing I hear the F. hyemalis, in company with a few tree sparrows. They take refuge from the cold wind. See March 20, 1852 ("And now, within a day or two, I have noticed the chubby slate-colored snowbird (Fringilla hyemalis?) . . .It is cold as winter to-day, the ground still covered with snow"); March 20, 1859 ("I see under the east side of the house . . . quite a parcel of sparrows, chiefly F. hyemalis, two or three tree sparrows, and one song sparrow, quietly feeding together. "); See also March 15, 1854(" Pleasant morning, unexpectedly. Hear on the alders by the river the lill lill lill lill of the first F. hyemalis, mingled with song sparrows and tree sparrows."); March 23, 1854 ("Snows and rains a little. The birds in yard active now, — hyemalis, tree sparrow, and song sparrow. The hyemalis jingle easily distinguished. Hear all together on apple trees these days.") and A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau , Signs of the Spring, the note of the dark-eyed junco going northward; A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau , the Tree Sparrow

It is remarkable by what a gradation of days which we call pleasant and warm . . . See April 26, 1860 ("What we should have called a warm day in March is a cold one at this date in April.”) 

March 20. See A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau , March 20

 Song sparrows flitting

 along amid the willows 

by the waterside.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Spring birding - A flurry of snow.

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

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