Saturday, April 18, 2015

Overtaken by a sudden sun-shower.

April 18.

6 A. M. —See and hear tree sparrows, and hear hyemalis still. 

Rained last evening and was very dark. Fair this morning and warm. White-bellied swallows and martins twitter now at 9 A. M. 

P. M. — To Cliffs and Walden and Hubbard’s Close. 

Almost did without a fire this morning. Coming out, I find it very warm, warmer than yesterday or any day yet. It is a reminiscence of past summers. 

It is perfectly still and almost sultry, with wet-looking clouds hanging about, and from time to time hiding the sun. First weather of this kind. 

And as I sit on Fair Haven Hill-side, the sun actually burns my cheek; yet I left some fire in the house, not knowing behind a window how warm it was. 

The hillside and especially low bank-sides are now conspicuously green. The flooded meadows and river are smooth, and just enough in shadow for reflections. 

The rush sparrows tinkle now at 3 P. M. far over the bushes, and hylodes are peeping in a distant pool. Robins are singing and peeping, and jays are screaming. 

I see one or two smokes in the horizon. I can still see the mountains slightly spotted with snow. The frost is out enough for plowing probably in most open ground. 

When I reach the top of the hill, I see suddenly all the southern horizon (east or south from Bear Hill in Waltham to the river) full of a mist, like a dust, already concealing the Lincoln hills and producing distinct wreaths of vapor, the rest of the horizon being clear. Evidently a sea-turn, — a wind from over the sea, condensing the moisture in our warm atmosphere and putting another aspect on the face of things. 

All this I see and say long before I feel the change, while still sweltering on the rocks, for the heat is oppressive. 

Nature cannot abide this sudden heat, but calls for her fan. In ten minutes I hear a susurrus in the shrub oak leaves at a distance, and soon an agreeable fresh air washes these warm rocks, and some mist surrounds me. 

A low blackberry on the rocks is now expanding its leaves just after the gooseberry. A little sallow, about two feet high and apparently intermediate between tristis and the next, with reddish anthers not yet burst, will bloom to-morrow in Well Meadow Path. 

The shad-bush flower-buds, beginning to expand, look like leaf-buds bursting now.  

Am overtaken by a sudden sun-shower, after which a rainbow. In the evening hear far and wide the ring of toads, and a thunder-shower with its lightning is seen and heard in the west.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, April 18, 1855


The rush sparrows tinkle now at 3 P. M. far over the bushes, and hylodes are peeping in a distant pool. 
See April 18, 1857 ("Hear the huckleberry-bird”); .April 18, 1859 ("Hear a field sparrow."); April 18, 1856 ("This evening I hear the snipes generally and peeping of hylas from the door."); April 9, 1856 (“This degree of heat, then, brings the Fringilla juncorum and pine warbler and awakes the hyla.”) See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Field Sparrow(Fringilla juncorum)

Am overtaken by a sudden sun-shower, after which a rainbow. See  March 13, 1855 ("Rainbow in east this morning."); April 9, 1855 ("With April showers, me thinks, come rainbows. Why are they so rare in the winter?");May 11, 1854 ("A rainbow on the brow of summer.")

In the evening hear far and wide the ring of toads. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The ring of toads

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