Another, more still, cloudy, almost drizzling day, in which, as the last three, I wear a greatcoat.
P. M. — To Lee’s Cliff.
Privet begins to leaf. (Viburnum nudum and Lentago yesterday.)
I observed yesterday that the barn swallows confined themselves to one place, about fifteen rods in diameter, in Willow Bay, about the sharp rock. They kept circling about and flying up the stream (the wind easterly), about six inches above the water, — it was cloudy and almost raining, — yet I could not perceive any insects there.
Those myriads of little fuzzy gnats mentioned on the 21st and 28th must afford an abundance of food to insectivorous birds. Many new birds should have arrived about the 21st. There were plenty of myrtle-birds and yellow redpolls where the gnats were.
The swallows were confined to this space when I passed up, and were still there when I returned, an hour and a half later. I saw them nowhere else.
They uttered only a slight twitter from time to time and when they turned out for each other on meeting. Getting their meal seemed to be made a social affair. Pray, how long will they continue to circle thus without resting?
The early willow by Hubbard’s Bridge has not begun to leaf. This would make it a different species from that by railroad, which has.
Hear a short, rasping note, somewhat tweezer-bird like, I think from a yellow redpoll. Yellow dor bug.
I hear from far the scream of a hawk circling over the Holden woods and swamp. This accounts for those two men with guns just entering it. What a dry, shrill, angry scream! I see the bird with my glass resting upon the topmost plume of a tall white pine. Its back, reflecting the light, looks white in patches; and now it circles again.
It is a red-tailed hawk. The tips of its wings are curved upward as it sails. How it scolds at the men beneath! I see its open bill. It must have a nest there.
Hark! there goes a gun, and down it tumbles from a rod or two above the wood. So I thought, but was mistaken. In the meanwhile, I learn that there is a nest there, and the gunners killed one this morning, which I examined. They are now getting the young.
Above it was brown, but not at all reddish— brown except about head. Above perhaps I should thickly barred with darker, and also wings beneath. The tail of twelve reddish feathers, once black-barred near the end. The feet pale-yellow and very stout, with strong, sharp black claws. The head and neck were remarkably stout, and the beak short and curved from the base. Powerful neck and legs. The claws pricked me as I handled it.
It measured one yard and three eighths plus from tip to tip, i.e. four feet and two inches. Some ferruginous on the neck; ends of wings nearly black.
Columbine just out; one anther sheds. Also turritis will to-morrow apparently; many probably, if they had not been eaten. Crowfoot and saxifrage are now in prime at Lee’s; they yellow and whiten the ground.
I see a great many little piles of dirt made by the worms on Conantum pastures.
The woodchuck has not so much what I should call a musky scent, but exactly that peculiar rank scent which I perceive in a menagerie. The musky at length becomes the regular wild-beast scent.
Red-wing blackbirds now fly in large flocks, covering the tops of trees—willows, maples, apples, or oaks—like a black fruit, and keep up an incessant gurgling and whistling, — all for some purpose; what is it?
White pines now show the effects of last year’s drought in our yard and on the Cliffs, the needles faded and turning red to an alarming extent.
I now see many Juniperus repens berries of a handsome light blue above, being still green beneath, with three hoary pouting lips.
The Garfields had found a burrow of young foxes. How old?
I see the black feathers of a blackbird by the Miles Swamp side, and this single bright-scarlet one shows that it belonged to a red wing, which some hawk or quadruped devoured.
H. D. Thoreau, Journal, April 30, 1855
It is a red-tailed hawk. See May 1, 1855 ("He [Garfield] climbed the tree when I was there yesterday afternoon, the tallest white pine or other tree in its neighborhood, over a swamp, and found two young, which he thought not more than a fortnight old,—with only down, at least no feathers,—and one addled egg, also three or four white-bellied or deer mouse (Mus leucopus), a perch, and a sucker, and a gray rabbit’s skin. . . . I found the remains of a partridge under the tree.”). See also March 2, 1856 ("I can hardly believe that hen-hawks may be beginning to build their nests now, yet their young were a fortnight old the last of April last year.”); March 15, 1860 ("These hawks, as usual, began to be common about the first of March, showing that they were returning from their winter quarters. . . . An easily recognized figure anywhere.”); March 23, 1859 (“. . .we saw a hen-hawk perch on the topmost plume of one of the tall pines at the head of the meadow. Soon another appeared, probably its mate, but we looked in vain for a nest there. It was a fine sight, their soaring above our heads, presenting a perfect outline and, as they came round, showing their rust-colored tails with a whitish rump, or, as they sailed away from us, that slight teetering or quivering motion of their dark-tipped wings seen edgewise, now on this side, now that, by which they balanced and directed themselves.”); April 22, 1860 ("See now hen-hawks, a pair, soaring high as for pleasure, circling ever further and further away, as if it were midsummer. . . . I do not see it soar in this serene and leisurely manner very early in the season, methinks"); April 30, 1857 ("a pretty large hawk alighted on an oak close by us. It probably has a nest near by and was concerned for its young.”); May 4, 1855 ("Red tail hawk young fourteen days old."). See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau ,The hen-hawk
Red-wing blackbirds now fly in large flocks, covering the tops of trees—willows, maples, apples, or oaks—like a black fruit. See March 16, 1860 ("They cover the apple trees like a black fruit.”); May 5, 1859 (" Red-wings fly in flocks yet."); see also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Red-wing in Early Spring
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