Scare up three quails in the stubble in G. M. Barrett’s orchard.

May 9.

P. M. —To Annursnack.

Alternate leaf Dogwood

  Cornus alternifolia and paniculata begin to leaf.

 The black currant will not bloom for five or six days. 

 A large red maple just begun to leaf - its keys an inch and a half long—by Assabet Bridge. 

 Castilleja show red, - one, - but will not bloom under a week probably. 

The same of erigeron.

Scare up three quails in the stubble in G. M. Barrett’s orchard. They go off partridge-like from within two rods, with a sharp, whistling whir. 

Hear, methinks, a white throated sparrow(?) sing very much like the beginning of a catbird’s song. Could see no other bird. Thought it a catbird at first. See several of these sparrows yet.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 9, 1855

Cornus alternifolia and paniculata begin to leaf. See June 4, 1859 ("Cornus alternifolia well out, apparently three or four days."): June 10, 1856 ("Cornus alternifolia a day or two, up railroad; maybe longer elsewhere."); June 13, 1852 ("I think I know four kinds of cornel beside the dogwood and bunchberry. . . (Cornus alternifolia? or sericea?) . . . (C. circinata?) . . . (C. paniculata); and the red osier by the river (C. stolonifera), which I have not seen this year.")

The black currant will not bloom for five or six days. See April 22, 1855 ("The black currant is just begun to expand leaf — probably yesterday elsewhere – a little earlier than the red."); April 23, 1855 ("The currant and second gooseberry are bursting into leaf. "); May 4, 1860 ("Currant out a day or two at least, and our first gooseberry a day later.");  May 5, 1855 ("Missouri currant look as if they would bloom to-morrow. "); May 8, 1853 ("The Ribes floridum, wild black currant, just begun by the wooden bridge just this side of the Assabet stone bridge, with dotted leaves."); May 15, 1857 ("Black currant at R. W. E.'s.");  May 18, 1856 (“R. W. E.’s black currant (which the wild Ribes floridum is said to be much like), maybe a day.”); May 19, 1858 ("The black currant near southwest corner of his Saw Mill field (Ribes floridum) perfectly out; how long?"); See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Leaf-Out

A large red maple just begun to leaf – its keys an inch and a half long—by Assabet Bridge. See  May 6, 1853 ("The maple-tops begin to look red now with the growing keys, at a distance, — crescents of red.");  May 10, 1855 ("Young red maples are generally later to leaf than young sugar maples; hardly began before yesterday; and large white are not so forward as young sugar.");. May 15, 1854 ("In swamps, the reddish or reddish-brown crescents of the red maple tops, now covered with keys"); May 16, 1860 ("I pass a young red maple whose keys hang down three inches or more and appear to be nearly ripe.")

Three quails in the stubble in G. M. Barrett’s orchard . . .go off partridge-like . . . with a sharp, whistling whir.  See January 5, 1860 ("How much the snow reveals! . . . I see where the quails have run along the roadside, and can count the number of the bevy better than if I saw them. Are they not peculiar in this, as compared with partridges, — that they run in company, while at this season I see but [one] or two partridges together?"); March 20, 1853 ("In a stubble-field east of Mt. Tabor, started up a pack ( though for numbers, about twenty, it may have been a bevy ) of quail, which went off to some young pitch pines, with a whir like a shot, the plump  round birds. ");  May 10, 1856 (I would gladly walk far in this stormy weather, for now I see and get near to large birds. Two quails whir away from the old shanty stubble-field");  May 20, 1858 ("Hear a quail whistle.");  May 25, 1855 ("Hear a quail and the summer spray frog, amid the ring of toads.");  May 29, 1852 ("I hear the quails nowadays while surveying."); June 1, 1856 (" Heard a quail whistle May 30th."); June 1, 1860 ("Farmer has heard the quail a fortnight. Channing yesterday."); June 3, 1859 ("Quail heard.")

Hear, methinks, a white throated sparrow (?) sing. See April 25, 1855 ("Hear a faint cheep and at length detect the white throated sparrow, the handsome and well-marked bird . . . with a yellow spot on each side of the front . . . I first saw the white-throated sparrow at this date last year. “); see also 
A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, White-throated Sparrow 

May 9  See A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, May 9

Three quails in stubble –

they go off partridge-like with 

a sharp, whistling whir.

A Book of the Seasons,   by Henry Thoreau, Scare up three quails in the stubble

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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