Summer yellow bird; young red maples and yellow birch: a yellow redpoll still.

May 10

Canada plum opens petals to-day and leafs. Domestic plum only leafs. 

Summer yellowbird. 

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. 

Muhlenberg’s willow leafed four or five days. 

Young yellow birch leaf, say two days. 

In Callitriche Pool hear a bullfrog belch or dump. Is that a proserpinaca with finely divided leaves in this pool? 

Hear a tree-toad, — or, maybe, a woodpecker tapping. 

A juncus in Hubbard’s Close two feet high and big as a crow’s quill. 

Round-leafed cornel leaf to-morrow; also pignut leaf to-day in some places. 

The beech leaf-buds are more backward, apparently, than chestnut, but some leaves are expanding with the flower-buds, which are now opened so as to show the separate buds. 

Vaccinium Pennsylvanicum, early blueberry, in bloom; probably may shed pollen. 

A yellow redpoll still.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 10, 1855

Canada plum opens petals to-day and leafs. See May 10, 1852 ("The Canada (?) (N. Brooks's) plum in bloom, and a cherry tree."). May 10, 1856 ("Mr. Prichard’s Canada plum will open as soon as it is fair weather.") See also May 5, 1855 ("Canada plum and cultivated cherry and Missouri currant look as if they would bloom to-morrow. "); ; May 12,1856 ("Prichard’s Canada plum will probably bloom to-morrow.”)

Summer yellowbird. See. w. May 10, 1853 ("At this season the traveller passes through a golden gate on causeways where these willows are planted, as if he were approaching the entrance to Fairyland; and there will surely be found the yellowbird, and already from a distance is heard his note, a tche tche tche tcha tchar tcha, — ah, willow, willo"); May 10, 1858 ("For some days the Salix alba have shown their yellow wreaths here and there, suggesting the coming of the yellowbird, and now they are alive with them. ")See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Summer Yellowbird

Young red maples are generally later to leaf than young sugar maples; hardly began before yesterday. See  May 3, 1855 ("Young red maple leaf to-morrow");  May 4, 1855 ("Red maple blossoms begin to cover ground."); May 6, 1853 (" There are pretty large leaves on the young red maples (which have no flowers), disposed crosswise, as well as on the sugar maple, but not so with larger flowering maples."); May 6, 1855 ("The young sugar maples leafing are more conspicuous now than any maples.”) ; May 6, 1859 ("Young red maples suddenly bursting into leaf are very conspicuous now in the woods") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Spring Leaf-Out and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Red Maple

Young yellow birch leaf, say two days.  See May 12, 1853 ("The yellow birch is considerably the most forward, its flowers, not, perhaps, its leaves, which last are only expanded on young trees, though here is one large one leaved out."); May 13, 1855 ("Only a part of the yellow birches are leafing, but not yet generally the large ones. I notice no catkins");   May 17, 1854 ("The birches burst out suddenly into leaf and make a great show. It is the first to clothe large tracts of deciduous woodlands with green, and perchance it marks an epoch in the season, the transition decidedly and generally from bare twigs to leaves . . . The light reflected from their tender yellowish green is like sunlight."); See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau the Yellow Birch

In Callitriche Pool hear a bullfrog belch. See  May 10, 1858 ("I hear in several places the low dumping notes of awakened bullfrogs . . . It is a certain revelation and anticipation of the livelong summer to come. It gives leave to the corn to grow and to the heavens to thunder and lighten.") See also April 16, 1856 ("Frogs sit round Callitriche Pool, where the tin is cast. We have waste places — pools and brooks, etc., -— where to cast tin, iron, slag, crockery, etc."); April 16, 1855 ("This pool dries up in summer. The very pools, the receptacles of all kinds of rubbish, now, soon after the ice has melted, so transparent and of glassy smoothness and full of animal and vegetable life, are interesting and beautiful objects.”);  May 25, 1852 (" I hear the first troonk of a bullfrog")   May 25, 1855 ("Heard the first regular bullfrog’s trump on the 18th; none since."); The different frogs mark the seasons pretty well,- the peeping hyla, the dreaming frog, and the bullfrog .June 13, 1851 (" I believe that all may be heard at last occasionally together. The bullfrog belongs to summer. ") and A Book of the Seasons,by Henry Thoreau, The Bullfrog in Spring

Hear a tree-toad, — or, maybe, a woodpecker tapping. See April 26, 1854 ("Did I hear a tree toad to-day?"); May 6, 1858 ("I heard from time to time a new note from my Rana palustris in the firkin in my chamber. . . . I recognized it as a sound I hear along the riverside . . . perhaps even like the tapping of a woodpecker. Yes, quite like it thus close by.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Tree-toad

Vaccinium Pennsylvanicum, early blueberry, in bloom; probably may shed pollen. See May 10, 1856 ("Some Vaccinium Pennsylvanicum out in Cut woods; maybe a day, as it has rained steadily the last two days. It seems to bloom with or immediately after the bear-berry."); See also  May 5, 1860 ("Vaccinium Pennsylvanicum flowers against rocks, not long . . . Hear of bear-berry well out the 29th of April at Cliffs, and there probably some days.") and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Blueberries

A yellow redpoll still. See April 27, 1854 ("The yellow redpolls still numerous; sing chill lill lill lill lill lill. "); See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Yellow Redpoll ( Palm) Warbler

May 10.  See A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, May 10

Summer yellowbird. 

Young yellow birch leaf two days –

yellow redpoll still.

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, A yellow redpoll still.

                                     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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