While we sit by the path in the depths of the woods

May 28.

P.M. —To Middle Conantum Cliff. 

Yesterday left my boat at the willow opposite this Cliff, the wind northwest. Now it is southeast, and I can sail back. 

Our quince open this morning, possibly yesterday; and some others, I believe, much earlier. 

Do I not hear a short snappish, rasping note from a yellow-throat vireo? 

I see a tanager, the most brilliant and tropical-looking bird we have, bright-scarlet with black wings, the scarlet appearing on the rump again between wing-tips. He brings heat, or heat him. A remarkable contrast with the green pines. At this distance he has the aspect and manners of a parrot, with a fullness about the head and throat and beak, indolently inspecting the limbs and twigs —leaning over to it — and sitting still a long time. The female, too, is a neat and handsome bird, with the same indolent ways, but very differently colored from the male; all yellow below with merely dusky wings, and a sort of clay(?)-color on back. 

While we sit by the path in the depths of the woods three quarters of a mile beyond Hayden’s, confessing the influence of almost the first summer warmth, the wood thrush sings steadily for half an hour, now at 2.30 P.M., amid the pines, — loud and clear and sweet. While other birds are warbling betweenwhiles and catching their prey, he alone appears to make a business of singing, like a true minstrel. 

Is that one which I see at last in the path above dusky olive-brown becoming ferruginous on base of tail, eye not very prominent with a white line around it, some dark-colored feathers apparently on outer wing-coverts, very light colored legs, with dashes on breast which I do not see clearly? I should say that it had not the large black eye of the hermit thrush, and I cannot see the yellowish spot on the wings; yet it may have been this. 

I find the feathers apparently of a brown thrasher in the path, plucked since we passed here last night. You can generally find all the tail and quill feathers in such a case. 

The apple bloom is very rich now. 

Fever-bush shoots are now two inches long; say begin to leaf just before late willow. Black ash shoots three inches long; say with late willow. White pine and pitch pine shoots from two to five inches long. 

Rubus triflorus at Miles Swamp will apparently open to-morrow. Some krigia done some days. Silene Antirrhina. Barberry open (probably two or more days at Lee’s). 

C. says he has seen a green snake. 

Examined my two yellowbirds’ nests of the 25th. Both are destroyed, —pulled down and torn to pieces probably by some bird, — though they  but just begun to lay. 

Large yellow and black butterfly. 

The leaves of kalmiana lily obvious. 

I have seen within three or four days two or three new warblers which I have not identified; one to-day, in the woods, all pure white beneath, with a full breast, and greenish-olive-yellow (?) above, with a duskier head and a slight crest muscicapa-like, on pines, etc., high; very small.(Perhaps young and female redstarts.) Also one all lemon-yellow beneath, except whitish vent, and apparently bluish above.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 28, 1855

I see a tanager, . . . A remarkable contrast with the green pines. See May 23, 1853 ("How he enhances the wildness and wealth of the woods! That contrast of a red bird with the green pines and the blue sky! ...”); May 24, 1860 ("You can hardly believe that a living creature can wear such colors”).

The wood thrush . . . alone appears to make a business of singing, like a true minstrel.   See June 22, 1853  (“This is the only bird whose note affects me like music, affects the flow and tenor of my thought, my fancy and imagination.”)  See also  A Book of the Seasons,  The Wood Thrush

Is that one which I see . . . eye not very prominent with a white line around it, . . . with dashes on breast which I do not see clearly? See May 22, 1852 ("The female (and male?) wood thrush spotted the whole length of belly; the hermit thrush not so”) and note to April 24, 1856 ("[S]ee a brown bird flit, and behold my hermit thrush, with one companion, flitting silently through the birches. I saw the fox-color on his tail-coverts, as well as the brown streaks on the breast. ”).

Large yellow and black butterfly. See June 3, 1859 ("A large yellow butterfly . . . three and a half to four inches in expanse. Pale-yellow, the front wings crossed by three or four black bars; rear, or outer edge, of all wings widely bordered with black, and some yellow behind it; a short black tail to each hind one, with two blue spots in front of two red-brown ones on the tail")

May 28. SeeA Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, May 28

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 ©  2009-2021