A Sparrow's nest.

 P. M. — To Clamshell by river.  

Yellow Bethlehem-star in prime. Aphyllon, or orobanche, well out apparently several days. Nuphar Kalmiana budded above water. Green-briar flower out apparently two or three days. Low blackberry out in low ground. That very early (or in winter green radical leaf) plant by ash is the myosotis laxa, open since the 28th of May, say June 1st. Ranunculus repens, say two days out, river being very low. Common cress well out along river. Side-flowering sandwort apparently three days out in Clamshell flat meadow. Some oxalis done, say two or three days, on ditch bank. Ranunculus repens in prime. Yellow clover well out some days. Flowering ferns, reddish-green, show on meadows. Green oak-balls. 

Walking along the upper edge of the flat Clamshell meadow, a bird, probably a song sparrow (for I saw two chipping about immediately after), flew up from between my feet, and I soon found its nest remarkably concealed. It was under the thickest of the dry river wreck, with an entry low on one side, full five inches long and very obscure. On looking close I detected the eggs from above by looking down through some openings in the wreck about as big as sparrows’ eggs, through which I saw the eggs, five in number. I never saw the nest so perfectly concealed. 

I am much interested to see how Nature proceeds to heal the wounds where the turf was stripped off this meadow. There are large patches where nothing remained but pure black mud, nearly level or with slight hollows like a plate in it. This the sun and air had cracked into irregular polygonal figures, a foot, more or less, in diameter. The whole surface of these patches here is now covered with a short, soft, and pretty dense moss-like vegetation springing up and clothing it. 

The little hollows and the cracks are filled with a very dense growth of reddish grass or sedge, about one inch high, the growth in the cracks making pretty regular figures as in a carpet, while the intermediate spaces are very evenly but much more thinly covered with minute sarothra and whitish Gnaphalium uliginosum. Thus the wound is at once scarred over. Apparently the seeds of that grass were heavier and were washed into the hollows and cracks. Is it likely that the owner has sprinkled seed here?

H. D. Thoreau,  Journal, June 5, 1855