More nests and eggs

American Redstart
Setophaga ruticilla

June 16 

The cherry-bird’s egg was a satin color, or very pale slate, with an internal or what would be called black-and-blue ring about large end. 

P. M. —To Hubbard’s Grove, on river. 

A sparrow’s nest with four gray eggs in bank beyond ivy tree. 

Four catbirds half fledged in the green-briar near bathing-place, hung three feet from ground.

Examined a kingbird’s nest found before (13th) in a black willow over edge of river, four feet from ground. Two eggs. West of oak in Hubbard’s meadow. 

Catbird’s nest in an alder, three feet from ground, three fresh eggs. 

See young and weak striped squirrels nowadays, with slender tails, asleep on horizontal boughs above their holes, or moving feebly about; might catch them. 

Redstarts in the swamp there. 

Also see there a blue yellow-green-backed warbler, with an orange breast and throat, white belly and vent, and forked tail— indigo-blue head, etc.

Ground-nut, how long? 

A painted tortoise just burying three flesh-colored eggs in the dry, sandy plain near the thrasher’s nest. It leaves no trace on the surface. Find near by four more about this business. When seen they stop stock still in whatever position, and stir not nor make any noise, just as their shells may happen to be tilted up.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, June 16, 1855

Catbird’s nest in an alder, three feet from ground, three fresh eggs. See note to June 20, 1855 ("A catbird’s nest eight feet high on a pitch pine")

Examined a kingbird’s nest found before (13th) in a black willow. See June 13, 1855 ("Two kingbirds’ nests with eggs in an apple and in a willow by riverside.").

Redstarts in the swamp there. See May 17, 1856(“At the Kalmia Swamp, see and hear the redstart, very lively and restless, flirting and spreading its reddish tail.”); June 4, 1855 ("Redstarts still very common in the Trillium Woods (yesterday on Assabet also). Note tche, tche, tche vit, etc.”); June 6, 1855 ("On the Island I hear still the redstart—tsip tsip tsip tsip, tsit-i-yet, or sometimes tsip tsip tsip tsip, tse vet. A young male.”);June 23, 1855 ("Probably a redstart’s nest on a white oak sapling, twelve feet up, on forks against stem. Have it. See young redstarts about.”) See also A Book of Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The American Redstart

When seen they stop stock still in whatever position. See June 10, 1856 ("A tedious, naturlangsam pause of the slow-blooded creature, a sacrifice of time such as those animals are up to which slumber half a year and live for centuries"); see also A Book of the Seasons. by Henry Thoreau, the Painted Turtle (Emys picta)

June 16. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, June 16

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