A new season has commenced.

June 4.

P. M. ——To Hubbard’s Close. 

Clears up in forenoon. White clover out probably some days, also red as long. 

It has just cleared off after this first rain of consequence for a long time, and now I observe the shadows of massive clouds still floating here and there in the peculiarly blue sky; which dark shadows on field and wood are the more remarkable by contrast with the light yellow-green foliage now, and when they rest on evergreens they are doubly dark, like dark rings about the eyes of June. Great white-bosomed clouds, darker beneath, float through the cleared sky and are seen against the deliciously blue sky, such a sky as we have not had before. 

Thus it is after the first important rain at this season. The song of birds is more lively and seems to have a new character; a new season has commenced. 

In the woods I hear the tanager and chewink and red-eye. It is fairly summer, and mosquitoes begin to sting in earnest. 

I see the dandelions now generally gone to seed amid the grass —their downy spheres.

There are now many potentillas ascendant, and the Erigeron bellidifolius is sixteen inches high and quite handsome, by the railroad this side of turn-off.

Redstarts still very common in the Trillium Woods (yesterday on Assabet also). Note tche, tche, tche vit, etc. I see some dark on the breast. 

The Lycopodium dendroideum now shows fresh green tips like the hemlock. Greenish puffs on panicled andromedas. 

Lint comes off on to clothes from the tender leaves, but it is clean dirt and all gone when you get home; and now the crimson velvety leafets of the black oak, showing also a crimson edge on the downy under sides, are beautiful as a flower, and the more salmon white oak. 

The Linnaea borealis has grown an inch. But are not the flowers winter-killed? I see dead and blackened flower-buds. Perhaps it should have opened before. 

Wintergreen has grown two inches. 

See a warbler much like the black and white creeper, but perched warbler-like on trees; streaked slate, white, and black, with a large white and black mark on wing, crown divided by a white line and then chestnut (?) or slate or dark, and then white above and below eye, breast and throat streaked downward with dark, rest beneath white. Can it be the common black and white creeper? Its note hardly reminds me of that. It is somewhat like pse pse pse pse, psa psa, weese weese weese, or longer. It did not occur to me that it was the same till I could not find any other like this in the book. 

Cardellina canadensis

In the clintonia swamp I hear a smart, brisk, loud and clear whistling warble, quite novel and remarkable, something like te chit a wit, te chit a wit, tchit a wit, tche tche. It is all bright yellow or ochreous orange (?) below except vent, and a dark or black crescent on breast, with a white line about eye. Above it appears a nearly uniform dark blue slate, legs light, bill dark (?), tail long and forked. I think it must be the Canada warbler, seen in ’37, though that seems short for this. It is quite different from the warbler of May 30. 

The recent high winds have turned the edges of young leaves by beating and killing them. 

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, June 4, 1855

The shadows of massive clouds still floating here and there in the peculiarly blue sky. See May 30, 1852 (A day for shadows, even of moving clouds, over fields in which the grass is beginning to wave."); June 3, 1858 ("The shadows of clouds flitting over the landscape are a never-failing source of amusement . . . to see one man’s farm in the shadow of a cloud, — which perhaps he thought covered all the Northern States, — while his neighbor’s farm was in sunshine."); June 9, 1856 ("There are some large cumuli with glowing downy cheeks floating about"); June 11, 1856 ("Great cumuli are slowly drifting in the intensely blue sky, with glowing white borders”). June 24, 1852 ("The drifting white downy clouds are objects of a large, diffusive interest. . . among the most glorious objects in nature. ")

I see the dandelions now generally gone to seed amid the grass —their downy spheres. See June 4, 1852 (“The dandelions are now almost all gone to seed, and children may now see if "your mother wants you." ”)

Can it be the common black and white creeper? Its note hardly reminds me of that. It is somewhat like pse pse pse pse, psa psa, weese weese weese, or longer. It did not occur to me that it was the same . . . See April 28, 1856 (" I hear to-day frequently the seezer seezer seezer of the black and white creeper, or what I have referred to that, . . .”); May 11, 1856 (" The black and white creeper also is descending the oaks, etc., and uttering from time to time his seeser seeser seeser.”)

 I think it must be the Canada Warbler? See May 28, 1860 ("Sylvia pardalina. It is a bright yellow beneath, with a broad black stripe along each side of the throat, becoming longish black marks crescent-wise on the fore part of the breast, leaving a distinct clear bright-yellow throat, and all the rest beneath bright-yellow; a distinct bright-yellow ring around eye; a dark bluish brown apparently all above; yellowish legs. Not shy; on the birches.")