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. 

June 4, 2020

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. 

Canada Warbler
(Sylvia pardalina /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. ");  July 1, 1854 ("The clouds are separate glowing masses or blocks floating in the sky, not threatening rain. I see from this hill their great shadows pass slowly here and there over the top of the green forest. ")

In the woods I hear the tanager and chewink and red-eye. See July 10, 1854 ("The singing birds at present are . . . Red-eye, tanager, wood thrush, chewink, veery, oven-bird, — all even at midday.")

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."”);  May 9, 1858 ("A dandelion perfectly gone to seed, a complete globe, a system in itself.") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The Dandelion in Spring

Redstarts still very common . . . Note tche, tche, tche vit, etc. See.May 26, 1855 ("Saw a redstart . . . black with a sort of brick red on sides [of] breast, spot on wing  and under root of tail. Note heard once next day, at Kalmia Swamp, somewhat like aveet aveet aveet aveet.");   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 . . . It repeats this at regular intervals for a long time") See also  A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau,  The American Redstart

The Linnaea borealis has grown an inch. See    June 1, 1855 ("I find the Linnaea borealis growing near the end of the ridge in this lot toward the meadow, near a large white pine stump recently cut."); See also  A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Linnaea borealis (Twinflower)

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.  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.”);  May 12, 1855 ("A very neat and active bird, exploring the limbs on all sides and looking three or four ways almost at once for insects. Now and then it raises its head a little, opens its bill, and, without closing it, utters its faint seeser seeser seeser.") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The Black and White Creeper

I think it must be the Canada Warbler? See May 23, 1860 ("I get sight for a moment of a large warbler on a young oak, – only the under side, which is a clear bright lemon-yellow, all beneath, with a sort of crescent of black spots on the breast. Is it not the Sylvia pardalina?"); 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.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Canada Warbler

The warbler of May 30. See May 30, 1855 ("A familiar warbler not recognized for some years")

The recent high winds. See May 30, 1855  ("A strong west wind "); June 1, 1855 ("A very windy day, the third, drowning the notes of birds."); June 2, 1855 ("Still windier than before.")

June 4.  See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, June 4

The dandelions

        now gone to seed – downy spheres

seen amid the grass.

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau,  A new season has commenced.

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