I see at a distance the scattered birch-tops, like yellow flames amid the pines.

October 22.

P. M. — To Fair Haven Hill via Hubbard’s Grove. 

How welcome this still, cloudy day! An inward sunniness more than makes up for the want of an external one. 

As I pass this grove, I see the open ground strewn and colored with yellow leaves, which have been wafted from a large black birch ten rods within the wood. I see at a distance the scattered birch-tops, like yellow flames amid the pines, also, in another direction, the red of oaks in the bosom of a pine wood, and, in sprout-lands on Fair Haven, the deep and uniform red of young oaks.

I sit on a bank at the brook crossing, beyond the grove, to watch a flock of seringos, perhaps Savannah sparrows, which, with some F. hyemalis and other sparrows, are actively flitting about amid the alders and dogwood. 

Suddenly a pigeon hawk dashes over the bank very low and within a rod of me, and, striking its wings against the twigs with a clatter close to a sparrow, which escaped, it alights amid the alders in front, within four rods of me. It is attracted by the same objects which attracted me. It sits a few moments, balancing itself and spreading its tail and wings, -- a chubby little fellow. Its back appears a sort of deep chocolate-brown.

Pigeon Hawk

Every sparrow at once conceals itself. Once or twice he dashes down amid the elders and tries to catch one. In a few minutes he skims along the hedge by the path and disappears westward. But presently, hearing the sound of his wings amid the bushes, I look up and see him dashing along through the willows and then out and upward high over the meadow in pursuit of a sparrow.

When I pass along the path ten minutes after, I find that all those sparrows are still hid under the bushes by the ditch-side, close to the ground, and I see nothing of them till I scare them out by going within two or three feet. No doubt they warned each other by a peculiar note. 

In Potter’s pasture, they have felled and carted off that middling-sized white oak just beyond. I count about one hundred and twenty rings of growth. 

In Potter’s maple swamp, where the red maple leaves lie in thick beds on the ground, what a strong mustiness, even sourness in some places! Yet I like this scent. With the present associations, sweet to me is the mustiness of the grave itself. 

I hear a hyla. The swamp pyrus (Amelanchier) is leafing again. One opening leafet is an inch long, while the reddish yellow leaves still hold on at the end of the twig above. Its green swollen buds are generally conspicuous, curving round the stems.  It is a new spring there. 

I think that the trees generally have not worn very brilliant colors this month, but I find to-day that many small shrubs which have been protected by the forest are remarkably fair and bright. 

There are two seasons when the leaves are in their glory, their green and perfect youth in June and this their ripe old age. 

The Plymouth fishermen have just come home from the Banks, except one.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, October 22, 1855

I sit on a bank at the brook crossing, beyond the grove, to watch a flock of seringos, perhaps Savannah sparrows ...See note to June 26, 1856 ("According to Audubon’s and Wilson’s plates, . . .the Savannah sparrow [has] no conspicuous yellow on shoulder, a yellow brow, and white crown line. Rode to Sconticut Neck or Point in Fairhaven . . . and saw, apparently, the F. Savanna near their nests (my seringo note), restlessly flitting about me from rock to rock within a rod. Distinctly yellow-browed and spotted breast . . ."); also Guide to Thoreau’s Birds "(Thoreau frequently called the Savannah Sparrow  the seringo or seringo-bird, but he also applied the name to other small birds.)"

Some F. hyemalis and other sparrows, are actively flitting about amid the alders and dogwood. See October 22, 1859 ("F. hyemalis quite common for a week past."); October 25, 1858 ("In the cut the F. hyemalis, which has been here for a month, flits away with its sharp twitter amid the falling leaves. This is a fall sound"); October 26, 1857 ("Many sparrows are flitting past amid the birches and sallows. They are chiefly Fringilla hyemalis. How often they may be thus flitting along in a straggling manner from bush to bush, so that the hedgerow will be all alive with them, each uttering a faint chip from time to time, as if to keep together, bewildering you so that you know not if the greater part are gone by or still to come. One rests but a moment on the tree before you and is gone again. You wonder if they know whither they are bound, and how their leader is appointed.")

It sits a few moments, balancing itself and spreading its tail and wings, -- a chubby little fellow. Its back appears a sort of deep chocolate-brown. See April 29, 1856 (" Scared a small dark-brown hawk from an apple tree. . . .I saw with my glass that his tail was barred with white. Must it not be a pigeon hawk then? He looked a dark slate as he sat, with tawny-white thighs and under head, . . . I think I have not described this white-barred hawk before.") See also   A Book of the Seasons by Henry Thoreau, The Pigeon Hawk (Merlin)

I see at a distance the scattered birch-tops, like yellow flames amid the pines. See  October 22, 1858 ("The birches are now but thinly clad and that at top, its flame shaped top more like flames than ever now. . . . The lowermost leaves turn golden and fall first; so their autumn change is like a fire which has steadily burned up higher and higher, consuming the fuel below, till now it has nearly reached their tops.");See also October 26, 1860 ("This is the season of the fall when the leaves are whirled through the air like flocks of birds, the season of birch spangles, when you see afar a few clear-yellow leaves left on the tops of the birches.');  October 31, 1857 ("The white birches, too, still retain many yellow leaves at their very tops, having a lively flame-like look when seen against the woods.")

A new spring there.   See  October 23, 1853 ("Many phenomena re mind me that now is to some extent a second spring, — not only the new-springing and blossoming of flowers, but the peeping of the hylodes for some time, and the faint warbling of their spring notes by many birds. . . .The Viola pedata looking up from so low in the wood-path makes a singular impression."); October 22, 1859 (" In the wood-path below the Cliffs I see perfectly fresh and fair Viola pedata flowers, as in the spring, though but few together. No flower by its second blooming more perfectly brings back the spring to us.")