A time to see bird nests.

November 16

A part of to-day and yesterday I have been making shelves for my Oriental books, which I hear to-day are now on the Atlantic in the Canada. 

I see many more nests in the alders now than I suspected in the summer.

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

Making shelves for my Oriental books. See November 9, 1855 ("Yesterday I got a perfectly sound oak timber . . . As it was too heavy to lift aboard, I towed it. As I shall want some shelves to put my Oriental books on, I shall begin to save boards now."); November 30, 1855 ("This evening I received Cholmondeley’s gift of Indian books, forty-four volumes in all, which came by the Canada, reaching Boston on the morning of the '24th.")

I see many more nests in the alders now than I suspected in the summer. See May 19, 1854 ("The alders are slow to expand their leaves, but now begin to show a mass of green along the river, and with the willows, afford concealment to the birds' nests."); May 31, 1858 ("A yellowbird’s nest of that grayish milkweed fibre, one egg, in alder "); June 16, 1855 (“Catbird’s nest in an alder, three feet from ground, three fresh eggs.”); July 12, 1857 ("A song sparrow's nest in a small clump of alder, two feet from ground! Three or four eggs."); November 5, 1855 ("A nest made very thick, of grass and stubble, and lined with finer grass and horsehair, as big as a king bird’s, on an alder, within eighteen inches of ground, close to the water . . . to my surprise found an egg—very pale greenish-blue.”) See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The Alders