What do the birds do when the seeds and bark are encased in ice?

December 28.

December 28, 2015

P. M. — Hollowell place and back near Hubbard’s Bridge. 

To-day and yesterday the boys have been skating on the crust in the streets, —it is so hard, the snow being very shallow. 

Considerable ice still clings to the rails and trees and especially weeds, though much attenuated. 

The birches were most bent— and are still—in hollows on the north sides of hills. 

See some rabbit’s fur on the crust and some (apparently bird?) droppings, since the sleet fell,—a few pinches of fur the only trace of the murder. Was it a hawk’s work? 

Cross the river on the ice in front of Puffer’s. 

What do the birds do when the seeds and bark are thus encased in ice?

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, December 28, 1855