I see a pitch pine seed with its wing, far out on Walden.

March 1. 

9 A. M. —To Flint’s Pond via Walden, by railroad and the crust. 

March 1, 2019

I hear the hens cackle as not before for many months. Are they not now beginning to lay? 

The catkins of the willow by the causeway and of the aspens appear to have pushed out a little further than a month ago. I see the down of half a dozen on that willow by the causeway; on the aspens pretty generally. 

As I go through the cut it is still, warm, and more or less sunny, springlike (about 40° + ), and the sand and reddish subsoil is bare for about a rod in width on the railroad. 

I hear several times the fine-drawn phe-be note of the chickadee, which I heard only once during the winter. Singular that I should hear this on the first spring day. 

I see a pitch pine seed with its wing, far out on Walden. 

Going down the hill to Goose Pond, I slump now and then. Those dense, dry beds of leaves are gathered especially about the leafy tops of young oaks, which are bent over and held down by the snow. They lie up particularly light and crisp. 

The birch stubs stand around Goose Pond, killed by the water a year or two ago, five or six feet high and thickly, as if they were an irregular stake fence a rod out. 

Going up the hill again, I slump in up to my middle.

At Flint’s I find half a dozen fishing. The pond cracks a very little while I am there, say at half past ten. I think I never saw the ice so thick. It measures just two feet thick in shallow water, twenty rods from shore. 

It is remarkable that though I have not been able to find any open place in the river almost all winter, except under the further stone bridge and at Loring’s Brook, — this winter so remarkable for ice and snow— Coombs should (as he says) have killed two sheldrakes at the falls by the factory, a place which I had forgotten, some four or six weeks ago. Singular that this hardy bird should have found this small opening, which I had forgotten, while the ice everywhere else was from one to two feet thick, and the snow sixteen inches on a level. 

If there is a crack amid the rocks of some waterfall, this bright diver is sure to know it. Ask the sheldrake whether the rivers are completely sealed up.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, March 1, 1856

I hear the hens cackle as not before for many months. Are they not now beginning to lay? See January 26, 1858 ("The hens cackle and scratch, all this winter. Eggs must be plenty.")

I see a pitch pine seed with its wing, far out on Walden.. . .   See February 1, 1856 ("I see a pitch pine seed, blown thirty rods from J. Hosmer’s little grove.") and A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Pitch Pine.

The catkins of the willow by the causeway. . .  See  A Book of Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau. Willows on the Causeway.

I hear several times the fine-drawn phe-be note of the chickadee. . .Singular that I should hear this on the first spring day. See March 1, 1854 ("Here is our first spring morning according to the almanac. . . .I hear the phoebe or spring note of the chickadee, and the scream of the jay is perfectly repeated by the echo from a neighboring wood.") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Chickadee in Winter

Ask the sheldrake whether the rivers are completely sealed up. . . . See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Ice-out; See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Sheldrake (Merganser, Goosander)