April 15.
6.30 A. M. —To Hill.
It is warmer and quite still; somewhat cloudy in the east. The water quite smooth, — April smooth waters.
I hear very distinctly Barrett’s sawmill at my landing.
The purple finch is singing on the elms about the house, together with the robins, whose strain its resembles, ending with a loud, shrill, ringing chili chilt chilt chilt.
I push across the meadow and ascend the hill. The white-bellied swallows are circling about and twittering above the apple trees and walnuts on the hillside.
Not till I gain the hilltop do I hear the note of the Fringilla juncorum (huckleberry-bird) from the plains beyond.
Returned again toward my boat, I hear the rich watery note of the martin, making haste over the edge of the flood. A warm morning, over smooth water, before the wind rises, is the time to hear it.
Near the water are many recent skunk probings, as if a drove of pigs had passed along last night, death to many beetles and grubs.
pale moon, April 15, 2016
From amid the willows and alders along the wall there, I hear a bird sing, a-chitter chitter chitter chitter chitter chitter, che che che che, with increasing intensity and rapidity, and the yellow redpoll hops in sight.
A grackle goes over (with two females), and I hear from him a sound like a watchman’s rattle, — but little more musical.
What I think the Alnus serrulata (?) will shed pollen to-day on the edge of Catbird Meadow. Is that one at Brister’s Spring and at Depot Brook crossing? Also grows on the west edge of Trillium Wood.
Coming up from the riverside, I hear the harsh rasping char-r char-r of the crow blackbird, like a very coarsely vibrating metal, and, looking up, see three flying over.
Some of the early willow catkins have opened in my window. As they open, they curve backwards, exposing their breasts to the light.
By 9 A. M. the wind has risen, the water is ruffled, the sun seems more permanently obscured, and the character of the day is changed. It continues more or less cloudy and rain-threatening all day.
First salmon and shad at Haverhill to-day.
Ed. Emerson saw a toad in his garden to-day, and, coming home from his house at 11 P. M., a still and rather warm night, I am surprised to hear the first loud, clear, prolonged ring of a toad, when I am near Charles Davis’s house. The same, or another, rings again on a different key. I hear not more than two, perhaps only one.
I had only thought of them as commencing in the warmest part of some day, but it would seem that they may first be heard in the night. Or perhaps this one may have piped in the day and his voice been drowned by day’s sounds. Yet I think that this night is warmer than the day has been. While all the hillside else, perhaps, is asleep, this toad has just awaked to a new year.
It is a rather warm, moist night, the moon partially obscured by misty clouds, all the village asleep, only a few lights to be seen in some Windows, when, as I pass along under the warm hillside, I hear a clear, shrill, prolonged ringing note from a toad, the first toad of the year, sufficiently countenanced by its Maker in the night and the solitude, and then again I hear it (before I am out of hearing, i.e. it is deadened by intervening buildings), on a little higher key.
At the same time, I hear a part of the hovering note of my first snipe, circling over some distant meadow, a mere waif, and all is still again. A-lulling the watery meadows, fanning the air like a spirit over some far meadow’s bay.
And now for vernal sounds there is only the low sound of my feet on the Mill-Dam sidewalks.
H. D. Thoreau, Journal, April 15, 1856
The purple finch is singing on the elms . See April 15, 1854 ("The arrival of the purple finches appears to be coincident with the blossoming of the elm, on whose blossom it feeds.") See also
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Elms and the Purple Finch
The purple finch is singing on the elms . See April 15, 1854 ("The arrival of the purple finches appears to be coincident with the blossoming of the elm, on whose blossom it feeds.") See also
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Elms and the Purple Finch
The white-bellied swallows are circling. See April 15, 1855 (" Many martins (with white—bellied swallows) are skimming and twittering above the water, perhaps catching the small fuzzy gnats with which the air is filled"); April 15, 1859 ("I see and hear white-bellied swallows as they are zigzagging through the air with their loud and lively notes."); See also April 8, 1856 ("Another very pleasant and warm day. The white bellied swallows have paid us twittering visits the last three mornings. You must rush out quickly to see them, for they are at once gone again.") and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The White-bellied Swallow
I hear the rich watery note of the martin, making haste over the edge of the flood. A warm morning, over smooth water, before the wind rises, is the time to hear it. See April 15, 1855 ("Many martins (with white—bellied swallows) are skimming and twittering above the water, perhaps catching the small fuzzy gnats."); See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Martins in Early Spring
Near the water are many recent skunk probings . . . death to many beetles and grubs. See April 4, 1859 ("For a fortnight past, or since the frost began to come out, I have noticed the funnel-shaped holes of the skunk in a great many places and their little mincing tracks in the sand. Many a grub and beetle meets its fate in their stomachs.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Skunk
The yellow redpoll hops in sight. See April 15, 1854 ("The yellow redpoll hops along the limbs within four or five feet of me."). See also April 21, 1855 ("I see yellow redpolls on the bushes near the water, — handsome birds, -— but hear no note."); April 23, 1856 ("Hear the yellow redpoll sing on the maples below Dove Rock, —a peculiar though not very interesting strain, or jingle.”) and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Yellow Redpoll ( Palm) Warbler
What I think the Alnus serrulata (?) will shed pollen to-day on the edge of Catbird Meadow. See April 13, 1855 ("The Alnus incana blossoms begin generally to show. The serrulata will undoubtedly blossom to-morrow in some places."); April 13, 1856 ("There were alders out at Well Meadow Head, as large bushes as any. Can they be A. serrulata?"): April 16, 1852 ("I think that the tassels of the Alnus incana are rather earlier, longer, and more yellow, with smaller scales, than those of the A. serrulata, which are not yellow but green, mixed with the purplish or reddish brown scales."): See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Alders
Some of the early willow catkins have opened in my window. See April 15, 1852 ("I think that the largest early-catkined willow in large bushes in sand by water now blossoming -- the fertile catkins with paler blossoms, the sterile covered with pollen, a pleasant lively bright yellow -- is the brightest flower I have seen thus far"); See also April 9, 1856 ("[Willow catkins] will perhaps blossom by day after tomorrow."); April 12, 1852 ("See the first blossoms (bright-yellow stamens or pistils) on the willow catkins to-day . . . this earliest, perhaps swamp, willow with its bright-yellow blossoms on one side of the ament. It is fit that this almost earliest spring flower should be yellow, the color of the sun.")
First salmon and shad at Haverhill to-day . . . I am surprised to hear the first loud, clear, prolonged ring of a toad. See April 13, 1853 ("First hear toads . . . a loud, ringing sound filling the air, which yet few notice. First shad caught at Haverhill to-day."). See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Ring of Toads.
April 15. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, April 15
The village asleep . . .
a clear, shrill, prolonged ringing –
first toad of the year.
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, A warm, moist night, the moon partially obscured by misty clouds, all the village asleep
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 © 2009-2026
https://tinyurl.com/hdt-560415
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