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| April 9, 2016 |
7 A. M. —To Trillium Woods. Air full of birds.
The line I have measured west of railroad is now just bare of snow, though a broad and deep bank of it lies between that line and the railroad. East of railroad has been bare some time. The line in Trillium Woods is apparently just bare also. There is just about as much snow in these woods now as in the meadows and fields around generally; i. e., it is confined to the coldest sides, as in them. There is not so much as on the east side of Lee’s Hill. It is toward the north and east sides of the wood. Hence, apparently, in a level wood of this character the snow lies no longer than in adjacent fields divided by fences, etc., or even without them.
The air is full of birds, and as I go down the causeway, I distinguish the seringo note. You have only to come forth each morning to be surely advertised of each newcomer into these broad meadows.
Many a larger animal might be concealed, but a cunning ear detects the arrival of each new species of bird.
These birds give evidence that they prefer the fields of New England to all other climes, deserting for them the warm and fertile south. Here is their paradise. It is here they express the most happiness by song and action. Though these spring mornings may often be frosty and rude, they are exactly tempered to their constitutions, and call forth the sweetest strains.
The yellow birch sap has flowed abundantly, probably before the white birch.
8 A. M. — By boat to V. palmata Swamp for white birch sap. Leave behind greatcoat.
The waters have stolen higher still in the night around the village, bathing higher its fences and its dry withered grass stems with a dimple. See that broad, smooth vernal lake, like a painted lake. Not a breath disturbs it. The sun and warmth and smooth water and birds make it a carnival of Nature’s.
How much would be subtracted from the day if the water was taken away! This liquid transparency, of melted snows partially warmed, spread over the russet surface of the earth! It is certainly important that there be some priests, some worshippers of Nature. I do not imagine anything going on to-day away from and out of sight of the waterside.
Early aspen catkins have curved downward an inch, and began to shed pollen apparently yesterday. White maples also, the sunny sides of clusters and sunny sides of trees in favorable localities, shed pollen to-day.
I hear the note of a lark amid the other birds on the meadow. For two or three days, have heard delivered often and with greater emphasis the loud, clear, sweet phebe note of the chickadee, elicited by the warmth.
Cut across Hosmer’s meadow from Island to Black Oak Creek, where the river, still rising, is breaking over with a rush and a rippling. Paddle quite to the head of Pinxter Swamp, where were two black ducks amid the maples, which went off with a hoarse quacking, leaving a feather on the smooth dark water amid the fallen tree-tops and over the bottom of red leaves.
Set two sumach spouts in a large white birch in the southward swamp, and hung a tin pail to them, and set off to find a yellow birch. Wandering over that high huck-leberry pasture, I hear the sweet jingle of the Fringilla juncorum.
In a leafy pool in the low wood toward the river, hear a rustling, and see yellow-spot tortoises dropping off an islet, into the dark, stagnant water, and four or five more lying motionless on the dry leaves of the shore and of islets about. Their spots are not very conspicuous out of water, and in most danger.
The warmth of the day has penetrated into these low, swampy woods on the northwest of the hill and awakened the tortoises from their winter sleep. These are the only kind of tortoise I have seen this year. Probably because the river did not rise earlier, and the brooks, and thaw them out. When I looked about, I saw the shining black backs of four or five still left, and when I threw snowballs at them, they would not move. Yet from time to time I walk four or five rods over deep snow-banks, slumping in on the north and east sides of hills and woods. Apparently they love to feel the sun on their shells.
As I walk in the woods where the dry leaves are just laid bare, I see the bright-red berries of the Solomon’s seal still here and there above the leaves, affording food, no doubt, for some creatures.
Not finding the birches, I return to the first swamp and tap two more white birches. They flow generally faster than the red or white maples.
I sit on a rock in the warm, sunny swamp, where the ground is bare, and wait for my vessels to be filled. It is perfectly warm and perhaps drier than ever here.
The great butterflies, black with buff-edged wings, are fluttering about, and flies are buzzing over this rock. The spathes of the skunk-cabbage stand thickly amid the dead leaves, the only obvious sign of vegetable life.
A few rods off I hear some sparrows busily scratching the floor of the swamp, uttering a faint iseep iseep and from time to time a sweet strain. It is probably the fox-colored sparrow. These always feed thus, I think, in woody swamps, a flock of them - rapidly advancing, flying before one another, through the swamp.
A robin peeping at a distance is mistaken for a hyla.
A gun fired at a muskrat on the other side of the island towards the village sounds like planks thrown down from a scaffold, borne over the water.
Meanwhile I hear the sap dropping into my pail. The birch sap flows thus copiously before there is any other sign of life in the tree, the buds not visibly swollen. Yet the aspen, though in bloom, shows no sap when I cut it, nor does the alder. Will their sap flow later? Probably this birch sap, like the maple, flows little if any at night. It is remarkable that this dead-looking trunk should observe such seasons, that a stock should distinguish between day and night.
When I return to my boat, I see the snow-fleas like powder, in patches on the surface of the smooth water, amid the twigs and leaves.
I have paddled far into the swamp amid the willows and maples. The flood has reached and upset, and is floating off the chopper’s corded wood. Little did he think of this thief.
It is quite hazy to-day.
The red-wing’s o’gurgle-ee-e is in singular harmony with the sound and impression of the lapsing stream or the smooth, swelling flood beneath his perch. He gives expression to the flood. The water reaches far in amid the trees on which he sits, and they seem like a water-organ played on by the flood. The sound rises up through their pipes.
There is no wind, and the water is perfectly smooth, —a Sabbath stillness till 11 A. M. We have had scarcely any wind for a month.
Now look out for fires in the woods, for the leaves are never so dry and ready to burn as now. The snow is no sooner gone, —nay, it may still cover the north and west sides of hills, — when a day or two’s sun and wind will prepare the leaves to catch at the least spark. In deed these are such leaves as have never yet been wet, as have blown about and collected in heaps on the snow, and they would burn there in midwinter, though the fire could not spread much.
If the ground were covered with snow, would any degree of warmth produce a blue haze like this?
But such a fire can only run up the south and southwest sides of hills at this season. It will stop at the summit and not advance forward far, nor descend at all toward the north and east.
P. M. —Up railroad. A very warm day.
The Alnus incana, especially by the railroad opposite the oaks, sheds pollen.
At the first-named alder saw a striped snake, which probably I had scared into the water from the warm railroad bank, its head erect as it lay on the bottom and swaying back and forth with the waves, which were quite high, though considerably above it. I stood there five minutes at least, and probably it could remain there an indefinite period.
The wind has now risen, a warm, but pretty stormy southerly wind, and is breaking up those parts of the river which were yet closed. The great mass of ice at Willow Bay has drifted down against the railroad bridge.
I see no ducks, and it is too windy for muskrat-shooters. In a leafy pond by railroad, which will soon dry up, I see large skater insects, where the snow is not all melted.
The willow catkins there near the oaks show the red of their scales at the base of the catkins dimly through their down, —a warm crimson glow or blush. They are an inch long, others about as much advanced but rounded. They will perhaps blossom by day after to morrow, and the hazels on the hillside beyond as soon at least, if not sooner. They are loose and begin to dangle. The stigmas already peep out, minute crimson stars.
The skaters are as forward to play on the first smooth and melted pool, as boys on the first piece of ice in the winter. It must be cold to their feet.
I go off a little to the right of the railroad, and sit on the edge of that sand-crater near the spring by the railroad. Sitting there on the warm bank, above the broad, shallow, crystalline pool, on the sand, amid russet banks of curled early sedge-grass, showing a little green at base, and dry leaves, I hear one hyla peep faintly several times. This is, then, a degree of warmth suflicient for the hyla. He is the first of his race to awaken to the new year and pierce the solitudes with his voice. He shall wear the medal for this year. You hear him, but you will never find him. He is somewhere down amid the withered sedge and alder bushes there quarter his shrill blast sounded, but he is silent, and a kingdom will not buy it again.
The communications from the gods to us are still deep and sweet, indeed, but scanty and transient,—enough only to keep alive the memory of the past.
Meanwhile I hear the sap dropping into my pail. The birch sap flows thus copiously before there is any other sign of life in the tree, the buds not visibly swollen. Yet the aspen, though in bloom, shows no sap when I cut it, nor does the alder. Will their sap flow later? Probably this birch sap, like the maple, flows little if any at night. It is remarkable that this dead-looking trunk should observe such seasons, that a stock should distinguish between day and night.
When I return to my boat, I see the snow-fleas like powder, in patches on the surface of the smooth water, amid the twigs and leaves.
I have paddled far into the swamp amid the willows and maples. The flood has reached and upset, and is floating off the chopper’s corded wood. Little did he think of this thief.
It is quite hazy to-day.
The red-wing’s o’gurgle-ee-e is in singular harmony with the sound and impression of the lapsing stream or the smooth, swelling flood beneath his perch. He gives expression to the flood. The water reaches far in amid the trees on which he sits, and they seem like a water-organ played on by the flood. The sound rises up through their pipes.
There is no wind, and the water is perfectly smooth, —a Sabbath stillness till 11 A. M. We have had scarcely any wind for a month.
Now look out for fires in the woods, for the leaves are never so dry and ready to burn as now. The snow is no sooner gone, —nay, it may still cover the north and west sides of hills, — when a day or two’s sun and wind will prepare the leaves to catch at the least spark. In deed these are such leaves as have never yet been wet, as have blown about and collected in heaps on the snow, and they would burn there in midwinter, though the fire could not spread much.
If the ground were covered with snow, would any degree of warmth produce a blue haze like this?
But such a fire can only run up the south and southwest sides of hills at this season. It will stop at the summit and not advance forward far, nor descend at all toward the north and east.
P. M. —Up railroad. A very warm day.
The Alnus incana, especially by the railroad opposite the oaks, sheds pollen.
At the first-named alder saw a striped snake, which probably I had scared into the water from the warm railroad bank, its head erect as it lay on the bottom and swaying back and forth with the waves, which were quite high, though considerably above it. I stood there five minutes at least, and probably it could remain there an indefinite period.
The wind has now risen, a warm, but pretty stormy southerly wind, and is breaking up those parts of the river which were yet closed. The great mass of ice at Willow Bay has drifted down against the railroad bridge.
I see no ducks, and it is too windy for muskrat-shooters. In a leafy pond by railroad, which will soon dry up, I see large skater insects, where the snow is not all melted.
The willow catkins there near the oaks show the red of their scales at the base of the catkins dimly through their down, —a warm crimson glow or blush. They are an inch long, others about as much advanced but rounded. They will perhaps blossom by day after to morrow, and the hazels on the hillside beyond as soon at least, if not sooner. They are loose and begin to dangle. The stigmas already peep out, minute crimson stars.
The skaters are as forward to play on the first smooth and melted pool, as boys on the first piece of ice in the winter. It must be cold to their feet.
I go off a little to the right of the railroad, and sit on the edge of that sand-crater near the spring by the railroad. Sitting there on the warm bank, above the broad, shallow, crystalline pool, on the sand, amid russet banks of curled early sedge-grass, showing a little green at base, and dry leaves, I hear one hyla peep faintly several times. This is, then, a degree of warmth suflicient for the hyla. He is the first of his race to awaken to the new year and pierce the solitudes with his voice. He shall wear the medal for this year. You hear him, but you will never find him. He is somewhere down amid the withered sedge and alder bushes there quarter his shrill blast sounded, but he is silent, and a kingdom will not buy it again.
The communications from the gods to us are still deep and sweet, indeed, but scanty and transient,—enough only to keep alive the memory of the past.
I remarked how many old people died off on the approach of the present spring. It is said that when the sap begins to flow in the trees our diseases become more violent. It is now advancing toward summer apace, and we seem to be reserved to taste its sweetness, but to perform what great deeds? Do we detect the reason why we also did not die on the approach of spring?
I measure a white oak stump, just sawed off, by the railroad there, averaging just two feet in diameter with one hundred and forty-two rings; another, near by, an inch and a half broader, had but one hundred and five rings.
While I am looking at the hazel, I hear from the old locality, the edge of the great pines and oaks in the swamp by the railroad, the note of the pine warbler. It sounds far off and faint, but, coming out and sitting on the iron rail, I am surprised to see it within three or four rods, on the upper part of a white oak, where it is busily catching insects, hopping along toward the extremities of the limbs and looking off on all sides, twice darting off like a wood pewee, two rods, over the railroad, after an insect and returning to the oak, and from time to time uttering its simple, rapidly iterated, cool-sounding notes. When heard a little within the wood, as he hops to that side of the oak, they sound particularly cool and inspiring, like a part of the ever green forest itself, the trickling of the sap. Its bright yellow or golden throat and breast, etc., are conspicuous at this season, — a greenish yellow above, with two white bars on its bluish-brown wings. It sits often with loose-hung wings and forked tail.
Meanwhile a bluebird sits on the same oak, three rods off, pluming its wings. I hear faintly the warbling of one, apparently a quarter of a mile off, and am very slow to detect that it is even this one before me, which, in the intervals of pluming itself, is apparently practicing in an incredibly low voice.
The water on the meadows now, looking with the sun, is a far deeper and more exciting blue than the heavens.
The thermometer at 5 P. M. is 66°+, and it has probably been 70° or more; and the last two days have been nearly as warm. This degree of heat, then, brings the Fringilla juncorum and pine warbler and awakes the hyla.
H. D. Thoreau, Journal, April 9, 1856
I hear from the old locality, the edge of the great pines and oaks in the swamp by the railroad, the note of the pine warbler. It sounds far off and faint, but, coming out and sitting on the iron rail, I am surprised to see it within three or four rods . . . See April 9, 1853 (“On a pitch pine on side of J. Hosmer's river hill, a pine warbler, by ventriloquism sounding farther off than it was. . .”) See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Pine Warbler.
The great butterflies, black with buff-edged wings, are fluttering about. See April 9, 1853 ("You see the buff-edged . . . in warm, sunny southern exposures on the edge of woods or sides of rocky hills and cliffs, above dry leaves and twigs, where the wood has been lately cut and there are many dry leaves and twigs about.”) See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Buff-edged Butterfly
These are the only kind of tortoise I have seen this year. Probably because the river did not rise earlier. See April 1, 1858 ("It is evident that the date of the first general revival of the turtles, excepting such as are generally seen in ditches, i. e. the yellow-spotted, depends on the state of the river, whether it is high or low in the spring.")
A striped snake, . . ., its head erect as it lay on the bottom and swaying back and forth with the waves. .See April 26, 1857 (“. . . very large striped snake swimming . . . with great ease, and lifts its head a foot above the water, darting its tongue at us.”) See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Striped Snake
The water on the meadows now, looking with the sun, is a far deeper and more exciting blue than the heavens. See April 9, 1859 ("For three weeks past, when I have looked northward toward the flooded meadows they have looked dark-blue or blackish, in proportion as the day was clear and the wind high from the northwest, making high waves and much shadow"); See also March 5, 1854 ("And for the first time I see the water looking blue on the meadows.")'; March 29, 1852 ("The water on the meadows looks very dark from the street. Their color depends on the position of the beholder in relation to the direction of the wind."); April 5, 1856 ("The first sight of the blue water in the spring is exhilarating."); and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Blue waters in Spring
The water on the meadows now, looking with the sun, is a far deeper and more exciting blue than the heavens. See April 9, 1859 ("For three weeks past, when I have looked northward toward the flooded meadows they have looked dark-blue or blackish, in proportion as the day was clear and the wind high from the northwest, making high waves and much shadow"); See also March 5, 1854 ("And for the first time I see the water looking blue on the meadows.")'; March 29, 1852 ("The water on the meadows looks very dark from the street. Their color depends on the position of the beholder in relation to the direction of the wind."); April 5, 1856 ("The first sight of the blue water in the spring is exhilarating."); and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Blue waters in Spring
April 9. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, April 9
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau. Another Fine Day
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 © 2009-2024
https://tinyurl.com/hdt-560409
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