At the Hemlocks I see a rock which has been moved into the river.

April 27. 

P. M. -- Up Assabet. 

I find none of Monroe’s larch buds shedding pollen, but the anthers look crimson and yellow, and the female flowers are now fully expanded and very pretty, but small. I think it will first scatter pollen to-morrow.

Apparently a small bullfrog by riverside, though it looks somewhat like a Rana fontinalis; also two or three (apparently) R. palustris in that well of Monroe’s, which have jumped in over the curb, perhaps. 

I see quite a number of tortoises out sunning, just on the edge of the Hosmer meadow, which is rapidly becoming bare. Their backs shine from afar in the sun. Also one Emys insculpta out higher up. 

From close by I hear a red-wing’s clear, loud whistle, — not squeak (which I think may be confined to the grackle). It is like pte'-a pte’-a, or perhaps without the p.

The tapping of a woodpecker is made a more remarkable and emphatic sound by the hollowness of the trunk, the expanse of water which conducts the sound, and the morning hour at which I commonly hear it. I think that the pigeon woodpeckers must be building, they frequent the old aspen now so much.

At the Hemlocks I see a rock which has been moved since last fall seven or eight feet into the river, though the ground is but little descending. The rock is about five and a half feet by three by one. 

I see a rather large devil’s-needle coursing over the low osiers in Pinxter Swamp. Is it not early for one?

The white birch which I tapped in V. palmata Swamp still runs; and the holes are full of, and the base of the tree covered with, a singular sour-tasted, rather hard—crusted white (not pink) froth, and a great many of those flat beetles (?), lightning-bug—like, and flies, etc., are sucking it.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, April 27, 1856

Apparently a small bullfrog by riverside, though it looks somewhat like a Rana fontinalis. See May 1, 1858 (“I find many apparent young bullfrogs in the shaded pools on the Island Neck. Probably R. fontinalis.”) and note to May 6, 1858 (Frogs of Massachusetts)

The tapping of a woodpecker is made a more remarkable and emphatic sound by the hollowness of the trunk, the expanse of water which conducts the sound, and the morning hour at which I commonly hear it.  See. March 15, 1854 ("I hear that peculiar, interesting loud hollow tapping of a woodpecker from over the water"); March 29, 1853 ("On approaching the Island, I am surprised to hear the scolding, cackle-like note of the pigeon woodpecker, a prolonged loud sound somewhat like one note of the robin. This was the tapper, on the old hollow aspen which the small woodpeckers so much frequent. Unless the latter make exactly the same sound with the former, then the pigeon woodpecker has come!! ");   March 30, 1854  ("At the Island I see and hear this morning the cackle of a pigeon woodpecker at the hollow poplar; had heard him tapping distinctly from my boat's place, 1/4+ of a mile");  April 14, 1856  ("Hear the flicker’s cackle on the old aspen, and his tapping sounds afar over the water. Their tapping resounds thus far, with this peculiar ring and distinctness, because it is a hollow tree they select to play on, as a drum or tambour. It is a hollow sound which rings distinct to a great distance, especially over water."). See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Pigeon Woodpecker (flicker) and A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Signs of Spring, the tapping of the woodpecker


At the Hemlocks I see a rock which has been moved. . . . See  Aprll 1, 1852  ("There are many larger hemlocks covering the steep side-hill forming the bank of the Assabet, where they are successively undermined by the water, . . . and almost every year one falls in and is washed away. The place is known as the " Leaning Hemlocks.”); March 24, 1855 ("Passing up the Assabet, by the Hemlocks, where there has been a slide and some rocks have slid down into the river, I think I see how rocks come to be found in the midst of rivers. . . ."): See also  A Book of the Seasons, at the Leaning Hemlocks