Sunday. 8 A.M. — Up railroad.
Cold, and froze in the night.
The sallow will not open till some time to-day.
P. M. — To Walden and Fair Haven Ponds.
Still cold and windy.
The early gooseberry leaf-buds in garden have burst, -- now like small green frilled horns.
Also the amelanchier flower-buds are bursting.
As I go down the railroad causeway, I see a flock of eight or ten bay-wing sparrows flitting along the fence and alighting on an apple tree. There are many robins about also. Do they not incline more to fly in flocks a cold and windy day like this?
The snow ice is now all washed and melted off of Walden, down to the dark-green clear ice, which appears to be seven or eight inches thick and is quite hard still. At a little distance you would mistake it for water; further off still, as from Fair Haven Hill, it is blue as in summer. You can still get on to it from the southerly side, but elsewhere there is a narrow canal, two or three to twelve feet wide, next the shore. It may last four or five days longer, even if the weather is warm.
As I go by the Andromeda Ponds, I hear the tut tut of a few croaking frogs, and at Well Meadow I hear once or twice a prolonged stertorous sound, as from river meadows a little later usually, which is undoubtedly made by a different frog from the first.
Fair Haven Pond, to my surprise, is completely open. It was so entirely frozen over on the 8th that I think the finishing stroke must have been given to it but by last night’s rain. Say then apparently April 13th (?).
Return over the Shrub Oak Plain and the Cliff.
Still no cowslips nor saxifrage.
There were alders out at Well Meadow Head, as large bushes as any. Can they be A. serrulata? Vide leaves by and by.
Standing on the Cliffs, I see most snow when I look southwest; indeed scarcely a particle in any other direction, far or near, from which and from other observations, I infer that there is most snow now under the northeast sides of the hills, especially in ravines there.
At the entrance to the Boiling Spring wood, just beyond the orchard (of Hayden), the northeast angle of the wood, there is still a snow-drift as high as the wall, or three and a half feet deep, stretching quite across the road at that height, and the snow reaches six rods down the road. I doubt if there is as much in the road anywhere else in the town. It is quite impassable there still to a horse, as it has been all winter.
This is the heel of the winter.
Scare up two turtle doves in the dry stubble in Wheeler’s hill field by the railroad. I saw two together once before this year; probably they have paired.
H. D. Thoreau, Journal, April 13, 1856
Standing on the Cliffs, I see most snow when I look southwest; indeed scarcely a particle in any other direction, far or near, from which and from other observations, I infer that there is most snow now under the northeast sides of the hills, especially in ravines there.
At the entrance to the Boiling Spring wood, just beyond the orchard (of Hayden), the northeast angle of the wood, there is still a snow-drift as high as the wall, or three and a half feet deep, stretching quite across the road at that height, and the snow reaches six rods down the road. I doubt if there is as much in the road anywhere else in the town. It is quite impassable there still to a horse, as it has been all winter.
This is the heel of the winter.
Scare up two turtle doves in the dry stubble in Wheeler’s hill field by the railroad. I saw two together once before this year; probably they have paired.
H. D. Thoreau, Journal, April 13, 1856
The sallow will not open till some time to-day. See April 13, 1856 ("The sallow up railroad will [shed pollen], if it is pleasant, to-morrow . . . the reddish anthers are beginning to push from one side near the end, and you know that a little yellow flame will have burst out there by to-morrow.")
I hear a bay-wing on the railroad fence sing. . . . Two on different posts are steadily singing the same. See April 13, 1854 (" Did I see a bay-wing? "); April 13, 1855 (“See a sparrow without marks on throat or breast, running peculiarly in the dry grass in the open field beyond, and hear its song, and then see its white feathers in tail; the bay-wing.” ); See also April 2, 1858 (”On the side of Fair Haven Hill I go looking for bay wings . . . At last I see one, which . . . warbles a peculiar long and pleasant strain, . . .and close by I see another, apparently a bay-wing, though I do not see its white in tail, and it utters while sitting the same subdued, rather peculiar strain.”); A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Bay-Wing Sparrow and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, As the Bay-Wing Sang
Also the amelanchier flower-buds are bursting. See April 2, 1853 ("The amelanchier buds look more forward than those of any shrub I notice"); April 11, 1856 ("The flower-buds of the amelanchier are somewhat expanded,"); April 17, 1860 ("The amelanchier flower-buds are conspicuously swollen"); April 18, 1855 ("The shad-bush flower-buds, beginning to expand, look like leaf-buds bursting now.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Shad-bush, Juneberry, or Service-berry (Amelanchier canadensis)
As I go by the Andromeda Ponds, I hear the tut tut of a few croaking frogs. See April 13, 1855 ("The small croaking frogs are now generally heard in all those stagnant ponds or pools in woods floored with leaves, which are mainly dried up in the summer.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Wood Frog (Rana sylvatica)
At Well Meadow I hear once or twice a prolonged stertorous sound, as from river meadows a little later usually, which is undoubtedly made by a different frog from the first. See April 13, 1859 ("To-day is the awakening of the meadows now partly bare. I hear the stuttering note of probably the Rana halecina (see one by shore) come up from all the Great Meadow,"); see also March 31, 1857 ("To-day both croakers and peepers are pretty numerously heard, and I hear one faint stertorous (bullfrog-like ??) sound on the river meadow."; April 15, 1855 ("That general tut tut tut tut, or snoring, of frogs on the shallow meadow heard first slightly the 5th. There is a very faint er er er now and then mixed with it"); April 16, 1856 ("I hear that same stertorous note of a frog or two as was heard the 13th, apparently from quite across all this flood, and which I have so often observed before. What kind is it?"); May 23, 1856 ("At the same time I hear a low, stertorous, dry, but hard-cored note from some frog in the meadows and along the riverside; often heard in past years but not accounted for. Is it a Rana palustris?") and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Leopard Frog (Rana Halecina) in Spring
Fair Haven Pond, to my surprise, is completely open. See March 26, 1860 ("Fair Haven Pond may be open by the 20th of March, as this year [1860], or not till April 13 as in '56,"); ; March 26, 1857 (" Fair Haven .is open; may have been open several days; there is only a little ice on the southeast shore. "); March 27, 1858 ("Fair Haven Pond four fifths clear."); March 28, 1855 ("The river has not yet quite worn its way through Fair Haven Pond, but probably will to-morrow."March 31, 1855 ("). March 28, 1858 ("Fair Haven Pond is open. This and Flint's and Walden all open together this year"); Looking from the Cliffs I see that Fair Haven Pond will open by day after to-morrow. "); April 4, 1852 (“This pond is now open; only a little ice against the Pleasant Meadow.”); . April 7, 1854 ("Fair Haven is completely open")
Still no cowslips nor saxifrage. See March 27, 1855 ("Am surprised to see the cowslip so forward, showing so much green, in E. Hubbard’s Swamp, in the brook, where it is sheltered from the winds. The already expanded leaves rise above the water. If this is a spring growth, it is the most forward herb I have seen"); April 8, 1856 ("I find two cowslips in full bloom, shedding pollen; and they may have opened two or three days ago; for I saw many conspicuous buds here on the 2d"); April 9, 1853 ("The cowslips are well out, – the first conspicuous herbaceous flower. ."); April 13, 1855 ("Many cowslip buds show a little yellow, but they will not open there [Second Division] for two or three days. The road is paved with solid ice there. "); April 3, 1853 ("To my great surprise the saxifrage is in bloom. It was, as it were, by mere accident that I found it. I had not observed any particular forwardness in it, when, happening to look under a projecting rock in a little nook on the south side of a stump, I spied one little plant which had opened three or four blossoms high up the Cliff"); s. April 6, 1858 ("On a few small warm shelves under the rocks the saxifrage . . .; has got up three or four inches, and may have been out four or five days"); April 13, 1854 ("The saxifrage is pretty common, ahead of the crowfoot now, and its peduncles have shot up.') See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Earliest Flower and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Cowslip in Early Spring and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Saxifrage in Spring
There were alders out at Well Meadow Head . . . Can they be A. serrulata? See April 13, 1855 ("The serrulata will undoubtedly blossom to-morrow in some places."); April 2, 1856 ("The alder scales do not even appear relaxed yet "); April 4, 1856 ("The alder scales south of the railroad, beyond the bridge, are loosened. This corresponds to the opening (not merely expansion showing the fuzziness) of the white maple buds."); April 9, 1856 ("The Alnus incana, especially by the railroad opposite the oaks, sheds pollen."); . April 11, 1856 ("Seek out some young and lusty-growing alder (as on the 9th), with clear, shining, and speckled bark, in the warmest possible position,. . .Some will be in full bloom above, while their extremities are comparatively dead, as if struck with a palsy in the winter. Soon will come a rude wind and shake their pollen copiously over the water"); April 15, 1856 ("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."); July 7, 1856 ("I see a difference now between the alder leaves near Island and edge of meadow westward, on Hill; the former slightly downy beneath, the latter (apparently Alnus serrulata) green and smooth but yet not pointed at base"); July 15, 1857 ("Two woodcocks in the shady alder marsh at Well Meadow . . . go off with a whistling flight."); July 30, 1853 ( I was correct about the alders. The incana has a rounder leaf ; the other is more oblong and is quite smooth beneath") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Alders
Contending sparrows
on the railroad fence – bay-wings
singing the same strain.
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, A bay-wing on the railroad fence sings
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-560413
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