The first boat on the meadows is exciting as the first flower or swallow..

April 7, 2016

April 7. 

Launched my boat, through three rods of ice on the riverside, half of which froze last night. The meadow is skimmed over, but by mid forenoon it is melted. 

P. M. — Up river in boat. The first boats I have seen are out to-day, after muskrats, etc. Saw one this morning breaking its way far through the meadow, in the ice that had formed in the night. 

How independent they look who have come forth for a day’s excursion! Melvin is out, and Goodwin, and another boat still. They can just row through the thinnest of the ice. 

The first boat on the meadows is exciting as the first flower or swallow. It is seen stealing along in the sun under the meadow’s edge. One breaks the ice before it with a paddle, while the other pushes or paddles, and it grates and wears against the bows. 

We see Goodwin skinning the muskrats he killed this forenoon on bank at Lee’s Hill, leaving their red and mutilated carcasses behind. He says he saw a few geese go over the Great Meadows on the 6th. 

The half of the meadows next the river, or more, is covered with rises up and floats off. These and more solid cakes from over the river clog the stream where it is least broken up, bridging it quite over. Great cakes rest against every bridge. 

We were but just able to get under the stone arches by lying flat and pressing our boat down, after breaking up a large cake of ice which had lodged against the upper side. 

Before we get to Clamshell, see Melvin ahead scare up two black ducks, which make a wide circuit to avoid both him and us. Sheldrakes pass also, with their heavy bodies. 

See the red and black bodies of more muskrats left on the bank at Clamshell, which the crows have already attacked. Their hind legs are half-webbed, the fore legs not at all. Their paunches are full apparently of chewed roots, yellowish and bluish. Goodwin says they are fatter than usual, perhaps because they have not been driven out of their holes heretofore. 

The open channel is now either over the river or on the upper side of the meadows next the woods and hills. 

Melvin floats slowly and quietly along the willows, watching for rats resting there, his white hound sitting still and grave in the prow, and every little while we hear his gun announcing the death of a rat or two. The dog looks on understandingly and makes no motion. 

At the Hubbard Bridge, we hear the incessant note of the phoebe,— pevet, pe-e-vet, pevee’, —its innocent, somewhat impatient call. 

Surprised to find the river not broken up just above this bridge and as far as we can see, probably through Fair Haven Pond. Probably in some places you can cross the river still on the ice. 

Yet we make our way with some difficulty, through a very narrow channel over the meadow and drawing our boat over the ice on the river, as far as foot of Fair Haven. 

See clams, fresh-opened, and roots and leaf buds left by rats on the edge of the ice, and see the rats there.

By rocking our boat and using our paddles, we can make our way through the softened ice, six inches or more in thickness. 

The tops of young white birches now have a red-pink color. 

Leave boat there.

See a yellow-spotted tortoise in a ditch; and a bay wing sparrow. It has no dark splash on throat and has a light or gray head.

H. D. Thoreau,  Journal, April 7, 1856

Drawing our boat over the ice on the river, as far as foot of Fair Haven. See April 7, 1854 ("Fair Haven is completely open.")  See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Ice-Out

 At the Hubbard Bridge, we hear the incessant note of the phoebe,— pevet, pe-e-vet, pevee’, —its innocent, somewhat impatient call.  See April 6, 1856 ('With what confidence after the lapse of many months, I come out to this waterside, some warm and pleasant spring morning, and, listening, hear, from farther or nearer, through the still concave of the air, the note of the first pewee! If there is one within half a mile, it will be here, and I shall be sure to hear its simple notes from those trees, borne over the water." See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Eastern Phoebe

See a yellow-spotted tortoise in a ditch See April 7, 1853 ("Many spotted tortoises are basking amid the dry leaves in the sun, along the side of a still, warm ditch cut through the swamp. They make a great rustling a rod ahead, as they make haste through the leaves to tumble into the water"); See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Yellow-Spotted Turtle (Emys guttata)

See a bay wing sparrow. It has no dark splash on throat and has a light or gray head. See 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 A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Bay-Wing Sparrow