As the bay-wing sang
many thousand years ago
so sang he to-night.
A brother poet,
one with the rocks and with me,
whose muse inspires mine.
May 12, 2017
Very heavy dew and mist this morning. The earth is so dry it drinks like a sponge. May 12, 1860
Very hot. 2.30 P. M. — 81°. We seek the shade to sit in for a day or two. May 12, 1860
The sudden heat compels us to sit in the shade at the bars above Puffer's, whence we hear the first bobolink. May 12, 1856
How much life the note of the bobolink imparts to the meadow! May 12, 1856
First bathe in the river. Quite warm enough. , May 12, 1860
I see now, as I go forth on the river, the first summer shower coming up in the northwest, a dark and well defined cloud with rain falling sheaf-like from it, . . . but elsewhere, south and northeast, is a fair-weather sky with only innocent cumuli. Journal, May 12, 1858
How suddenly the birds arrive after the storm, — even yesterday before it was fairly over, —as if they had foreseen its end! May 12, 1856
It rained last night, and now I see the elm seed or samarae generally fallen or falling., This must be the earliest of trees and shrubs to go to seed or drop its seed. The elm seed floats off down the stream and over the meadows, and thus these trees are found bordering on the stream. May 12, 1858
The sugar maple blossoms on the Common resound with bees. Journal, May 12, 1860
I see now, as I go forth on the river, the first summer shower coming up in the northwest, a dark and well defined cloud with rain falling sheaf-like from it, . . . but elsewhere, south and northeast, is a fair-weather sky with only innocent cumuli. Journal, May 12, 1858
How suddenly the birds arrive after the storm, — even yesterday before it was fairly over, —as if they had foreseen its end! May 12, 1856
It rained last night, and now I see the elm seed or samarae generally fallen or falling., This must be the earliest of trees and shrubs to go to seed or drop its seed. The elm seed floats off down the stream and over the meadows, and thus these trees are found bordering on the stream. May 12, 1858
The sugar maple blossoms on the Common resound with bees. Journal, May 12, 1860
I perceive the fragrance of the Salix alba, now in bloom, more than an eighth of a mile distant. They now adorn the causeways with their yellow blossoms and resound with the hum of bumblebees. May 12, 1855
When I consider how many species of willow have been planted along the railroad causeway within ten years, of which no one knows the history, and not one in Concord beside myself can tell the name of one, so that it is quite a discovery to identify a single one in a year, and yet within this period the seeds of all these kinds have been conveyed from some other locality to this, I am reminded how much is going on that man wots not of. May 12, 1857
Our past experience is a never-failing capital which can never be alienated, of which each kindred future event reminds us. If you would have the song of the sparrow inspire you a thousand years hence, let your life be in harmony with its strain to-day. May 12, 1857
I hear from across the fields the note of the bay-wing, Come here here there there quick quick quick or I'm gone (which I have no doubt sits on some fence-post or rail there), and it instantly translates me from the sphere of my work and repairs all the world that we jointly inhabit. It reminds me of so many country afternoons and evenings when this bird's strain was heard far over the fields, as I pursued it from field to field. . . . As the bay-wing sang many a thousand years ago, so sang he to-night. May 12, 1857
When I consider how many species of willow have been planted along the railroad causeway within ten years, of which no one knows the history, and not one in Concord beside myself can tell the name of one, so that it is quite a discovery to identify a single one in a year, and yet within this period the seeds of all these kinds have been conveyed from some other locality to this, I am reminded how much is going on that man wots not of. May 12, 1857
Our past experience is a never-failing capital which can never be alienated, of which each kindred future event reminds us. If you would have the song of the sparrow inspire you a thousand years hence, let your life be in harmony with its strain to-day. May 12, 1857
I hear from across the fields the note of the bay-wing, Come here here there there quick quick quick or I'm gone (which I have no doubt sits on some fence-post or rail there), and it instantly translates me from the sphere of my work and repairs all the world that we jointly inhabit. It reminds me of so many country afternoons and evenings when this bird's strain was heard far over the fields, as I pursued it from field to field. . . . As the bay-wing sang many a thousand years ago, so sang he to-night. May 12, 1857
May 12, 2013
Passing on into the Miles meadow, am struck by the interesting tender green of the just springing foliage of the aspens, apples, cherries (more reddish), etc. It is now especially interesting while you can see through it. May 12, 1855
One flower of the Polygonatum pubescent open there [under Lee’s Cliff]; probably may shed pollen to-morrow. May 12, 1855
The sweet-gale begins to leaf May 12, 1855
The red oak there leafed a day or two, or one day earlier than hickory. May 12, 1855
My red oak acorns have sent down long radicles underground. May 12, 1859
I now begin to distinguish where at a distance the Amelanchier Botryapium, with its white against the russet, is waving in the wind. May 12, 1855
Under Lee’s Cliff, about one rod east of the ash, am surprised to find some pale-yellow columbines, — not a tinge of scarlet, —the leaves and stem also not purplish, but a yellowish and light green, with leaves differently shaped from the common, the parts, both flower and leaves, more slender, and the leaves not so flat, but inclining to fold. May 12, 1855
The cinnamon and interrupted ferns are both about two feet high in some places. The first is more uniformly woolly down the stem, the other, though very woolly at top, being partly bare on the stem. The wool of the last is coarser. May 12, 1858
Watch a black and white creeper from Bittern Cliff, a very neat and active bird, exploring the limbs on all sides and looking three or four ways almost at once for insects. Now and then it raises its head a little, opens its bill, and, without closing it, utters its faint seeser seeser seeser. May 12, 1855
Hear the screep of the parti-colored warbler May 12, 1857
A parti-colored warbler hangs dead downward like a goldfinch on our gooseberries, within a few feet of me, apparently about the blossoms. Journal, May 12, 1859
The brown thrasher is a powerful singer; he is a quarter of a mile off across the river, when he sounded within fifteen rods. May 12, 1855
Hear an oven-bird. May 12, 1855
I have found half a dozen robins’ nests with eggs already, —one in an elm, two in a Salix alba, one in a Salix nigra, one in a pitch pine, etc., etc. Journal, May 12, 1855
From beyond the orchard see a large bird far over the Cliff Hill, which, with my glass, I soon make out to be a fish hawk advancing. . . .. It comes on steadily, bent on fishing, with long and heavy undulating wings, with an easy, sauntering flight, over the river to the pond, and hovers over Pleasant Meadow a long time, hovering from time to time in one spot, when more than a hundred feet high, then making a very short circle or two and hovering again, then sauntering off against the wood side. A. . .When just below Bittern Cliff, I observe by its motions that it observes something. It makes a broad circle of observation in its course, lowering itself somewhat; then, by one or two steep sidewise flights, it reaches the water, and, as near as intervening trees would let me see, skims over it and endeavored to clutch its prey in passing. May 12, 1855
We sit about half an hour, and it is surprising what various distinct sounds we hear there deep in the wood, as if the aisles of the wood were so many ear trumpets,-- the cawing of crows, the peeping of hylas in the swamp and perhaps the croaking of a tree-toad, the oven-bird, the yorrick of Wilson’s thrush, a distant stake-driver, the night-warbler and black and white creeper, the lowing of cows, the late supper horn, the voices of boys, the singing of girls, -- not all together but separately, distinctly, and musically, from where the partridge and the red-tailed hawk and the screech owl sit on their nests. May 12, 1855
Under Lee’s Cliff, about one rod east of the ash, am surprised to find some pale-yellow columbines, — not a tinge of scarlet, —the leaves and stem also not purplish, but a yellowish and light green, with leaves differently shaped from the common, the parts, both flower and leaves, more slender, and the leaves not so flat, but inclining to fold. May 12, 1855
The cinnamon and interrupted ferns are both about two feet high in some places. The first is more uniformly woolly down the stem, the other, though very woolly at top, being partly bare on the stem. The wool of the last is coarser. May 12, 1858
Watch a black and white creeper from Bittern Cliff, a very neat and active bird, exploring the limbs on all sides and looking three or four ways almost at once for insects. Now and then it raises its head a little, opens its bill, and, without closing it, utters its faint seeser seeser seeser. May 12, 1855
Hear the screep of the parti-colored warbler May 12, 1857
A parti-colored warbler hangs dead downward like a goldfinch on our gooseberries, within a few feet of me, apparently about the blossoms. Journal, May 12, 1859
The brown thrasher is a powerful singer; he is a quarter of a mile off across the river, when he sounded within fifteen rods. May 12, 1855
Hear an oven-bird. May 12, 1855
I have found half a dozen robins’ nests with eggs already, —one in an elm, two in a Salix alba, one in a Salix nigra, one in a pitch pine, etc., etc. Journal, May 12, 1855
From beyond the orchard see a large bird far over the Cliff Hill, which, with my glass, I soon make out to be a fish hawk advancing. . . .. It comes on steadily, bent on fishing, with long and heavy undulating wings, with an easy, sauntering flight, over the river to the pond, and hovers over Pleasant Meadow a long time, hovering from time to time in one spot, when more than a hundred feet high, then making a very short circle or two and hovering again, then sauntering off against the wood side. A. . .When just below Bittern Cliff, I observe by its motions that it observes something. It makes a broad circle of observation in its course, lowering itself somewhat; then, by one or two steep sidewise flights, it reaches the water, and, as near as intervening trees would let me see, skims over it and endeavored to clutch its prey in passing. May 12, 1855
We sit about half an hour, and it is surprising what various distinct sounds we hear there deep in the wood, as if the aisles of the wood were so many ear trumpets,-- the cawing of crows, the peeping of hylas in the swamp and perhaps the croaking of a tree-toad, the oven-bird, the yorrick of Wilson’s thrush, a distant stake-driver, the night-warbler and black and white creeper, the lowing of cows, the late supper horn, the voices of boys, the singing of girls, -- not all together but separately, distinctly, and musically, from where the partridge and the red-tailed hawk and the screech owl sit on their nests. May 12, 1855
Sounds of the deep wood
where red-tailed hawk, partridge and
owl sit on their nests.
A glorious day. May 12, 1856
May 12, 2014
If you make the least correct
observation of nature this year,
you will have occasion to repeat it
with illustrations the next,
and the season and life itself is prolonged.
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, May 12
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-May-12
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