Saturday, May 14, 2016

A Book of the Seasons: May 14 (spring leaf-out and tree blossoms, more bird arrivals and birdsong, ephemera and reminiscence)


The year is but a succession of days,
and I see that I could assign some office to each day
which, summed up, would be the history of the year.
Henry Thoreau, August 24, 1852 


The sounds and sights of
birds and flowers heard and seen
when they are fewest.

The willow blossoms
fill the air with a sweet scent --
Ah! willow willow!

The leafing goes on
now rapidly these warm and 
moist showery days. 

Their leaves just open
hickories make quite a show –
red inner bud-scales.

May 14, 2015


The deciduous trees are rapidly investing the evergreens, making the woods rich and bosky by degrees. May 14, 1852

The leafing goes on now rapidly, these warm and moist showery days. May 14, 1854

To-day, for the first time, it appears to me summerlike and a new season. There is a tender green on the meadows and just leafing trees. May 14, 1858

The cows in this pasture are already chewing the cud in the thin shade of the apple trees, a picture of peace, already enjoying the luxury of their green pastures. I was not prepared to find the season so far advanced. May 14, 1853

Some hickories, just opening their leaves, make quite a show with the red inner sides of the bud-scales turned back. May 14, 1855

 In the woods which skirt the river near Deacon Farrar's swamp, the Populus grandidentata, just expanding its downy leaves, makes silvery patches in the sun. It is abundant and truly silvery. May 14, 1853

The fruit of the early aspen is almost as large — its catkins — as those of the early willow. It will soon be ripe. The very common puffed-up yellow ovaries make quite a show, like some normal fruit; even quite pretty. May 14, 1858

The beautiful birch catkins hang down four inches. May 14, 1852

You notice the tender light green of the birches, both white and paper, and the brown-red tops of the maples where their keys are. May 14, 1853

The maple-keys are already formed, though the male blossoms (on different trees) are not withered. . May 14, 1852

Some apple trees are fairly out. May 14, 1853

Apple in bloom. May 14, 1854

The robin sings this louring day . . . The song of the robin is most suggestive in cloudy weather. May 14, 1852

Most birds are silent in the storm. Hear the robin, oven-bird, night warbler, and, at length, the towhee's towhee, chickadee's phoebe, and a preluding thrasher and a jay. May 14, 1852

I hear two thrashers plainly singing in emulation of each other. May 14, 1857

Catbird amid shrub oaks. May 14, 1856

First kingbird. Its voice and flight relate it to the swallow. May 14, 1852

A kingbird. May 14, 1858

Female red-wing.  May 14, 1856

Hear and see the red-eye on an oak. The tail is slightly forked and apparently three quarters of an inch beyond wings; all whitish beneath. May 14, 1858

Hear and see a redstart. Methinks I did also on the 10th ? The rhythm a little way off isah, tche tche tche'-ar. May 14, 1858

Yorrick heard the 12th. May 14, 1859

Did I hear a bobolink this morning? May 14, 1859

C. sees the chestnut-sided warbler and the tanager to-day, and heard a whip-poor-will last night. May 14, 1860

Saw a whip-poor-will sitting in the path in woods on the mill road, — the brown mottled bird. It flutters off blindly, with slow, soft flight. May 14, 1852

C. says he heard a yellow-legs yesterday. May 14, 1859

What is that small slate-colored hawk with black tips to wings? April 14, 1853

A male hen-harrier skimming low along the side of the river, often within a foot of the muddy shore, looking for frogs. May 14, 1855

See a pair of marsh hawks, the smaller and lighter-colored male, with black tips to wings, and the large brown female, sailing low over J. Hosmer's sprout-land and screaming, apparently looking for frogs or the like.  May 14, 1857

As I go down the railroad at evening, I hear the incessant evening song of the bay-wing from far over the fields. It suggests pleasant associations. Are they not heard chiefly at this season? May 14, 1858

Suddenly there start up from the riverside at the entrance of Fair Haven Pond, scared by our sail, two great blue herons, — slate color rather, — slowly flapping and undulating, their projecting breast-bones very visible, — or is it possibly their necks bent back? — their legs stuck out straight behind. Getting higher by their flight, they straight come back to reconnoitre us. May 14, 1853

Going over the Corner causeway, the willow blossoms fill the air with a sweet fragrance, and I am ready to sing, Ah! willow, willow! These willows have yellow bark, bear yellow flowers and yellowish-green leaves, and are now haunted by the summer yellowbird and Maryland yellow-throat. May 14, 1852

The still dead-looking willows and button-bushes are alive with red-wings, now perched on a yielding twig, now pursuing a female swiftly over the meadow, now darting across the stream. No two have epaulets equally brilliant. Some are small and almost white, and others a brilliant vermilion. They are handsomer than the golden robin, methinks. The yellowbird, kingbird, and pewee, beside many swallows, are also seen. But the rich colors and the rich and varied notes of the blackbirds surpass them all. May 14, 1853

Air full of golden robins. Their loud clear note betrays them as soon as they arrive. May 14, 1856

The trillium is budded.

The Uvularia sessilifolio, a drooping flower with tender stems and leaves; the latter curled so as to show their under sides hanging about the stems, as if shrinking from the cold. May 14, 1852

Saw the Viola palmata, early form, yesterday; how long? May 14, 1858

The Ranunculus bulbosus shows its yellow by this spring thus early (Corner Spring). May 14, 1852

Yesterday and to-day I see half a dozen tortoises on a rail, — their first appearance in numbers. May 14, 1856

Picked up, floating, an Emys picta, hatched last year. It is an inch and one twentieth long in the upper shell and agrees with Agassiz's description at that age. May 14, 1858

The early sedges, even in the meadows, have blossomed before you are aware of it, while their tufts and bases are still mainly brown. May 14, 1860

The grass is now whitened with bluets; the fields are green, and the roadsides. May 14, 1852

The sounds and sights — as birds and flowers — heard and seen at those seasons when there are fewest are most memorable and suggestive of poetic associations. May 14, 1852

May 14, 2022

*****
A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Aspens
A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau. The Hickory

May 14, 2015

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.

May .13 <<<<< May 14  >>>>>  May 15.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, May 14.
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 ©  2009-2023

https://tinyurl.com/HDT14May




No comments:

Post a Comment

Popular Posts Last 30 Days.

The week ahead in Henry’s journal

The week ahead in Henry’s journal
A journal, a book that shall contain a record of all your joy.
"A stone fruit. Each one yields me a thought." ~ H. D. Thoreau, March 28, 1859


I sit on this rock
wrestling with the melody
that possesses me.