Air full of golden robins.

May 14, 2016

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

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

Catbird amid shrub oaks. 

Female red-wing. 

Flood tells me he saw cherry-birds on the 12th of April in Monroe's garden. 

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 14, 1856

Air full of golden robins. Their loud clear note betrays them as soon as they arrive. See May 13, 1855 ("The gold robin, just come, is heard in all parts of the village. I see both male and female.”) See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The Golden Robin

I see half a dqzen tortoises on a rail, — their first appearance in numbers. See May 14, 1857 ("At the temporary brush fence pond . . . I see, within a dozen rods along its shore, one to three rods from edge, thirteen wood tortoises on the grass, at 4 P. M. this cloudy afternoon.")

Catbird amid shrub oaks. See May 13, 1853 ("Stood listening to a catbird, sounding a good way off. Was surprised to detect the singer within a rod and a half on a low twig, the ventriloquist. Should not have believed it was he, if I had not seen the movements of his throat, corresponding to each note, -looking at this near singer whose notes sounded so far away.")

Female red-wing. See May 8, 1854 (“A female red-wing. I have not seen any before.”); May 13, 1855 ("I hear from a female red-wing that peculiar rich screwing warble.”);  May 13, 1860 ("Red wings are evidently busy building their nests. They are sly and anxious, the females. about the button-bushes.");  May 14, 1853 ("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.") See also  A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Red-wing in Spring

Flood tells me he saw cherry-birds. See March 20, 1858  ("I see a flock of cherry-birds with that alert, chieftain-like look . . .They have been seen a week or two."); See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Cherry-bird (cedar waxwing)

May 14. See A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, May 14.

Loud golden robins –

their clear note betrays them as 

soon as they arrive. 

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Air full of golden robins.

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

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