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| May 13, 2016 |
Hear a warbling vireo. Dandelions by road side; probably several days in some places.
P. M. — Up river to Kalmia glauca Swamp.
In the swallows’ holes behind Dennis’s, I find two more dead bank swallows, and one on the sand beneath, and the feathers of two more which some creature has eaten. This makes at least seven dead bank swallows in consequence of the long, cold northeast rain.
A male harrier, skimming low, had nearly reached this sand pit before he saw me and wheeled. Could it have been he that devoured the swallows?
These swallows were 10 3/4+ alar extent, 4 3/4 inches long; a wing 4 3/4+ by 1 3/4+. Above they were a light brown on their backs, wings blackish, beneath white, with a dark-brown band over the breast and, again white throat and side of neck; bill small and black; reddish-brown legs, with long, sharp, slender claws. It chanced that each one of two I tried weighed between five and six sixteenths of an ounce, or between five and six drams avoirdupois. This seems to be the averge weight, or say six drams because they have pined a little.
A man who weighs one hundred and fifty pounds weighs sixty-four hundred times as much as one. The wing of one contains about seven square inches, the body about five, or whole bird nineteen. If a man were to be provided with wings, etc., in proportion to his weight, they would measure about 844 square feet, and one wing would cover 311 feet, or be about 33 feet long by 14 wide. This is to say nothing of his muscles.
The Kalmia glauca will not open for some days at least.
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Sylvia Americana (Northern Parula Warbler)
This species is found throughout the United States, and may be considered as one of the most beautiful of the birds of our country. It has no song, but merely a soft, greatly prolonged twitter, repeated at short intervals.~ J.J. Audubon
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At the swamp, hear the yorrick of Wilson’s thrush; the tweezer-bird or Sylvia Americana. Also the oven-bird sings.
WILSON'S THRUSH or VEERY, Turdus Wilson,The song of this species, although resembling that of the Wood Thrush in a great degree, is less powerful, and is composed of continued trills repeated with different variations, enunciated with great delicacy and mellowness, so as to be extremely pleasing to one listening to them in the dark solitudes where the sylvan songster resides. It now and then tunes its throat in the calm of evening, and is heard sometimes until after the day has closed. J.J. Audubon
Caterpillars’ nests on an apple two inches diameter.
Downy amelanchier just out at Lupine Bank; elsewhere, maybe, a day or two.
Where my sap has dried on the white birch bark it has now turned a bright light red. What a variety of colors it assumes!
Potter has a remarkable field of mulleins,'sown as thickly as if done with a machine (under Bear Garden Hill). I remarked them last year. William Wheeler thinks the seed lies in the ground an indefinite period ready to come up. I thought that it might have been introduced with his grain when it was sown lately. Wheeler says that many a pasture, if you plow it up after it has been lying still ten years, will produce an abundant crop of wormwood, and its seeds must have lain in the ground. Why do not the chemists in their analyses of soils oftener mention the seeds of plants? Would not a careful analysis of old pasture sod settle the question?
I suspect that I can throw a little light on the fact that when a dense pine wood is cut down oaks, etc., may take its place. There were only pines, no other tree. They are cut off, and, after two years have elapsed, you see oaks, or perhaps a few other hard woods, springing up with scarcely a pine amid them, and you wonder how the acorns could have lain in the ground so long without decaying. There is a good example at Loring’s lot.
But if you look through a thick pine wood, even the exclusively pitch pine ones, you will detect many little oaks, birches, etc., sprung probably from seeds carried into the thicket by squirrels, etc., and blown thither, but which are overshadowed and choked by the pines. This planting under the shelter of the pines may be carried on annually, and the plants annually die, but when the pines are cleared off, the oaks, etc., having got just the start they want, and now secured favorable conditions, immediately spring up to trees.
Scarcely enough allowance has been made for the agency of squirrels and birds in dispersing seeds.
At the Kalmia Swamp, the parti-colored warbler, and was that switter switter switter switter swit also by it? [Probably by this [] the redstart . . .]
H.D. Thoreau, Journal, May 13, 1856
Hear a warbling vireo. . . . See May 29, 1855("the warbling vireo, with its smooth-flowing, continuous, one-barred, shorter strain, with methinks a dusky side-head ).
At the swamp, hear the yorrick of Wilson’s thrush. See May 13, 1860 ("Hear the yorrick"). See also May 8, 1857 (“From amid the alders, etc., I hear the mew of the catbird and the yorrick of Wilson's thrush”); May 10, 1853 (" New days, then, have come, ushered in . . . in the woods, the veery note."); May 10, 1858 (" Hear in various woods the yorrick note of the veery."); May 12, 1855("the cawing of crows, the peeping of hyla [and] 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”); May 12, 1857 (“I hear a yorrick, apparently anxious, near me, utter from time to time a sharp grating char-r-r, like a fine watchman’s rattle. As usual, I have not heard them sing yet.”); May 14, 1859 ("Yorrick heard the 12th"); May 17, 1853 ("The sweetest singers among the birds are heard more distinctly now, as the reflections are seen more distinctly in the water, — the veery constantly now."); May 17, 1856 ("Hear the first veery note”); May 18, 1855 ("First veery strain."); May 23, 1857 ("Hear the first veery strain.")
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The tweezer-bird or Sylvia Americana. . . . the parti-colored warbler, and was that switter switter switter switter swit also by it? . . . See May 4, 1858 (“ heard the tweezer note, or screeper note, of the particolored warbler, bluish above, yellow or orange throat and breast, white vent, and white on wings, neck above yellowish, going restlessly over the trees”); May 9, 1858 ("The parti-colored warbler . . .— my tweezer-bird, – making the screep screep screep note. It is an almost incessant singer . . . utters its humble notes, like ah twze twze twze, or ah twze twze twze twze."); May 12, 1857 ("Hear the screep of the parti-colored warbler”): May 13, 1860 ("At Holden Swamp, hear plenty of parti-colored warblers (tweezer-birds) and redstarts."); May 15, 1856 (" see also, for a moment, in dry woods, a warbler with blue-slate head and apparently all yellow beneath for a minute, nothing else conspicuous; note slightly like tseep, tseep, tseep, tseep, tsit sitter ra-re-ra, the last fast, on maples, etc. Maybe I heard the same yesterday. [No doubt the Sylvia Americana, blue yellow-back or parti-colored warbler; heard before.]”); May 17, 1856 ("The Sylvia Americana (parti-colored warbler, etc.) is very numerous there, darting about amid the hoary buds of the maples and oaks, etc. It seems the most restless of all birds, blue more or less deep above, with yellow dust on the back, yellow breast, and white beneath (the male with bright—orange throat, and some with a rufous crescent on breast); wings and tail, dark, black, with two white bars or marks, dark bill and legs."); May 18, 1856 ("A Sylvia Americana, — parti-colored warbler, — in the Holden Wood, sings a, tshrea tshrea tshrea, tshre’ tshritty tshrit’."); May 27, 1855 ("The blue yellow-back or parti-colored warbler still, with the chestnut crescent on breast, near my Kalmia Swamp nest."); June 11, 1858 ("Hear the parti-colored warbler. ") June 25, 1860 (" As near as I can make out with my glass, I see and hear the parti-colored warbler at Ledum Swamp on the larches and pines. A bluish back, yellow breast with a reddish crescent above, and white belly, and a continuous screeping note to the end."); June 30, 1856 [in New Bedford]("my tweezer-bird, which is extremely restless, flitting from bough to bough and apple tree to apple tree. Its note like ah, zre zre zre, zritter zritter zrit’. Sylvia Americana, parti-colored warbler, with golden-green reflections on the back, two white bars on wings, all beneath white, large orange mark on breast, bordered broadly with lemon yellow, and yellow throat.") See also A Book of Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Parti-Colored (Parula) Warbler (Sylvia Americana
Downy amelanchier just out at Lupine Bank . . . See May 13, 1852 ( The amelanchiers are now the prevailing flowers in the woods and swamps and sprout-lands, a very beautiful flower, with its purplish stipules and delicate drooping white blossoms. The shad-blossom days in the woods."); May 13, 1855 ("Saw an amelanchier with downy leaf (apparently oblongifolia) on the southeast edge of Yellow Birch Swamp, about eighteen feet high and five or six inches in diameter, —a clump of them about as big as an apple tree.").
Hear a warbling vireo. . . . See May 29, 1855("the warbling vireo, with its smooth-flowing, continuous, one-barred, shorter strain, with methinks a dusky side-head ).
At the swamp, hear the yorrick of Wilson’s thrush. See May 13, 1860 ("Hear the yorrick"). See also May 8, 1857 (“From amid the alders, etc., I hear the mew of the catbird and the yorrick of Wilson's thrush”); May 10, 1853 (" New days, then, have come, ushered in . . . in the woods, the veery note."); May 10, 1858 (" Hear in various woods the yorrick note of the veery."); May 12, 1855("the cawing of crows, the peeping of hyla [and] 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”); May 12, 1857 (“I hear a yorrick, apparently anxious, near me, utter from time to time a sharp grating char-r-r, like a fine watchman’s rattle. As usual, I have not heard them sing yet.”); May 14, 1859 ("Yorrick heard the 12th"); May 17, 1853 ("The sweetest singers among the birds are heard more distinctly now, as the reflections are seen more distinctly in the water, — the veery constantly now."); May 17, 1856 ("Hear the first veery note”); May 18, 1855 ("First veery strain."); May 23, 1857 ("Hear the first veery strain.")
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The tweezer-bird or Sylvia Americana. . . . the parti-colored warbler, and was that switter switter switter switter swit also by it? . . . See May 4, 1858 (“ heard the tweezer note, or screeper note, of the particolored warbler, bluish above, yellow or orange throat and breast, white vent, and white on wings, neck above yellowish, going restlessly over the trees”); May 9, 1858 ("The parti-colored warbler . . .— my tweezer-bird, – making the screep screep screep note. It is an almost incessant singer . . . utters its humble notes, like ah twze twze twze, or ah twze twze twze twze."); May 12, 1857 ("Hear the screep of the parti-colored warbler”): May 13, 1860 ("At Holden Swamp, hear plenty of parti-colored warblers (tweezer-birds) and redstarts."); May 15, 1856 (" see also, for a moment, in dry woods, a warbler with blue-slate head and apparently all yellow beneath for a minute, nothing else conspicuous; note slightly like tseep, tseep, tseep, tseep, tsit sitter ra-re-ra, the last fast, on maples, etc. Maybe I heard the same yesterday. [No doubt the Sylvia Americana, blue yellow-back or parti-colored warbler; heard before.]”); May 17, 1856 ("The Sylvia Americana (parti-colored warbler, etc.) is very numerous there, darting about amid the hoary buds of the maples and oaks, etc. It seems the most restless of all birds, blue more or less deep above, with yellow dust on the back, yellow breast, and white beneath (the male with bright—orange throat, and some with a rufous crescent on breast); wings and tail, dark, black, with two white bars or marks, dark bill and legs."); May 18, 1856 ("A Sylvia Americana, — parti-colored warbler, — in the Holden Wood, sings a, tshrea tshrea tshrea, tshre’ tshritty tshrit’."); May 27, 1855 ("The blue yellow-back or parti-colored warbler still, with the chestnut crescent on breast, near my Kalmia Swamp nest."); June 11, 1858 ("Hear the parti-colored warbler. ") June 25, 1860 (" As near as I can make out with my glass, I see and hear the parti-colored warbler at Ledum Swamp on the larches and pines. A bluish back, yellow breast with a reddish crescent above, and white belly, and a continuous screeping note to the end."); June 30, 1856 [in New Bedford]("my tweezer-bird, which is extremely restless, flitting from bough to bough and apple tree to apple tree. Its note like ah, zre zre zre, zritter zritter zrit’. Sylvia Americana, parti-colored warbler, with golden-green reflections on the back, two white bars on wings, all beneath white, large orange mark on breast, bordered broadly with lemon yellow, and yellow throat.") See also A Book of Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Parti-Colored (Parula) Warbler (Sylvia Americana
Downy amelanchier just out at Lupine Bank . . . See May 13, 1852 ( The amelanchiers are now the prevailing flowers in the woods and swamps and sprout-lands, a very beautiful flower, with its purplish stipules and delicate drooping white blossoms. The shad-blossom days in the woods."); May 13, 1855 ("Saw an amelanchier with downy leaf (apparently oblongifolia) on the southeast edge of Yellow Birch Swamp, about eighteen feet high and five or six inches in diameter, —a clump of them about as big as an apple tree.").
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