The trees and weeds by the Turnpike are all alive with twittering sparrows.

October 8  P. M. — To Smith Chestnut Grove by Turnpike, and Saw Mill. 

At length I discover some white pine cones, a few, on Emerson Heater Piece trees. They are all open, and the seeds, all the sound ones but one, gone. So September is the time to gather them. The tip of each scale is covered with fresh flowing pitch. 

October 8.

The trees and weeds by the Turnpike are all alive this pleasant afternoon with twittering sparrows, Emerson's buckthorn hedge especially, and Watts's weeds adjoining. I observe white-throated sparrows, song sparrows, I think some Fringilla juncorum, etc. (maybe tree sparrows ???). They are all together and keep up a faint warbling, apparently the white-throats and tree sparrows, — if the last are there. A song sparrow utters a full strain.

Asters and goldenrods are now scarce; no longer that crowd along the low roadsides. The following is the condition of the asters and goldenrods, judging from my observations on this walk alone. I will only refer to those which were not done September 24th. I speak of their general condition, though a very few specimens here and there may present a different appearance. 

Swamp striata, done, some hoary.
S. nemoralis, done, many hoary, though a very few flowers linger.
S. altissima, done, many hoary,
S. puberula, not seen.
S. tricolor and variety, probably done (not seen out). S. latifolia, far gone.
S. casia, much the worse for the wear, but freshest of any seen.
S. speciosa, not seen (it was in prime Oct. 2d).
D. umbettatus, not seen, probably done.
A. patens, apparently done.
A. macrophyllus, not seen.
A. acuminatus, not seen.
A. dumosus, probably done.
D. linariifolius, apparently nearly done.
A. undulatus, comparatively fresh.
A. corymbosus, looks fresh !
A. Laevis, not noticed, probably done (?) generally.
A. Tradescanti, a few still.
A. puniceus, hardly seen, probably nearly done.
A. longifolius, a few still.
A. multiflorus, none observed.
A. miser, a very few left.

Diplopappus cornifolius, not seen, probably done.

Of solidagos, I judge that only the last three named, and perhaps puberula and S. bicolor in some places, are common still; and, of asters, only corymbosus, undulatus, Tradescanti, and longifolius (know not of multiflorus) are common. 

The Bidens cernuum is quite common and fresh yet in Everett's meadow by Turnpike. 

A few chestnut burs are open, and have been some days, before they could have felt frost, showing that they would open without it, but a stone will not jar them down, nor a club thrown into the tree yet. I get half a pocketful out of slightly gaping burs at the expense of many prickles in my fingers. The squirrels have cut off some burs. I see the marks of their teeth. 

Find many checker-berries on Smith's hill beyond the chestnut grove, which appear to be just ripe, a lighter pink color, with two little white checks on the stem side, the marks of what I suppose are the two outer calyx-leaves. 

Near by, a short fertile fern with large shelly capsules, perhaps a botrychium. 

A great deal, a great part, of the dicksonia fern at Saw Mill is now whitened or whitening. 

I see, as I go through the hollow behind Britton's shanty, the already hoary tops of many S. nemoralis and also the yellowish spheres of the Hicracium scabrum amid the scarlet (or crimson) sumach and reddened comptonia. So fast the winter advances.

I notice a large toad amid the dead leaves in the woods at Chimaphila maculata, colored like the leaves, a much darker brown than usual, proving that they resemble the ground they occupy. 

Meet Nealy, short and thick, in the woodland path, with his great silent mastiff by his side and his double-barrelled gun in his palm, all dangerously cocked. He is eager for partridges, but only guilty of killing a jay, I judge, from his report. Once or twice I hear the report of his fowling-piece. 

I heard partridges drum the 3d instant. 

Observed in the woods a very large, perhaps owl pellet, or possibly fox stercus, of gray fur and small bones and the jaw of a rodent, apparently a wild mouse. 

Shagbark Hickory

October. 6, 2022

(avesong)

The hickory leaves are among the handsomest now, varying from green through yellow, more or less broadly green-striped on the principal veins, to pure yellow, at first almost lemon-yellow, at last browner and crisped. This mingling of yellow and green on the same leaf, the green next the veins where the life is most persistent, is very pleasing. 

Sophia brings home two or three clusters of very large freshly ripe thimble-berries, with some unripe, a second crop, apparently owing to the abundance of rain for the last six weeks.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, October 8, 1856

At length I discover some white pine cones, a few . . . and the seeds . . . gone. So September is the time to gather them. See October 15, 1855 ("Go to look for white pine cones, but see none.”); September 18, 1859 ("There is an abundant crop of cones on the white pines this year, and they are now for the most part brown and open. . . . It is worth a long walk to look from some favorable point over a pine forest whose tops are thus covered with the brown cones just opened, — from which the winged seeds have fallen or are ready to fall. How little observed are the fruits which we do not use! How few attend to the ripening and dispersion of the pine seed!”); October 13, 1860 ( "So far as I have observed, if pines or oaks bear abundantly one year they bear little or nothing the next year. This year, so far as I observe, there are scarcely any white pine cones (were there any ?)“)

The trees and weeds by the Turnpike are all alive this pleasant afternoon with twittering sparrows. See  October 8, 1855 ("Flocks of tree sparrows by river, slightly warbling. Hear a song sparrow sing. See apparently white-throated sparrows.”); October 8, 1857 (" I see and hear white-throated sparrows on the swamp white oaks by the river's edge, uttering a faint sharp cheep.") See also  October 2, 1858 ("The garden is alive with migrating sparrows these mornings."); October 5, 1858 ("I still see large flocks, apparently of chip birds, on the weeds and ground in the yard.”); October 7, 1860 ("Now and for a week the chip-birds in flocks; the withered grass and weeds, etc., alive with them.") 

Asters and goldenrods are now scarce. See August 21, 1856 ("The prevailing solidagos now are.”); September 1, 1856 ("I think it stands about thus with asters and golden-rods now.”); September 24, 1856 (“Methinks it stands thus with goldenrods and asters now”) See also  November 7, 1858 ("Aster undulatus and several goldenrods, at least, may be found yet."); November 8, 1859 ("How richly and exuberantly downy are many goldenrod and aster heads now.")

A few chestnut burs are open . . . but a stone will not jar them down, nor a club thrown into the tree yet. . .The squirrels have cut off some burs. I see the marks of their teeth. See October 16, 1856 (" Burs which were quite green on the 8th are now all brown and dry . . .Many nuts have fallen within two or three days, but many squirrels have been busily picking them up"); October 18, 1856 ("The chestnuts are not so ready to fall as I expected. . .In a day or two they will nearly all come down . . .It is a rich sight, that of a large chestnut tree . . . all richly rough with great brown burs, which are opened into several segments so as to show the wholesome-colored nuts peeping forth, ready to fall on the slightest jar")

A great deal, a great part, of the dicksonia fern at Saw Mill is now whitened or whitening. See Occtober 3, 1859 ("The dicksonia ferns by the old Carlisle road-side are now almost all withered to dark cinnamon,");  October 4, 1859 ("How interesting now, by wall-sides and on open springy hillsides, the large, straggling tufts of the dicksonia fern . . . Long, handsome lanceolate green fronds, pointing in every direction, recurved and full of fruit, intermixed with yellowish and sere brown and shrivelled ones . . . Their lingering greenness so much the more noticeable now that the leaves (generally) have changed. They affect us as if they were evergreen, such persistent life and greenness in the midst of their own decay"); October 5, 1858 ("The dicksonia fern is for the most part quite crisp and brown along the walls."); October 6, 1858 ("Several species of ferns are faded quite white in the swamp, — dicksonia and another, and some brakes, — for in moist woods and swamps they are preserved longer than in dry places."); October 15, 1858 ("Some large dicksonias on the moist hillside there are quite green yet, though nearly prostrate in a large close patch slanting down the hill, and with some faded nearly white. "); October 16, 1857 ("You notice now many faded, almost white dicksonia ferns, and some brakes about as white."); October 17, 1857("The dicksonia ferns are killed sere and brown where exposed, but in woods are still pretty green even, only some faded white. They grow in patches.") [ NOTE : Dicksonia is an older name for the deciduous eastern hay-scented fern (Dennstaedtia punctilobula).]

I notice a large toad amid the dead leaves in the woods . . . colored like the leaves, See July 25, 1854 ("See in woods a toad, dead-leaf color with black spots."); September 3, 1858 ("See a small striped snake, some fifteen or eighteen inches long, swallowing a toad.")

The hickory leaves are among the handsomest now.  See October 4, 1858 ("The hickories on the northwest side of this hill are in the prime of their color, of a rich orange; some intimately mixed with green, handsomer than those that are wholly changed."); October 15, 1858 ("Small hickories are the clearest and most delicate yellow in the shade of the woods.");  October 17, 1856 ("Some trees, as small hickories, appear to have dropped their leaves instantaneously, as at a signal, as a soldier grounds arms. The ground under such reflects a blaze of light from now crisped yellow leaves."); October 22, 1857 ("The hickory leaves, now after they have fallen, are often if not oftenest a dark rich yellow, very conspicuous upon the brown leaves of the forest floor, seeming to have more life in them than those leaves which are brown."); October 22, 1858 ("The leaves of the hickory are a very rich yellow, though they may be quite withered and fallen, but they become brown.");  October 24, 1853 ("Some hickories bare, some with rich golden-brown leaves. "); October 24, 1858 ("Hickories are two thirds fallen, at least."); November 13, 1858 ("One hickory at least (on the hill) has not lost its leaves yet, i. e., has a good many left. So they are a month falling.") See also AA Book of the Seasons,, by Henry Thoreau. The Hickory

Large freshly ripe thimble-berries . . . a second crop, apparently owing to the abundance of rain for the last six weeks. See July 13, 1856 ("Thimble-berries are now fairly ripe and abundant . . . No drought has shrivelled them this year"). See also July 18, 1854 ("every bush and bramble bears its fruit; the sides of the road are a fruit garden; blackberries, huckleberries, thimble-berries, fresh and abundant, no signs of drought; all fruits in abundance; the earth teems.");

October 8. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, October 8

A large toad noticed 

amid dead leaves in the woods –

colored like the leaves.

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Twittering sparrows.

 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

https://tinyurl.com/hdt-561008