The beaked hazel below the little pine at Blackberry Steep.

April 18.

P. M. — To Conantum. 

Hear the huckleberry-bird, also the seringo. 

The beaked hazel, if that is one just below the little pine at Blackberry Steep, is considerably later than the common, for I cannot get a whole twig fully out, though the common is too far gone to gather there. The catkins, too, are shorter.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, April 18, 1857

Hear the huckleberry-bird. See  April 18, 1855 ("The rush sparrows tinkle now at 3 P. M. far over the bushes, and hylodes are peeping in a distant pool."); .April 18, 1859 ("Hear a field sparrow."); April 15, 1856 ("I hear the note of the Fringilla juncorum (huckleberry-bird) from the plains beyond. "); April 27, 1852 ("Heard the field or rush sparrow this morning (Fringilla juncorum), George Minott's "huckleberry-bird.""); June 10, 1856 ("I hear the huckleberry-bird now add to its usual strain a-tea tea tea tea tea."); See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Field Sparrow (Fringilla juncorum)

. . .also the seringo. See April 22, 1856 ("The seringo also sits on a post, with a very distinct yellow line over the eye,and the rhythm of its strain is ker chick | ker che | ker-char—r-r-r-r | chick, the last two bars being the part chiefly heard."). See also note to June 26, 1856 (" saw, apparently, the F. Savanna near their nests (my seringo note), restlessly flitting about me from rock to rock within a rod. Distinctly yellow-browed and spotted breast, not like plate of passerina.")

The beaked hazel . . . is considerably later than the common . . .See April 9, 1854 (" The beaked hazel stigmas out; put it just after the common."') See also note to March 31, 1853 ("The catkins of the hazel are now trembling in the wind and much lengthened, showing yellowish and beginning to shed pollen."); and April 7, 1854 ("The hazel stigmas are well out and the catkins loose, but no pollen shed yet. "); April 13, 1855 ("The common hazel just out. It is perhaps the prettiest flower of the shrubs that have opened. . . . They know when to trust themselves to the weather."); April 11, 1856 ("The hazel sheds pollen to-day; some elsewhere possibly yesterday.")