Thirteen wood tortoises on the grass, at 4 P. M. this cloudy afternoon.

Foamflower
May 14, 2017

May 14. 

P. M. — To Assabet Bath and stone bridge. 

I hear two thrashers plainly singing in emulation of each other. 

At the temporary brush fence pond, now going down, amid the sprout-land and birches, 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. 

This is apparently a favorite resort for them, — a shallow open pool of half an acre, which dries up entirely a few weeks later, in dryish, mossy ground in an open birch wood, etc., etc. They take refuge in the water and crawl out over the mossy ground. They lie about in various positions, very conspicuous there, at every rod or two. 

They are of various forms and colors: some almost regularly oval or elliptical, even pointed behind, others very broad behind, more or less flaring and turned up on the edge; some a dull lead-color and almost smooth, others brown with dull-yellowish marks. 

I see one with a large dent three eighths of an inch deep and nearly two inches long in the middle of its back, where it was once partially crushed. Hardly one has a perfect shell. 

The males (?), with concave sternums; the females, even or convex. They have their reddish-orange legs stretched out often, listlessly, when you approach, draw in their heads with a hiss when you take them up, commonly taking a bit of stubble with them.

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. 

Or have they not a nest near? They hover very near me. 

The female, now so near, sails very grandly, with the outer wing turned or tilted up when it circles, and the bars on its tail when it turns, etc., reminding me of a great brown moth. 

Sometimes alone; and when it approaches its mate it utters a low, grating note like cur-r-r. 

Suddenly the female holds straight toward me, descending gradually. Steadily she comes on, without swerving, until only two rods off, then wheels. 

I find an old bog-hoe left amid the birches in the low ground, the handle nearly rotted off. 

In the low birch land north of the pear tree the old corn-hills are very plain still, and now each hill is a dry moss-bed, of various species of cladonia. What a complete change from a dusty corn-hill! 

Abel Hosmer tells me that he has collected and sown white pine seed, and that he has found them in the crop of pigeons. (?) 

Salix lucida at bridge; maybe staminate earlier. 

Herb-of-St.-Barbara, how long?

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 14, 1857


I hear two thrashers plainly singing in emulation of each other. See May 13, 1855 ("Now, about two hours before sunset, the brown thrashers are particularly musical. One seems to be contending in song with another.")
 
At the temporary brush fence pond . . . thirteen wood tortoises on the grass . . . See May 14, 1856 ("Yesterday and to-day I see half a dqzen tortoises on a rail, — their first appearance in numbers.”); May 4, 1855 ("Yesterday a great many spotted and wood tortoises in the Sam Wheeler birch-fence meadow pool, which dries up.. . .”)

See a pair of marsh hawks, the smaller and lighter- colored male, with black tips to wings, and the large brown female, sailing low . . .  and screaming . . . have they not a nest near?  See May 14,1855 (“See a male hen-harrier skimming low along the side of the river, often within a foot of the muddy shore, looking for frogs”). See also  March 27, 1855 (“[M]arsh hawk, male. Slate-colored; beating the bush; black tips to wings and white rump.”); March 29, 1854 ("See two marsh hawks, white on rump. “); April 8, 1856 ("See two marsh hawks this afternoon, circling low over the meadows along the water’s edge. This shows that frogs must be out.”);  April 23, 1855 (" I have seen also for some weeks occasionally a brown hawk with white rump, flying low, which I have thought the frog hawk in a different stage of plumage; but can it be at this season? and is it not the marsh hawk? Yet it is not so heavy nearly as the hen-hawk -- probably female hen-harrier [i. e. marsh hawk]”);   May 2, 1855 ("Was that a harrier seen at first skimming low then seating and circling, with a broad whiteness on the wings beneath?”);  May 20, 1856 (“Two marsh hawks, male and female, flew about me a long time, screaming, the female largest, with ragged wing ,. . . they have, no doubt, a nest thereabouts. ”); May 30, 1858 ("The hawk rises when we approach and circles about over the wood, uttering a note singularly like the common one of the flicker.");     And see A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Marsh Hawk (Northern Harrier)

Salix lucida at bridge . . . See September 2, 1856 (“[A]t the stone bridge, am surprised to see the Salix lucida, a small tree with very marked and handsome leaves, on the sand, water's edge, at the great eddy. . . .”); May 12, 1858 (“The Salix lucida above Assabet Spring will not open for several days.”)