Now and long since the birds' nests have been full of snow.

December 24. 

It spits snow this afternoon. Now and long since the birds' nests have been full of snow. 

Saw a flock of snowbirds on the Walden road. I see them so commonly when it is beginning to snow that I am inclined to regard them as a sign of a snow-storm. The snow bunting (Emberiza nivalis) methinks it is, so white and arctic, not the slate-colored. 

Saw also some pine grosbeaks, magnificent winter birds, among the weeds and on the apple trees; like large catbirds at a distance, but, nearer at hand, some of them, when they flit by, are seen to have gorgeous heads, breasts, and rumps (?), with red or crimson reflections, more beautiful than a steady bright red would be. The note I heard, a rather faint and innocent whistle of two bars. 

December 24, 2015

I had looked in vain into the west for nearly half an hour to see a red cloud blushing in the sky. The few clouds were dark, and I had given up all to night, but when I had got home and chanced to look out the window from supper, I perceived that all the west horizon was glowing with a rosy border, and that dun atmosphere had been the cloud this time which made the day's adieus. 

But half an hour before, that dun atmosphere hung over all the western woods and hills, precisely as if the fires of the day had just been put out in the west, and the burnt territory was sending out volumes of dun and lurid smoke to heaven, as if Phaeton had again driven the chariot of the sun so near as to set fire to earth.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, December 24, 1851

Now and long since the birds' nests have been full of snow. See December 30, 1855 (“He who would study birds’ nests must look for them in November and in winter as well as in midsummer, for then the trees are bare and he can see them, and the swamps and streams are frozen and he can approach new kinds”); December 29, 1855  (“I find in the andromeda bushes in the Andromeda Ponds a great many nests apparently of the red-wing suspended after their fashion amid the twigs of the andromeda, each now filled with ice.”); January 24, 1856 (“The snow is so deep along the sides of the river that I can now look into nests which I could hardly reach in the summer . . .They have only an ice egg in them now. ”)

Saw a flock of snowbirds on the Walden road. See March 20, 1852 ("As to the winter birds, — those which came here in the winter, -- I saw . . . in midwinter the snow bunting, the white snowbird, sweeping low like snowflakes from field to field over the walls and fences.”) See also December 10, 1854 (“See a large flock of snow buntings (quite white against woods)"); December 21, 1859. (" A large flock of snow buntings . . .Their whiteness, like the snow, is their most remarkable peculiarity.");December 29, 1853 ("These are the true winter birds for you, these winged snowballs. I could hardly see them, the air is so full of driving snow. What hardy creatures! Where do they spend the night ?"); January 2, 1856 (“They are pretty black, with white wings and a brown crescent on their breasts. They have come with this deeper snow and colder weather.”) See alsoA Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Snow Bunting

Saw also some pine grosbeaks, magnificent winter birds . . . when they flit by, are seen to have gorgeous heads, breasts, and rumps, with red or crimson reflections. See November 25, 1851 ("Saw also quite a flock of the pine grosbeak, a plump and handsome bird as big as a robin. ); March 20, 1852 ("I saw, about Thanksgiving time and later in the winter, the pine grosbeaks, large and carmine, a noble bird") See also December 11, 1855  ("When some rare northern bird like the pine grosbeak is seen thus far south in the Winter, he does not suggest poverty, but dazzles us with his beauty.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Winter Birds

I had looked in vain into the west for nearly half an hour to see a red cloud blushing in the sky. See December 23, 1851 ("Now all the clouds grow black, and I give up to-night; but unexpectedly, half an hour later when I look out, having got home, I find that the evening star is shining brightly, and, beneath all, the west horizon is glowing red.")

December 24.  See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, December 24

So white and arctic

a flock of snowbirds – it is

beginning to snow.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, 

Now and long since the birds' nests have been full of snow.

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 © 2009-2024

https://tinyurl.com/hdt-511224