A cold north-by-west wind, which must have come over much snow and ice, brings the shore lark.

March 24. 

P. M. — To Fair Haven Pond, east side. 

March 24, 2018

The pond not yet open. A cold north-by-west wind, which must have come over much snow and ice. 

The chip of the ground-bird [That is, song sparrow.] resembles that of a robin, i.e., its expression is the same, only fainter, and reminds me that the robin's peep, which sounds like a note of distress, is also a chip, or call-note to its kind. 

Returning about 5 P. M. across the Depot Field, I scare up from the ground a flock of about twenty birds, which fly low, making a short circuit to another part of the field. At first they remind me of bay-wings, except that they are in a flock, show no white in tail, are, I see, a little larger, and utter a faint sveet sveet merely, a sort of sibilant chip. 

Starting them again, I see that they have black tails, very conspicuous when they pass near. They fly in a flock somewhat like snow buntings, occasionally one surging upward a few feet in pursuit of another, and they alight about where they first were. It [is] almost impossible to discover them on the ground, they squat so flat and so much resemble it, running amid the stubble. But at length I stand within two rods of one and get a good view of its markings with my glass. 

They are the Alauda alpestris, or shore lark [Did I not see them on Nantucket?], quite a sizable and handsome bird; delicate pale-lemon-yellow line above the [eye], with a dark line through the eye; the yellow again on the sides of the neck and on the throat, with a black crescent below the throat; with a buff ash breast and reddish-brown tinges; beneath, white; above, rusty-brown behind, and darker, ash or slate, with purplish-brown reflections, forward; legs, black; and bill, blue-black. Common to the Old and New Worlds.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, March 24, 1858

A cold north-by-west wind, which must have come over much snow and ice. See March 24, 1855 (“The northwesterly comes from a snow—clad country still, and cannot but be chilling. ”)

The robin's peep, which sounds like a note of distress, is also a chip, or call-note to its kind. See March 8, 1855("I hear the hasty, shuffling, as if frightened, note of a robin from a dense birch wood.”); March 18, 1858 (“The robin does not come singing, but utters a somewhat anxious or inquisitive peep at first.”); April 2, 1852 (“The robin now peeps with scared note in the heavy overcast air, among the apple trees”). See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Robins in Spring and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Signs of the Spring, the anxious peep of the early robin

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

A cold northwest wind

 comes over much snow and ice –

 pond not yet open.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, A cold northwest wind

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

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