It invites us to walk in the yard and inspect the springing plants.

April 17.

I hear this forenoon the soothing and simple, though monotonous, notes of the chip-bird, telling us better than our thermometers what degree of summer warmth is reached; adds its humble but very pleasant contribution to the steadily increasing quire of the spring. It perches on a cherry tree, perchance, near the house, and unseen, by its steady che-che-che-che-che che, affecting us often without our distinctly hearing it, it blends all the other and previous sounds of the season together. It invites us to walk in the yard and inspect the springing plants.

The evenings are very considerably shortened. We begin to be more out of doors, the less housed, think less, stir about more, are fuller of affairs and chores, come in chiefly to eat and to sleep.

The amelanchier flower-buds are conspicuously swollen.

Willows (Salix alba) probably (did not four or five days ago).

P. M. – Sail to Ball’s Hill.

It is quite warm — 67 at 2 P. M. — and hazy, though rather strong and gusty northwest wind.
We land at the Holt and walk a little inland. It is unexpectedly very warm on lee side of hilltop just laid bare and covered with dry leaves and twigs. See my first Vanessa Antiopa. 

Looking off on to the river meadow, I noticed, as I thought, a stout stake aslant in the meadow, three or more rods off, sharp at the top and rather light-colored on one side, as is often the case; yet, at the same time, it occurred to me that a stake-driver often resembled a stake very much, but I thought, nevertheless, that there was no doubt about this being a stake. I took out my glass to look for ducks, and my companion, seeing what I had, and asking if it was not a stake-driver, I suffered my glass at last to rest on it, and I was much surprised to find that it was a stake-driver after all. The bird stood in shallow water near a tussock, perfectly still, with its long bill pointed upwards in the same direction with its body and neck, so as perfectly to resemble a stake aslant. If the bill had made an angle with the neck it would have been betrayed at once.

Its resource evidently was to rely on its form and color and immobility solely for its concealment. This was its instinct, whether it implies any conscious artifice or not.

I watched it for fifteen minutes, and at length it relaxed its muscles and changed its attitude, and I observed a slight motion; and soon after, when I moved toward it, it flew. It resembled more a piece of a rail than anything else, — more than anything that would have been seen here before the white man came.

It is a question whether the bird consciously coöperates in each instance with its Maker, who contrived this concealment. I can never believe that this resemblance is a mere coincidence, not designed to answer this very end — which it does answer so perfectly and usefully.

The meadows are alive with purring frogs.

J. Brown says that he saw martins on his box on the 13th and 14th, and that his son saw one the 8th(?).

I notice now and of late holes recently dug, — woodchuck? or fox?

Lake grass was very long — a foot or two — and handsome, the 15th.

Heard a pigeon woodpecker on the 16th.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, April 17, 1860

The soothing and simple, though monotonous, notes of the chip-bird, telling us better than our thermometers what degree of summer warmth is reached. See April 17, 1856 ("Hear a chip-bird high on an elm this morning,. . . You would not be apt to distinguish the note of the earliest."). See also  April 9, 1853 ("The chipping sparrow, with its ashy-white breast and white streak over eye and undivided chestnut crown, holds up its head and pours forth its che che che che che che.");   April 27, 1852  ("Heard also a chipping sparrow (F. socialis).") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The Chipping Sparrow (Fringilla socialis ).

The amelanchier flower-buds are conspicuously swollen. See April 13, 1856  ("Also the amelanchier flower-buds are bursting."); April 18, 1855 ("The shad-bush flower-buds, beginning to expand, look like leaf-buds bursting now.")

Willows (Salix alba) probably. See April 29, 1855 ("For two or three days the Salix alba, with its catkins (not yet open) and its young leaves, or bracts (?), has made quite a show, before any other tree, —a pyramid of tender yellowish green in the russet landscape.")

It is unexpectedly very warm on lee side of hilltop just laid bare and covered with dry leaves and twigs. See my first Vanessa Antiopa. See March 21, 1853 ("On the warm, dry cliff, looking south over Beaver Pond, I am surprised to see a large butterfly, black with buff-edged wings, so tender a creature to be out so early ."); March 28, 1857 ("The broad buff edge of the Vanessa Antiopa's wings harmonizes with the russet ground it flutters over,");   April 9, 1853 ("You see the buff-edged . . . in warm, sunny southern exposures on the edge of woods or sides of rocky hills and cliffs, above dry leaves and twigs."); April 16, 1855 ("A great many of the large buff-edged are fluttering over the leaves in wood-paths this warm afternoon."). See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Buff-edged Butterfly


It was a stake-driver after all. See October 26, 1858 ("[Minott] says that some call the stake-driver “'belcher squelcher,” and some, “wollerkertoot. ” I used to call them “pump-er-gor’. ” Some say “slug-toot.”) See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, American Bittern (the Stake-Diver)

It is a question whether the bird consciously coöperates in each instance with its Maker, who contrived this concealment. See February 19, 1854 (''Each and all such disguises and other resources remind us that not some poor worm's instinct merely, as we call it, but the mind of the universe rather, which we share, has been intended upon each particular object. All the wit in the world was brought to bear on each case to secure its end. ")

The meadows are alive with purring frogs. See  April 17, 1855 ("To-day I see a Rana palustris — I think the first."  Rana palustris. Pickerel frog (Lithobates palustris) See also April 11, 1854 ("Hear a slight snoring of frogs on the bared meadows. Is it not the R. palustris? This the first moon to walk by.”); April 30, 1858 ('It is some what more softly purring, with frequently a low quivering, chuckling, or inquisitive croak, . . . I suspect it is the R. palustris, now breeding."); May 2, 1859  ("I heard yesterday, and perhaps for several days, the soft purring sound of what I take to be the Rana palustris, breeding, though I did not this time see the frog."); May 3, 1857 ("I hear the soft, purring, stertorous croak of frogs on the meadow. "); May 8. 1857 ("It is an evening for the soft-snoring, purring frogs (which I suspect to be Rana palustris). . . . Their croak is very fine or rapid, and has a soft, purring sound at a little distance."); May 8, 1857 ("The full moon rises, and I paddle by its light. It is an evening for the soft-snoring, purring frogs "); June 16, 1860 ("It appears to me that these phenomena occur simultaneously, say June 12th, viz.: -• Heat about. 85° at 2 P.M.• Hylodes cease to peep.• Purring frogs (Rana palustris) cease.")

J. Brown says that he saw martins on his box on the 13th and 14th, and that his son saw one the 8th(?). See April 17, 1854 ("Every shopkeeper makes a record of the arrival of the first martin or bluebird to his box. . . .: John Brown, merchant, tells me this morning that the martins first came to his box on the 13th, he "made a minute of it." Beside so many entries in their day-books and ledgers, they record these things")

I notice now and of late holes recently dug. See April 17, 1855 ("See a woodchuck. His deep reddish-brown rear, somewhat grizzled about, looked like a ripe fruit mellowed by winter. . . .They have several holes under Lee’s Cliff.")")

Heard a pigeon woodpecker on the 16th. Compare March 17, 1858 ("Ah! there is the note of the first flicker, a prolonged, monotonous wick-wick-wick-wick-wick-wick, etc.,); April 8, 1855 ("Hear and see a pigeon woodpecker, something like week-up week-up."); April 12. 1860 ("Hear a pigeon woodpecker' s prolonged cackle."); April 14, 1856 ("Hear the flicker’s cackle on the old aspen, and his tapping sounds afar over the water.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Pigeon Woodpecker (flicker).