Nighthawks flying over high open fields in the woods.

June 23.

It is a pleasant sound to me, the squeaking and the booming of nighthawks flying over high open fields in the woods. They fly like butterflies, not to avoid birds of prey but  apparently, to secure their own insect prey. There is a particular part of the railroad just below the shanty where they may be heard and seen in greatest numbers. But often you must look a long while before you can detect the mote in the sky from which the note proceeds. 

The common cinquefoil (Potentilla simplex) greets me with its simple and unobtrusive yellow flower in the grass. 

The P. argentea, hoary cinquefoil, also is now in blossom. 

P. sarmentosa, running cinquefoil, we had common enough in the spring.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, June 23, 1851


The squeaking and the booming of nighthawks flying over high open fields in the woods. See June 1, 1853 ("Walking up this side-hill, I disturb a nighthawk eight or ten feet from me . .Without moving, I look about and see its two eggs on the bare ground, on a slight shelf of the hill, on the dead pine-needles and sand, without any cavity or nest whatever."); June 3, 1859 ("Nighthawk, two eggs, fresh. "); June 5, 1854 ("Now, just before sundown, a nighthawk is circling, imp-like, with undulating, irregular flight over the sprout-land on the Cliff Hill, with an occasional squeak and showing the spots on his wings. He does not circle away from this place, and I associate him with two gray eggs somewhere on the ground beneath and a mate there sitting."); June 7, 1853 ("Visit my nighthawk on her nest. . . . The sight of this creature sitting on its eggs impresses me with the venerableness of the globe"); June 7, 1858 ("The nighthawk sparks and booms over arid hillsides and sprout-lands."); June 15, 1852 ("The nighthawk squeaks and booms."); June 21, 1856 ("Nighthawks numerously squeak at 5 P. M. and boom.") See also  A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau,, the Nighthawk

The common cinquefoil (Potentilla simplex) greets me with its simple and unobtrusive yellow flower in the grass. See May 17, 1853 ("The early cinquefoil is now in its prime and spots the banks and hillsides and dry meadows with its dazzling yellow. How lively! It is one of the most interesting yellow flowers. ");. May 28, 1856 ("Potentilla argentea, maybe several days");June 4, 1857 ("The early potentilla is now erect in the June grass."); June 4, 1855 (“There are now many potentillas ascendant.”);June 8, 1858 ("The early potentilla is now in some places erect."); June 18, 1855 (" I see a painted tortoise just beginning its hole; then another a dozen rods from the river on the bare barren field near some pitch pines, where the earth was covered with cladonias, cinquefoil, sorrel, etc. "); June 28, 1858 ("The erect potentilla is a distinct variety, with differently formed leaves as well as different time of flowering, and not the same plant at a different season. Have I treated it as such?") June 28, 1860 ("I meet to-day with a wood tortoise which is eating the leaves of the early potentilla")