A Book of the Seasons: July 12 (moonlight, clouds, swallows, bullfrogs and toads)

The year is but a succession of days,

and I see that I could assign some office to each day

which, summed up, would be the history of the year.

Henry Thoreau, August 24, 1852

July 12

Long after starlight

high-pillared clouds of the day

reflect a downy light.

July 12, 1852

July 12, 2013

The moon is full, and I walk alone, July 12, 1851

The moonlight is more perfect than last night; hardly a cloud in the sky, — only a few fleecy ones. There is more serenity and more light. July 12, 1851

I observed this morning a row of several dozen swallows perched on the telegraph-wire by the bridge. July 12, 1852

I hear the toads still at night, together with bullfrogs, but not so universally nor loud as formerly. I go to walk at twilight, — at the same time that toads go to their walks, and are seen hopping about the sidewalks or the pump. July 12, 1852

Now, a quarter after nine, as I walk along the river-bank, long after starlight, and perhaps an hour or more after sunset, I see some of those high-pillared clouds of the day, in the southwest, still reflecting a downy light from the regions of day, they are so high. It is a pleasing reminiscence of the day in the midst of the deepening shadows of the night.July 12, 1852

The green-flowered lanceolate-leafed orchis at Azalea Brook will soon flower. July 12, 1853

Many young barn swallows sit in flocks on the bared dead willows over the water and let me float within four or five feet. Birds do not distinguish a man sitting in a boat. July 12, 1854

The upland plover begins with a quivering note somewhat like a tree-toad and ends with a long, clear, somewhat plaintive or melodious hawk-like scream. I never heard this very near to me, and when I asked the inhabitants about it they did not know what I meant.* It hovers on quivering wing, and alights by a steep dive. July 12, 1855

Red lilies in prime, single upright fiery flowers, their throats how splendidly and variously spotted, hardly two of quite the same hue and not two spotted alike, —leopard-spotted, — averaging a foot or more in height, amid the huckleberry and lambkill, etc., in the moist, meadowy pasture.  July 12, 1856

The cows stand up to their bellies in the river, lashing their sides with their tails from time to time.  July 12, 1857

It having cleared up, we shouldered our packs and commenced our descent.  July 12, 1858 [Mt. Washington]

In the evening, the moon being about full, I paddle up the river to see the moonlight and hear the bullfrogs. The toads and the pebbly dont dont are most common. July 12, 1859. 

I see at 9.30 p. m. a little brood of four or five barn swallows, which have quite recently left the nest, perched close together for the night on a dead willow twig in the shade of the tree, about four feet above the water. Their tails not yet much grown. July 12, 1859

Hear a nuthatch in the street. So they breed here. July 12, 1860

*****

See A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau:

 Midsummer Toads

July 12, 2012

If you make the least correct 

observation of nature this year,

 you will have occasion to repeat it

 with illustrations the next, 

and the season and life itself is prolonged.

  April 7, 1853   

 

July 11 <<<<< July 12 >>>>> July 13

 

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,   July 12

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 ©  2009-2023

https://tinyurl.com/HDT12JULY