That early yellow smell.

April 17.

Stood by the riverside early this morning. The water has been rising during the night. The sun has been shining on it half an hour. It is quite placid. The village smokes are seen against the long hill. And now I see the river also is awakening, a slight ripple beginning to appear on its surface. It wakens like the village. It proves a beautiful day, and I see that glimmering or motion in the air just above the fields, which we associate with heat.  . . . 

Observed in the second of the chain of ponds between Fair Haven and Walden a large (for the pond) island patch of the dwarf andromeda, I sitting on the east bank; its fine brownish-red color very agreeable and memorable to behold.

In the last long pond, looking at it from the south, I saw it filled with a slightly grayish shrub which I took for the sweet-gale, but when I had got round to the east side, chancing to turn round, I was surprised to see that all this pond-hole also was filled with the same warm brownish-red-colored andromeda.

The fact was I was opposite to the sun, but from every other position I saw only the sun reflected from the surface of the andromeda leaves, which gave the whole a grayish-brown hue tinged with red; but from this position alone I saw, as it were, through the leaves which the opposite sun lit up, giving to the whole this charming warm, what I call Indian, red color, — the mellowest, the ripest, red imbrowned color; but when I looked to the right or left, i. e. north or south, the more the swamp had the mottled light or grayish aspect where the light was reflected from the surfaces of the leaves.

And afterward, when I had risen higher up the hill, though still opposite the sun, the light came reflected upward from the surfaces, and I lost that warm, rich red tinge, surpassing cathedral windows. Let me look again at a different hour of the day, and see if it is really so.

It is a very interesting piece of magic. . . .

The pond is still half covered with ice, and it will take another day like this to empty it. It is clear up tight to the shore on the south side, — dark-gray cold ice, completely saturated with water. The air from over it is very cold.

The scent of the earliest spring flowers! I smelt the willow catkins to-day, tender and innocent after this rude winter, yet slightly sickening, yet full of vernal promise.

This odor, — how unlike anything that winter affords, or nature has afforded this six months! A mild, sweet, vernal scent, not highly spiced and intoxicating, as some ere long, but attractive to bees, — that early yellow smell. The odor of spring, of life developing amid buds, of the earth's epithalamium.

The first flowers are not the highest-scented, — as catkins, as the first birds are not the finest singers, blackbirds and song sparrows, etc. The beginnings of the year are humble. But though this fragrance is not rich, it contains and prophesies all others in it.

The leaves of the Veratrum viride, American hellebore, now just pushing up.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal,  April 17, 1852

The chain of ponds between Fair Haven and Walden. See April 19 1852 ("Crossed by the chain of ponds to Walden. The first, looking back, appears elevated high above Fair Haven between the hills above the swamp, and the next higher yet. Each is distinct, a wild and interesting pond with its musquash house."); December 5, 1852 ("Walden has no visible inlet nor outlet, but it is on the one hand distantly and indirectly related to Flint's Pond, which is more elevated, by a chain of small ponds coming from that quarter, and on the other hand directly and manifestly related to Concord River, which is lower, by a similar chain of ponds, through which in some other geological period it may have flowed"); November 24, 1857 ("These andromeda swamps charmed me more than twenty years ago, — I knew not why, — and I called them “a moccasin-print.”")

Let me look again at a different hour of the day, and see if it is really so. It is a very interesting piece of magic. See April 19 1852 (".The thing that pleases me most within these three days is the discovery of the andromeda phenomenon . .... It is a natural magic. These little leaves are the stained windows in the cathedral of my world.”); January 10,1855 ("As I go toward the sun now at 4 P. M., the translucent leaves are lit up by it and appear of a soft red, more or less brown, like cathedral windows, but when I look back from the sun, the whole bed appears merely gray and brown or less reddish.”); May 5, 1855 ("I can neither get the red cathedral-window light looking toward the now westering sun in a most favorable position, nor the gray colors in the other direction, but it is all a grayish green."); November 24, 1857 (“Looking toward the sun, the andromeda in front of me is a very warm red brown and on either side of me, a pale silvery brown; looking from the sun, a uniform pale brown.”) See also A Book of Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Andromeda Phenomenon

The pond is still half covered with ice, and it will take another day like this to empty it. See April 19, 1852 ("Walden is clear of ice. The ice left it yesterday, then, the 18th") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Ice-Out

The scent of the earliest spring flowers! I smelt the willow catkins to-day, tender and innocent. . .that early yellow smell. See April 17, 1855 (“The second sallow catkin (or any willow) I have seen in blossom . . . but find already a bee curved close on each half-opened catkin, intoxicated with its early sweet."); April 17, 1860 (' Willows (Salix alba) probably"); 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."). See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,  the Earliest Flower

False Hellebore. April 28, 2019

The leaves of the Veratrum viride, American hellebore, now just pushing up.  April 2, 1856 ("The plaited buds of the hellebore are four or five inches high."); April 10, 1859 ("The hellebore buds are quite conspicuous and interesting to-day, but not at all unrolled, though six or eight inches high."); See  also  note to April 26, 1860 ("Before the earliest tree has begun to leaf it makes conspicuous green patches a foot high.")

; 

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).

First sounds of awakened nature in the spring.

April 17. 

April 17, 2019

Sunday. P. M. — Up Assabet. 

The river, which had got down on the 10th so that I could not cross the meadows, is up again on account of snow and rain, so that I push with difficulty straight to Mantatuket's Rock, but, I believe, is already falling. 

Many grackles and robins are feeding on those strips of meadow just laid bare.

It is still rather cold and windy, and I listen for new birds under the lee of the Rock woods in vain; but I hear the hum of bees on a willow there, and this fine susurrus makes the weather seem warmer than it is. At the same time I hear the low stuttering of the Rana halecina from the Hunt meadow (call it the Winthrop meadow).

How pleasing and soothing are some of the first and least audible sounds of awakened nature in the spring, as this first humming of bees, etc., and the stuttering of frogs! They cannot be called musical, — are no more even than a noise, so slight that we can endure it. But it is in part an expression of happiness, an ode that is sung and whose burden fills the air. It reminds me of the increased genialness of nature. 

The air which was so lately void and silent begins to resound as it were with the breathing of a myriad fellow-creatures, and even the unhappy man, on the principle that misery loves company, is soothed by this infinite din of neighbors.

I have listened for the notes of various birds, and now, in this faint hum of bees, I hear as it were the first twittering of the bird Summer. Go ten feet that way, to where the northwest wind comes round the hill, and you hear only the dead mechanical sound of the blast and your thoughts recur to winter, but stand as much this way in the sun and in the lee of this bush, and your charmed ears may hear this faint susurrus weaving the web of summer. The notes of birds are interrupted, but the hum of insects is incessant.

I suppose that the motion of the wings of the small tipulidae which have swarmed for some weeks produced a humming appreciated by some ears. Perhaps the phoebe heard and was charmed by it. Thus gradually the spaces of the air are filled. Nature has taken equal care to cushion our ears on this finest sound and to inspire us with the strains of the wood thrush and poet. We may say that each gnat is made to vibrate its wings for man's fruition. 

In short, we hear but little music in the world which charms us more than this sound produced by the vibration of an insect's wing and in some still and sunny nook in spring.

 A wood tortoise on bank; first seen, water so high.

I heard lately the voice of a hound hunting by itself. What an awful sound to the denizens of the wood! That relentless, voracious, demonic cry, like the voice of a fiend! At hearing of which, the fox, hare, marmot, etc., tremble for their young and themselves, imagining the worst. This, however, is the sound which the lords of creation love to accompany and follow, with their bugles and "mellow horns" conveying a similar dread to the hearers instead of whispering peace to the hare's palpitating breast.

 A partridge drums.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, April 17, 1859

I hear the hum of bees on a willow there, and this fine susurrus makes the weather seem warmer than it is. See April 17, 1852 ("I smelt the willow catkins to-day, tender and innocent after this rude winter . . . A mild, sweet, vernal scent . . . attractive to bees"); April 17, 1855 (“The second sallow catkin (or any willow) I have seen in blossom . . . but find already a bee curved close on each half-opened catkin, intoxicated with its early sweet,. . .So quickly and surely does a bee find the earliest flower . . . No matter what pains you take, probably —undoubtedly—an insect will have found the first flower before you”) See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Bees

How pleasing and soothing are some of the first and least audible sounds of awakened nature in spring. See April 3, 1858 ("There is no pause to the hum of the bees all this warm day. It is a very simple but pleasing and soothing sound, this susurrus, thus early in the spring.”); . 


In the lee of this bush, and your charmed ears may hear this faint susurrus weaving the web of summer. See April 6, 1854 ("Maples resound with the hum of honey-bees, and you see thousands of them about the flowers against the sky. This susurrus carries me forward some months toward summer -- like a summer's dream.")

The female flowers of the alder are now very pretty when seen against the sun.

April 17.

P. M. – Via Assabet to Coral Rock. 

See several kingfishers. Red-wings still in flocks, and crow blackbirds feeding amid leaves by Assabet side, half a dozen together. 

The female flowers of the alder are now very pretty when seen against the sun, bright-crimson. 

I take up a wood turtle on the shore, whose sternum is covered with small ants. 

The sedge is shooting up in the meadows, erect, rigid, and sharp, a glaucous green unlike that of the grass on banks. 

The linnaea-like plant turns out to be golden saxifrage. Its leaf is the same form, but smooth and not shrubby. 

The Rana halecina spawn in tumbler begins to struggle free of the ova, but it is not so much developed as the R. sylvatica. Some of the first may be a little more forward in the meadows. I see some to-day, probably this kind, flatted out, though I do not see the frog. It made the same sound, however. The R. sylvatica is probably generally the earliest.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, April 17, 1858

The female flowers of the alder are now very pretty when seen against the sun, bright-crimson. See April 8, 1859 ("The fertile flowers are an interesting bright crimson in the sun.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Alders

I take up a wood turtle on the shore, whose sternum is covered with small ants.  See. April 17, 1859 ("A wood tortoise on bank; first seen."); see also. April 6, 1855 (" I see a large wood tortoise just crawled out upon the bank, with three oval, low, bug-like leeches on its sternum."); May 7, 1858 ("I see a wood tortoise by the river there, half covered with the old withered leaves. Taking it up, I find that it must have lain perfectly still there for some weeks,") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Wood Turtlw (Emys insculpta)

It rains about every other day now

April 17

Rain. It rains about every other day now for a fortnight past.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, April 17, 1857

See ; April 14, 1859 ("The seventh rain storm (as I reckon), beginning with the 18th of March."); April 22, 1856 (“These rain-storms -- this is the third day of one -- characterize 'the season, and belong rather to winter than to summer.”) Compare April 17, 1856 ("We have had scarcely any rain this spring.”)

Rain – It rains about

every other day now

for a fortnight past.

A Book of the Seasons: April 17.

April 17.

April 17, 2021

The distant white pines over the Spanish Brook seem to flake into tiers; the whole tree looks like an open cone.

The distant white pines
flake into tiers, the whole tree
like an open cone.
April 17, 1855


So quickly and surely does a bee find the earliest flower, as if he had slumbered all winter at the root of the plant. No matter what pains you take, probably —undoubtedly—an insect will have found the first flower before you.

Quickly and surely
the bee finds the first flower
before the poet.
April 17, 1855

Rain. It rains about

every other day now

for a fortnight past.

April 17, 1857

The female flowers

 of the alder bright-crimson

 seen against the sun,.

 April 17, 1858

How pleasing and soothing are some of the first and least audible sounds of awakened nature in the spring, as this first humming of bees, etc.,

We are charmed by

the first vibration of an

insect's wing in spring.

How pleasing the sounds 
awakened nature in spring
first humming of bees.
April 17, 1859

Sunny nook in spring —

go  ten feet  this way to the 

lee of a bush and —

 

your charmed ears may hear 

this faint susurrus weaving 

the web of summer. 

April 17, 1859

We begin to be
more outdoors, come in chiefly
to eat and to sleep.
April 17, 1860

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 © 2009-2021

The ice on Lake Champlain was broken up on the 12th.

April 17, 2016

April 17

Was awakened in the night by a thunder and lightning shower and hail-storm — the old familiar burst and rumble, as if it had been rumbling somewhere else ever since I heard it last, and had not lost the knack. 

I heard a thousand hailstones strike and bounce on the roof at once. What a clattering! Yet it did not last long, and the hail took a breathing-space once or twice. I did not know at first but we should lose our windows, the blinds being away at the painters’. 

These sounds lull me into a deeper slumber than before.

Hail-storms are milked out of the first summer-like warmth; they belong to lingering cool veins in the air, which thus burst and come down. The thunder, too, sounds like the final rending and breaking up of winter; thus precipitous is its edge. The first one is a skirmish between the cool rear-guard of winter and the warm and earnest vanguard of summer. Advancing summer strikes on the edge of winter, which does not drift fast enough away, and fire is elicited. Electricity is engendered by the early heats. 

I love to hear the voice of the first thunder as of the toad (though it returns irregularly like pigeons), far away in his moist meadow where he is warmed to life, and see the flash of his eye. 

Hear a chip-bird high on an elm this morning, and probably that was one I heard on the 15th. You would not be apt to distinguish the note of the earliest. 

I still see quite a snow-bank from my window on the hillside at the northeast end of Clamshell, say a northeast exposure. This is on the surface, but the snow lies there in still greater quantity, in two hollows where sand has been dug for the meadow, on the hillside, though sloping to the southeast, where it is quite below the general surface. We have had scarcely any rain this spring, and the snow has been melting very gradually in the sun. 

P. M. Start for Conantum in boat, wind southwest. 

I can hide my oars and sail up there and come back another day. A moist muggy afternoon, rain-threatening, true April weather, after a particularly warm and pleasant forenoon. The meadows are still well covered, and I cut off the bends. 

The red-wing goes over with his che-e-e che-e-e, chatter, chatter, chatter. 

On Hubbard’s great meadow I hear the sound of some fowl, perhaps a loon, rushing through the water, over by Dennis’s Hill, and push for it. Meanwhile it grows more and more rain-threatening, — all the air moist and muggy, a great ill-defined cloud darkening all the west. — but I push on till I feel the first drops, knowing that the wind will take me back again. 

Now I hear ducks rise, and know by their hoarse quacking that they are black ones, and see two going off as if with one mind, along the edge of the wood.

Now comes the rain with a rush. In haste I put my boat about, raise my sail, and, cowering under my umbrella in the stern, with the steering oar in my hand, begin to move homeward. The rain soon fulls up my sail, and it catches all the little wind. From under the umbrella I look out on the scene. 

The big drops pepper the watery plain, the aequor, on every side. It is not a hard, dry pattering, as on a roof, but a softer, liquid pattering, which makes the impression of a double wateriness. You do not observe the drops descending but where they strike, for there they batter and indent the surface deeply like buckshot, and they, or else other drops which they create, rebound or hop up an inch or two, and these last you see, and also when they circling dimples, running into and breaking one another, and very often a bubble is formed by the force of the shot, which floats entire for half a minute. These big shot are battering the surface every three inches or thicker. 

I make haste to take down my sail at the bridges, but at the stone arches forgot my umbrella, which was un avoidably crushed in part. 

Even in the midst of this rain I am struck by the variegated surface of the water, different portions reflecting the light differently, giving what is called a watered appearance. Broad streams of light water stretch away between streams of dark, as if they were different kinds of water unwilling to mingle, though all are equally dimpled by the rain, and you detect no difference in their condition. As if Nature loved variety for its own sake. 

It is a true April shower, or rain,—I think the first. It rains so easy, —has a genius for it and infinite capacity for it. Many showers will not exhaust the moisture of April. 

When I get home and look out the window, I am surprised to see how it has greened the grass. It springs up erect like a green flame in the ditches on each side the road, where we had not noticed it before. Grass is born. 

There is a quite distinct tinge of green on the hillside seen from my window now. I did not look for the very first. 

I learn from the papers that an unusual number of fruit trees have been girdled by the mice under the deep snow of the past winter. Immense damage has been done to nurseries and orchards. I saw where a prostrate maple in the Great Meadows had been gnawed nearly bare. 

April 17, 2016

Our river was generally breaking up on the 3d of April, though some parts were frozen till the 12th. I see by the papers that the ice had left Lake St. Peter (St. Lawrence) the 12th. Another paper (of the 11th) has heard that the St. Lawrence was open from Quebec to Three Rivers, or before the Hudson. The ice on Lake Champlain was broken up on the 12th. Fair Haven Pond was quite open the 13th. The ice moved down the Penobscot, and the river opened the 15th. Lake Ontario was free of ice the 16th. The Kennebec is expected to open this week. (To-day is Thursday.) 

There is still ice in Walden.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, April 17, 1856

Was awakened in the night by a thunder and lightning shower and hail-storm . . . Advancing summer strikes on the edge of winter, . . .I love to hear the voice of the first thunder as of the toad. . .far away in his moist meadow where he is warmed to life, and see the flash of his eye. See . April 13, 1858 ("I hear the low rumbling of the first thunder, and now the summer is baptized and inaugurated in due form. Is not the first lightning the forerunner or warranty of summer heat?");April 18, 1855 (" In the evening hear far and wide the ring of toads, and a thunder-shower with its lightning is seen and heard in the west ")See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Lightning

Drops batter and indent the surface deeply like buckshot. . . Broad streams of light water stretch away between streams of dark.  See July 31, 1860 ("I see the differently shaded or lit currents of the river . . .and a myriad white globules dance or rebound an inch or two from the surface, where the big drops fall, and I hear a sound as if it rains pebbles or shot”); June 17, 1859 ("The different-colored currents, light and dark, are seen through it all. At last the whole surface is nicked with the rebounding drops”)

April 17, 2016

Awakened last night
 by a thunder and lightning 
shower and hail-storm.

 What a clattering!
Heard a thousand hailstones bounce
 on the roof at once.

Quickly and surely does a bee find the earliest flower.

April 17.

5 A. M. — Up Assabet. 

Very little frost; a clear morning. The oars still cold to the hand at this hour. Did I not hear an F. juncorum at a distance? See some crow blackbirds inspecting that old nest of theirs. I believe I see a tree sparrow still, but I do not remember an F. hyemalis for two days. 

Geese go over at noon, when warm and sunny. 

P. M. —— To Lee’s Cliff. 

I leave off my greatcoat, though the wind rises rather fresh before I return. It is worth the while to walk so free and light, having got off both boots and greatcoat. 

Great flocks of grackles and red-wings about the Swamp Bridge Brook willows, perching restlessly on an apple tree all at once, and then, with a sweeping or curving flight, alighting on the ground. 

Many robins flit before me in flocks these days. I rarely find a nest (of the right species) near the river but it has a piece of a fish-line in it. 

The yellow-spot tortoises are very common now in the ditches, tumbling in and crawling off, and perhaps burying themselves at your approach. Many are outside. 

The second sallow catkin (or any willow) I have seen in blossom —there are three or four catkins on the twig partly open —I am about to clutch, but find already a bee curved close on each half-opened catkin, intoxicated with its early sweet, —one perhaps a honey-bee, — so intent on its sweets or pollen that they do not dream of flying. Various kinds of bees — some of the honey bees — have little yellow masses of pollen on their thighs; some seem to be taking it into their mouths. 

So quickly and surely does a bee find the earliest flower, as if he had slumbered all winter at the root of the plant. No matter what pains you take, probably —undoubtedly—an insect will have found the first flower before you. 

Yesterday I saw several larger frogs out. Perhaps some were small bullfrogs. That warmth brought them out on to the bank, and they jumped in before me. The general stirring of frogs. To-day I see a Rana palustris — I think the first — and a middling sized bullfrog, I think. I suspect that those first seen in Hubbard’s Close were the little croakers. 

I see by their droppings that many birds — perhaps robins ——-have lately roosted in that wine-glass apple scrub on Conantum, an excellent covert from the hawks, only six or eight feet in diameter. I also see where birds have roosted in a thick white pine in Lee’s Wood. It is easy to detect their roosting-places now, because they are in flocks. 

See a woodchuck. His deep reddish-brown rear, somewhat grizzled about, looked like a ripe fruit mellowed by winter. C. saw one some time ago. They have several holes under Lee’s Cliff, where they have worn bare and smooth sandy paths under the eaves of the rock, and I suspect that they nibble the early leaves there.

They, or the partridges or rabbits, there and at Middle Conantum Cliff, make sad havoc with the earliest radical leaves and flowers which I am watching, and in the village I have to contend with the hens, who also love an early salad. 

Sit at the wall corner to see an eagle’s white head and tail against the red hillside, but in vain. 

The distant white pines over the Spanish Brook seem to flake into tiers; the whole tree looks like an open cone. 

A sudden warm day, like yesterday and this, takes off some birds and adds others. It is a crisis in their career. The fox-colored sparrows seem to be gone, and I suspect that most of the tree sparrows and F. hyemalis, at least, went yesterday. So the pleasanter weather seems not an unmixed benefit. 

The flowers of the common elm at Lee’s are now loose and dangling, apparently well out a day or two in advance of Cheney’s, but I see no pollen. 

Walking under the Cliff, I am struck by the already darker, healthier green of early weeds there—e. g. the little thyme-flowering sand wort — before there is any green to speak of elsewhere. 

Did I not see the yellow redpoll on an apple tree with some robins, by chance in the same place where I saw one last year? Yet I see no chestnut on head, but bright-yellow breast and blackish further extremity. 

The early aspen catkins are now some of them two and a half inches long and white, dangling in the breeze. 

The earliest gooseberry leaves are fairly unfolding now, and show some green at a little distance.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, April 17, 1855

I believe I see a tree sparrow still, but I do not remember an F. hyemalis for two days. . . .It is a crisis in their career. The fox-colored sparrows seem to be gone, and I suspect that most of the tree sparrows and F. hyemalis, at least, went yesterday. See April 17, 1854 ("There are but few F. hyemalis about now; they appear to have gone north mostly on the advent of warmer weather about the 5th of April . . . The tree sparrow is still the prevailing bird."); April 23, 1859 ("The tree sparrows abundant and singing in the yard, but I have not noticed a hyemalis of late") See also  A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Tree Sparrow and A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Dark-eyed Junco; A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Fox-colored Sparrow.See

It is worth the while to walk so free and light, having got off both boots and greatcoat. See March 30, 1860 (“It is time to begin to leave your greatcoat at home, to put on shoes instead of boots and feel lightfooted.”)

So quickly and surely does a bee find the earliest flower . . . See April 6, 1854 ("They know where to look for the white maple and when."); March 18, 1860 ("There is but one flower in bloom in the town, and this insect knows where to find it. You little think that it knows the locality of early flowers better than you. “) See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Bees

To-day I see a Rana palustris — I think the first.  See note to  April 17, 1860 ("The meadows are alive with purring frogs. ") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau,The Pickerel frog (Rana palustris orLithobates palustris)

The flowers of the common elm at Lee’s are now loose and dangling, apparently well out a day or two in advance of Cheney’s.  See April 15, 1852 ("The broad flat brown buds on Mr. Cheney's elm, containing twenty or thirty yellowish-green threads, surmounted with little brownish-mulberry cups, which contain the stamens and the two styles, -- these are just expanding or blossoming now");  April 15, 1854 ("The arrival of the purple finches appears to be coincident with the blossoming of the elm, on whose blossom it feeds");  . April 15, 1856("The purple finch is singing on the elms "); April 16, 1856 ("Cheney’s elm shows stamens on the warm side pretty numerously.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Elms and the Purple Finch

The early aspen catkins are now some of them two and a half inches long and white, dangling in the breeze. See April 9, 1856 ("Early aspen catkins have curved downward an inch, and began to shed pollen apparently yesterday.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Aspens

The earliest gooseberry leaves are fairly unfolding now, and show some green at a little distance. See April 13, 1856 (" The early gooseberry leaf-buds in garden have burst, -- now like small green frilled horns.");April 21, 1855 ("The frost conceals the green of the gooseberry leaves just expanding. ")  See also A Book of the Seasons,, by Henry Thoreau, Leaf-Out

How remarkable that the American mind runs to statistics.

April 17.

April 27, 2022

It is remarkable how the American mind runs to statistics. Consider the number of meteorological observers and other annual phenomena. The Smithsonian Institution is a truly national institution. 

Every shopkeeper makes a record of the arrival of the first martin or bluebird to his box. Dod, the broker, told me last spring that he knew when the first blue bird came to his boxes, he made a memorandum of it: 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 look up, these snowy days, and see purple finches silently feeding on the elms, when I have heard no sound. 

Did not see a linaria the past winter, though they were the prevailing bird the winter before. 

There are but few F. hyemalis about now; they appear to have gone north mostly on the advent of warmer weather about the 5th of April. 

The tree sparrow is still the prevailing bird.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, April 17, 1854

John Brown, merchant, tells me this morning that the martins first came to his box on the 13th,  See April 17, 1860 ("J. Brown says that he saw martins on his box on the 13th and 14th, and that his son saw one the 8th").

I look up, these snowy days, and see purple finches silently feeding on the elms. See April 3, 1858  ("I am surprised by the rich strain of the purple finch from the elms"); April 11, 1853 ("I hear the clear, loud whistle of a purple finch, somewhat like and nearly as loud as the robin, from the elm by Whiting's.”); April 12, 1855 ("I hear a purple finch . . . on an elm, steadily warbling and uttering a sharp chip from time to time"); April 15, 1856 ("The purple finch is singing on the elms . . . ") April 15, 1854 ("The arrival of the purple finches appears to be coincident with the blossoming of the elm, on whose blossom it feeds.") Also see A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Elms and the Purple Finch

Did not see a linaria the past winter. See March 5, 1853 ("Though this is described by Nuttall as an occasional visitor in the winter, it has been the prevailing bird here this winter. "); March 6, 1860 ("The linarias have been the most numerous birds the past winter.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Lesser Redpoll

There are but few F. hyemalis about now; they appear to have gone north mostly on the advent of warmer weather about the 5th of April. See April 8, 1854 (" Perchance after the warmer days, which bring out the frogs and butterflies, the alders and maples, the greater part of them leave for the north and give place to newcomers."); See also April 17, 1855 (" I believe I see a tree sparrow still, but I do not remember an F. hyemalis for two days."); April 24, 1855 (" Have not seen the F. hyemalis for a week") and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Dark-eyed Junco (Fringilla hyemalis)

The tree sparrow is still the prevailing bird. Compare April 17, 1855 ("I suspect that most of the tree sparrows and F. hyemalis, at least, went yesterday. So the pleasanter weather seems not an unmixed benefit.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Tree Sparrow

How remarkable 

that the American mind 

runs to statistics.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Statistics

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

tinyurl.com/hdt-540417

Living outdoors

April 17.

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.

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

See also April 17, 1860 ("It invites us to walk in the yard and inspect the springing plants.)

Spring hum

April 17.

April 17, 2019

How pleasing and soothing are some of the first and least audible sounds of awakened nature in spring. The first humming of the bees, a noise so slight, reminds me of the increased genialness of nature.

The air which was so lately void and silent begins to resound as it were with the breathing of a myriad fellow-creatures. Even the unhappy man is soothed by this din of neighbors.

Go ten feet that way, to where the northwest wind comes around the hill, and you hear only the dead mechanical sound of the the blast; your thoughts recur to winter. But stand as much this way, in the sun in the lee of this bush, and your charmed ears hear the faint hum of bees weaving the web of summer. Gradually thus the spaces of the air are filled.

Little music in the world charms us more than this sound produced by the vibration of an insect's wing in some still and sunny nook in spring.

H.D. Thoreau, Journal, April 17, 1859

How pleasing and soothing are some of the first and least audible sounds of awakened nature in spring.  See April 3, 1858 ("There is no pause to the hum of the bees all this warm day. It is a very simple but pleasing and soothing sound, this susurrus, thus early in the spring.")

The vibration of an insect's wing in some still and sunny nook in spring. See April 20, 1854 ("A willow coming out fairly, with honey-bees humming on it, in a warm nook.”)

See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Bees