More nests

June 13, 2013

June 13.

C. finds a pigeon woodpecker’s nest in an apple tree, five of those pearly eggs, about six feet from the ground; could squeeze your hand in. 

Also a peetweet’s, with four eggs, in Hubbard’s meadow beyond the old swamp oak site; and two kingbirds’ nests with eggs in an apple and in a willow by riverside.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, June 13, 1855

A pigeon woodpecker’s nest in an apple tree, five of those pearly eggs . . . See June 13, 1858 ("In the great apple tree front of the Miles house I hear young pigeon woodpeckers.");  June 10, 1856 ("In a hollow apple tree, hole eighteen inches deep, young pigeon woodpeckers, large and well feathered. . . .”); July 22, 1855 (“The pigeon woodpeckers have flown. Dog day weather begins.”). See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Pigeon Woodpecker (flicker).


Two kingbirds’ nests with eggs in an apple and in a willow by riverside. See June 14, 1855 ("A kingbird’s nest with four eggs on a large horizontal stem or trunk of a black willow, four feet high, over the edge of the river, amid small shoots from the willow; outside of mikania, roots, and knotty sedge, well lined with root fibres and wiry weeds"); June 16, 1855 ("Examined a kingbird’s nest found before (13th) in a black willow over edge of river, four feet from ground. Two eggs."); see also note to June 8, 1858 ("A kingbird's nest with three eggs, lined with some hair, in a fork — or against upright part — of a willow. ") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Eastern Kingbird

Walk from Cohasset to Duxbury and sail thence to Clark's Island.

July 27.

Visit the large tupelo tree (Nyssa multiflora) in Scituate, whose rounded and open top I can see from Mr. Sewal's, the tree which George Emerson went twenty-five miles to see, called sometimes snag-tree and swamp hornbeam, also pepperidge and gum-tree. Hard to split. We have it in Concord. See the buckthorn, which is naturalized.


After taking the road by Webster's beyond South Marshfield, I walk a long way at noon, hot and thirsty, before I find a suitable place to sit and eat my dinner. At length I am obliged to put up with a small shade close to the ruts, where the only stream I have seen for some time crosses the road. 

Here numerous robins come to cool and wash themselves and to drink.

They stand in the water up to their bellies, from time to time wetting their wings and tails and also ducking their heads and sprinkling the water over themselves; then they sit on a fence near by to dry. A goldfinch comes and does the same, accompanied by the less brilliant female. These birds evidently enjoy their bath greatly, and it seems indispensable to them.


H. D. Thoreau, Journal, July 27, 1851



Visit the large tupelo tree (Nyssa multiflora) in Scituate, whose rounded and open top I can see from Mr. Sewal's.  See July 5, 1855 (The great tupelo on the edge of Scituate is very conspicuous for many miles .”) See also  June 26, 1857 ("The largest tupelo I remember in Concord is on the northerly edge of Staples's clearing."); June 30, 1856 ("By the roadside, Long Plain, North Fairhaven, observed a tupelo seven feet high with a rounded top, shaped like an umbrella, eight feet diameter."); September 7, 1857 ("Measured that large tupelo behind Merriam's which now is covered with green fruit, and its leaves begin to redden.") ~ Nyssa sylvatica, commonly known as the Black Tupelo, is a medium-sized deciduous tree native to eastern North America, from New England and southern Ontario south to central Florida and eastern Texas. ~ iNaturalist