A Book of the Seasons, Signs of the Spring: the Striped Squirrel Comes Out

No mortal is alert enough 

to be present at the first dawn of the spring. 

Henry Thoreau, March 17, 1857

I am on the alert for the first signs of spring,

to hear the chance note of some arriving bird,

or the striped squirrel's chirp,

for his stores must be now nearly exhausted,

or see the woodchuck venture out of his winter quarters.

~Walden

At the Bee Hill-side

a striped squirrel dives into his

hole at our approach. 

March 4, 1855

The first pleasant days

of spring come out like a squirrel

and go in again.

March 7, 1855

February 20. The striped squirrel is the smallest quadruped that we commonly notice in our walks in the woods.  February 20, 1855

February 20. J. Farmer tells me that his grandfather once, when moving some rocks in the winter, found a striped squirrel frozen stiff. He put him in his pocket, and when he got home laid him on the hearth, and after a while he was surprised to see him running about the room as lively as ever he was. February 20, 1860

February 23.   I have seen signs of the spring.  February 23, 1857

March 4.  At the Bee Hill-side, a striped squirrel quickly dives into his hole at our approach. March 4, 1855

March 4. May not this season of springlike weather between the first decidedly springlike day and the first bluebird, already fourteen days long, be called the striped squirrel spring? -- In which we go listening for the blue bird, but hear him not. March 4, 1855

The striped squirrel spring –

we listen for the bluebird

but we hear him not.

March 4, 1855

March 7.  We were walking along the sunny hillside on the south of Fair Haven Pond (on the 4th), which the choppers had just laid bare, when, in a sheltered and warmer place, we heard a rustling amid the dry leaves on the hillside and saw a striped squirrel eying us from its resting-place on the bare ground. It sat still till we were within a rod, then suddenly dived into its hole, which was at its feet, and disappeared. The first pleasant days of spring come out like a squirrel and go in again.  March 7, 1855

March 9. Minott thinks, and quotes some old worthy as authority for saying, that the bark of the striped squirrel is the, or a, first sure sign of decided spring weather. March 9, 1853

March 10. I am pretty sure that I hear the chuckle of a ground squirrel among the warm and bare rocks of the Cliffs. The earth is perhaps two thirds bare to-day. The mosses are now very handsome, like young grass pushing up.  March 10,1852

March 13.  Hear a ground squirrel's sharp chirrup, which makes you start, it is so sudden; but he is probably earthed again, for I do not see him. March 13, 1859

March 17. As I float by the Rock, I hear rustling amid the oak leaves above that new water-line, and, there being no wind, I know it to be a striped squirrel, and soon see its long-unseen striped sides flirting about the instep of an oak. Its lateral stripes, alternate black and yellowish, are a type which I have not seen for a long time, or rather a punctuation-mark, the character to indicate where a new paragraph commences in the revolution of the seasons. Double lines.  March 17, 1859 

March 22. The phenomena of an average March . . . Skunks are active and frolic; woodchucks and ground squirrels come forth. March 22, 1860

March 23. As I return on the railroad, at the crossing beyond the shanty, hearing a rustling, I see a striped squirrel amid the sedge on the bare east bank, twenty feet distant. After observing me a few moments, as I stand perfectly still between the rails, he runs straight up to within three feet of me, out of curiosity; then, after a moment’s pause, and looking up to my face, turns back and finally crosses the railroad. All the red is on his rump and hind quarters. When running he carries his tail erect, as he scratched up the snowy bank. Now then the steep south hillsides begin to be bare, and the early sedge and sere, but still fragrant, penny royal and rustling leaves are exposed, and you see where the mice have sheared off the sedge and also made nests of its top during the winter. There, too, the partridges resort, and perhaps you hear the bark of a striped squirrel, and see him scratch toward his hole, rustling the leaves.
For all the inhabitants of nature are attracted by this bare and dry spot, as well as you. March 23, 1856

March 24. P. M. — Paddle up Assabet . . .  As I round the Island rock, a striped squirrel that was out the steep polypody rock scampered up with a chuckle. March 24, 1857

So I came in and

shut the door and passed my first

spring night in the woods.

Walden, Spring

See also Signs of the Spring:

• A Change in the Air
• A Sunny Nook in Spring
• Alder and Willow Catkins Expanding
• Braided Ripples of Melting Snow Shine in the Ruts
• Bright Blue Water
• Buzzing Flies
• Ducks Afar, Sailing on the Meadow
• Frogs, and Turtles Stirring
• Greening Grasses and Sedges
• I begin to think that my wood will last.
• Insects and Worms Come Forth and are Active
• Listening for the Bluebird
• March is famous for its Winds
• Mosses Bright Green
• My Greatcoat on my Arm
• Perla-like Insects Appear
• Red Maple Sap Flows
• Ripples made by Fishes
• Skunks Active
• The Anxious Peep of the Early Robin
• The Crowing of Cocks, the Cawing of crows
• The Days have grown Sensibly Longer
• The Eaves Begin to Run
• The Gobbling of Turkeys
• The Grackle Arrives
• The Hawks of March
• The New Warmth of the Sun
• The Note of the Dark-eyed Junco Going Northward
• The Red-Wing Arrives
• The Skunk Cabbage Blooms
• The Softened Air of these Warm February Days
• The Song Sparrow Sings
• The Spring Note of the Chickadee
• The Spring Note of the Nuthatch
• The Striped Squirrel Comes Out
• The Water Bug (Gyrinus)
• The Woodchuck Ventures Out
• Walking without Gloves
• Woodpeckers Tapping

 <<<<< Signs of Spring                                                          Early Spring >>>>>

March 7, 2019

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,

Signs of the Spring, the striped squirrel comes out 

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

tinyurl.com/HDTchipmunk

A tragedy in a quiet swamp

October 8. 

A quiet swamp. October 8, 2020

P. M. — Up Assabet. 

Hemlock leaves are copiously falling. They cover the hillside like some wild grain. 

The changing red maples along the river are past their prime now, earlier than generally elsewhere. They are much faded, and many leaves are floating on the water. 

Those white maples that were so early to change in the water have more than half lost their leaves. 

Walking through the Lee farm swamp, a dozen or more rods from the river, I found a large box trap closed. I opened it and found in it the remains of a gray rabbit, -skin, bones, and mould, - closely fitting the right-angled corner of one side. It was wholly inoffensive, as so much vegetable mould, and must have been dead some years. None of the furniture of the trap remained, but the box itself, with a lid which just moved on two rusty nails; the stick which held the bait, the string, etc., etc., were all gone. The box had the appearance of having been floated off in an upright position by a freshet. It had been a rabbit’s living tomb. He had gradually starved to death in it. What a tragedy to have occurred within a box in one of our quiet swamps! The trapper lost his box, the rabbit its life. The box had not been gnawed. After days and nights of moaning and struggle, heard for a few rods through the swamp, increasing weakness and emaciation and delirium, the rabbit breathes its last. They tell you of opening the tomb and finding by the contortions of the body that it was buried alive. This was such a case. Let the trapping boy dream of the dead rabbit in its ark, as it sailed, like a small meeting-house with its rude spire, slowly, with a grand and solemn motion, far amid the alders. 

Four dark-colored ducks (white beneath), maybe summer, or teal (??), with a loud creaking note of alarm, flew away from near the shore and followed the bend of the river upward. 

I see and hear white-throated sparrows on the swamp white oaks by the river's edge, uttering a faint sharp cheep. 

The chipmunk, the wall-going squirrel, that will cross a broad pasture on the wall, now this side, now that, now on top, and lives under it, — as if it were a track laid for him expressly.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, October 8, 1857

The changing red maples along the river are past their prime now. . . Compare October 8, 1852 (“Nothing can exceed the brilliancy of some of the maples which stand by the [Walden] shore and extend their red banners over the water.”)

White-throated sparrows on the swamp white oaks by the river's edge. . . See October 8, 1856 (“The trees and weeds by the Turnpike are all alive this pleasant afternoon with twittering sparrows . . .”); October 8, 1855 (" Hear a song sparrow sing. See apparently white-throated sparrows . . .”)

I found a large box trap closed. I opened it and found in it the remains of a gray rabbit . See  December 5, 1853 ("Two other boys asked leave to ride, with four large empty box-traps which they were bringing home from the woods. It was too cold and late to follow box-trapping longer. They had caught five rabbits this fall, baiting with an apple.")

October 8. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, October 8

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, A tragedy in a quiet swamp

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 © 2009-2025

But what is that bird I hear?

May 29, 2015

May 29

P. M. —To Island Neck. 

That willow by the rock south of Island (of May 2d) appears to be without doubt the Salix sericea, — the leaves beginning to turn black quite soon, and the bark is very bitter. 

There is, then, another small willow or sallow with narrower and shining leaves, very common along river, with longer catkins and very long tapering smooth pods, —I mean the one I have associated with the S. alba. 

Azalea nudiflora in garden. 

There are a great many birds now on the Island Neck. 

• The red-eye, its clear loud song in bars continuously repeated and varied; all tempered white beneath and dark yellow olive above and on edge of wings, with a dark line on side-head or from root of bill; dusky claws, and a very long bill. The long bill and the dark line on the side of the head, with the white above and beneath, or in the midst of the white, giving it a certain oblong, swelled-cheek look, would distinguish on a side view. 

• There is also the warbling vireo, with its smooth-flowing, continuous, one-barred, shorter strain, with methinks a dusky side-head. 

• Also the yellow-throated vireo—its head and shoulders as well as throat yellow (apparently olive-yellow above), and its strain but little varied and short, not continuous. It has dusky legs and two very distinct white bars on wings (the male). 

• I see the first swamp sparrow of the season, and probably heard its loud song; clear, broad, undivided chestnut or bay (?) crown and clear dark-ash throat and breast, and light, perhaps yellowish, line over eye, dark bill, and much bay (?) on wings. Low, amid the alders.

But what is that bird I hear much like the first part of the yellowbird’s strain, only two thirds as long and varied at end, and not so loud, — a-che che che, che-a, or tche tche tche, tche-a, or ah tche tche tche, chit-i-vet? 

It is very small, not timid, but incessantly changing its position on the pitch pines, etc. Some a pure dull white, some tawny-white, beneath; some cinereous, others more dusky still, above; with a flycatcher or muscicapa bill and head (head rounded ?), but — what is most remarkable —a very deeply forked or divided tail with a broad black tip beneath, and toward the roots a fire—brick-color, this last color much brighter on the sides of the breast, and some of it on the wings in a broad bar, though some perhaps have not the last mark. 

Did I see some of the yellowish on rump? Dark ash above and some reddish-brown (?). One is very inquisitive; hops down toward me lower and lower on the pitch pine twigs, while I hold out my hand till within five feet, but in such a light that I cannot distinguish its colors. 

There are at least half a dozen of them about; continually flitting about, sometimes in a circle of a few rods’ diameter, one pursuing another, both male and female, back to near the same spot, but I can hardly bring my glass to bear on them before they change their position.

It is undoubtedly young males and the females of the redstart, described by Wilson, — very different from the full-plumaged black males. 

American Redstart
(the full-plumaged black male )

The young males of this species do not possess the brilliancy and richness of plumage which the old birds display, until the second year, the first being spent in the garb worn by the females . . . Notwithstanding their want of full plumage, they breed and sing the first spring like the old males . . .  Female with the upper parts yellowish-brown; the head grey; the quills greyish-brown; the tail darker; the parts yellow which in the male are bright orange; the rest of the lower parts white, tinged with yellow.  ~ J.J. Audubon

I see on the first limb of a white oak, close to the trunk and about eight feet from the ground, squatting as if asleep, a chipping squirrel two thirds grown. The hole it came out of, apparently, is four or five feet from the base of the tree. When I am about to put my hand on it, it runs feebly up the tree and rests again as much higher in a similar place. When C. climbs after, it runs out quite to the end of a limb, where it can hardly hold on, and I think it will drop every moment with the shaking of the tree.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 29, 1855

That willow by the rock south of Island (of May 2d) appears to be without doubt the Salix sericea. See May 2, 1855 ('That small native willow now in flower, or say yesterday, just before leaf.") See also May 11, 1856 ("The Salix sericea at Island rock is out . . .  I think I can pretty well distinguish the sericea by the grayness of the female catkins.")

Azalea nudiflora in garden. See May 31, 1853 ("I am going in search of the Azalea nudiflora."); May 25, 1856 ("Azalea nudiflora in garden"); June 2, 1855 ("The Azalea nudiflora now in its prime.”); June 2, 1856 ("To Azalea nudiflora, which is in prime.") See also  The Significance of the Hunter's Azalea and Expecting the Hunter's Azalea:  

  We cross the river

Melvin and I and his dog

to the azalea.

I see the first swamp sparrow of the season . . .clear, broad, undivided chestnut or bay (?) crown and clear dark-ash throat and breast. See April 11, 1853 ("At Natural History Rooms . . .The swamp sparrow is ferruginous-brown (spotted with black) and ash above about neck; brownish-white beneath; undivided chestnut crown.")

But what is that bird I hear? It is undoubtedly young males and the females of the redstart. See 

May 28, 1855 ("I have seen within three or four days two or three new warblers which I have not identified; one to-day, in the woods, all pure white beneath, with a full breast, and greenish-olive-yellow (?) above, with a duskier head and a slight crest muscicapa-like, on pines, etc., high; very small.(Perhaps young and female redstarts."); April 11, 1853 ("Female dark ashy and fainter marks") See also A Book of Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The American Redstart

A chipping squirrel two thirds grown . . . When I am about to put my hand on it, it runs feebly up the tree. See June 16, 1855 (" See young and weak striped squirrels nowadays, with slender tails, asleep on horizontal boughs above their holes, or moving feebly about; might catch them."); See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Striped Squirrel

Inquisitive bird 

hops lower and lower while

I hold out my hand.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, But what is that bird I hear?

 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 © 2009-2026