A Book of the Seasons: the Kingfisher

 

I would make a chart of our life,

know why just this circle of creatures completes the world.

Henry Thoreau, April 18, 1852

A kingfisher flies

in the ricochet manner

across the water.

 April 10, 1859 

Its motions when on wing consist of a Series of flaps,

about five or six in number, followed by a direct glide,

without any apparent undulation.

It moves in the same way when flying closely over the water. 

If, in the course of such excursions, the bird passes over a small pool,

it suddenly checks itself in its career, poises itself in the air,

like a Sparrow Hawk or Kestril, and inspects the water beneath,

to discover whether there may be fishes in it suitable to its taste.

Should it find this to be the case, it continues poised for a few seconds,

dashes spirally headlong into the water, seizes a fish,

and alights on the nearest tree or stump,

where it swallows its prey in a moment . . .

It is not unusual to hear the hard, rapid, rattling notes of our Kingfisher,

even amongst the murmuring cascades of our higher mountains.

When the bird is found in such sequestered situations,

well may the angler be assured that trout is abundant. 

~ JJ Audubon

April 1. A kingfisher seen and heard. April 1, 1860

April 10.   See a kingfisher flying very low, in the ricochet manner, across the water.  April 10, 1859 

April 11. Saw a kingfisher on a tree over the water. Does not its arrival mark some new movement in its finny prey? He is the bright buoy that betrays it!  April 11, 1856

April 15. See and hear a kingfisher—do they not come with the smooth waters of April? — hurrying over the meadow as if on urgent business.  April 15, 1855

April 17. See several kingfishers.  April 17, 1858

April 22. The bluish band on the breast of the kingfisher leaves the pure white beneath in the form of a heart.   April 22, 1855

April 23.  A kingfisher with his crack, — cr-r-r-rack.  April 23, 1854

April 24. The kingfisher flies with a crack cr-r-r-ack and a limping or flitting flight from tree to tree before us, and finally, after a third of a mile, circles round to our rear. He sits rather low over the water. Now that he has come I suppose that the fishes on which he preys rise within reach. April 24, 1854

April 25. Saw the first kingfisher, and heard his most unmusical note. April 25, 1852

April 30. Hear a kingfisher at Goose Pond. April 30, 1857

May 10. Above the railroad bridge I see a kingfisher twice sustain himself in one place, about forty feet above the meadow, by a rapid motion of his wings, somewhat like a devil's-needle, not progressing an inch, apparently over a fish.  May 10, 1854

June 6.   Hear of a kingfisher's nest, just found in a sand bank behind Abner Buttrick's, with six fresh eggs, of which I have one. The boy said it was six or seven feet deep in the bank. June 6, 1859

June 9. The air is now full of shad-flies, and there is an incessant sound made by the fishes leaping for their evening meal, . . .Meanwhile the kingfishers are on the lookout for the fishes as they rise. I see one dive in the twilight and go off uttering his cr-r-ack, cr-r-rack. June 9, 1854

June 12. Scare a kingfisher on a bough over Walden. As he flies off, he hovers two or three times thirty or forty feet above the pond, and at last dives and apparently catches a fish, with which he flies off low over the water to a tree. June 12, 1854

June 16.  Examined a kingfisher's nest, — though there is a slight doubt if I found the spot. It was formed singularly like that of the bank swallow, i. e. flat-elliptical, some eight inches, as I remember, in the - largest diameter, and located just like a swallow's, in a sand-bank, some twenty inches below the surface. Could feel nothing in it, but it may have been removed. Have an egg from this. June 16, 1859

July 22. Here is a kingfisher frequenting the Corner Brook Pond. They find out such places. July 22, 1852

June 25. I observe many kingfishers at Walden and on the Assabet, very few on the dark and muddy South Branch. June 25, 1854 

July 28. Heard a kingfisher, which had been hovering over the river, plunge forty rods off.  July 28, 1858

August 6. The kingfisher is seen hovering steadily over one spot, or hurrying away with a small fish in his mouth, sounding his alarum nevertheless. August 6, 1858

August 22.  A kingfisher, with his white collar, darted across the river and alighted on an oak. August 22, 1853

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau The Kingfisher

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

https://tinyurl.com/hdt-kingfisher

 

The year is stretching itself, is waking up.

April 25.


1.30 P. M. — Up railroad, returning through Acton via powder-mills and Second Division.

The frogs peep at midday.

The bees are on the pistillate flowers of the early willows, – the honey-bee, a smaller, fly-like bee with very transparent wings and bright-yellow marks on the abdomen, and also a still smaller bee, more like the honey-bee. They all hum like summer.

The water in the meadow beyond J. Hosmer's is still and transparent, and I hear the more stertorous sound or croak of frogs from it, such as you associate with sunny, warmer, calm, placid spring weather.

The tortoises are out sunning. The painted tortoise on a tussock. A spotted tortoise on the rail road hisses when I touch it with my foot and draws its [head] in.

What is that bird on the willows, size of a vireo, yellow below, with darker lines, chestnut crown, whitish (?) line over eye, two white feathers in tail, yellow - olive back, darker tail?

Yarrow is started.

Saw the first kingfisher, and heard his most unmusical note.

That warmer, placid pool and stertorous sound of frogs must not be forgotten, - beneath the railroad causeway.

The bees hum on the early willows that grow in the sand.

They appear to have nearly stripped the sterile flowers of their pollen, and each has its little yellow parcel.

The year is stretching itself, is waking up.
. . .

What different tints of blue in the same sky! It requires to be parted by white clouds that the delicacy and depth of each part may appear.  Beyond a narrow wisp or feather of mist, how different the sky! Sometimes it is full of light, especially toward the horizon.

The sky is never seen to be of so deep and delicate a blue as when it is seen between downy clouds.


H. D. Thoreau, Journal, April 25, 1852

The year is stretching itself, is waking up. See April 25, 1854 ("I hear the woods filled with the hum of insects, as if my hearing were affected; and thus the summer's quire begins. The silent spaces have begun to be filled with notes of birds and insects and the peep and croak and snore of frogs, even as living green blades are everywhere pushing up amid the sere ones.")

I hear the first hylodes by chance, but no doubt they have been heard some time.

April 1. 

Sunday. Warm, with the thick haze still concealing the sun. 

Worm-piles abundant this morning. 

Our gooseberry begins to show a little green, but not our currant. 

3 P. M. — Up Assabet in boat. 

There is another fire in the woods this afternoon. It is yet more hazy than before, — about as thick as a fog, and apparently clouds behind it. 

Still warmer than yesterday, — 71 at 3 P. M. 

The river was lowest for March yesterday, viz. just three feet below Hoar's wall. It is so low that the mouths of the musquash-burrows in the banks are exposed with the piles of shells before them. 

Willows about the stump on S. Brown's land are very well out. Are they discolor? 

The red maple buds are considerably expanded, and no doubt make a greater impression of redness. 

A kingfisher seen and heard. 

As we paddle up the Assabet we hear the wood turtles -- the first I have noticed — and painted turtles rustling down the bank into the water, and see where they have travelled over the sand and the mud. This and the previous two days have brought them out in numbers. Also see the sternothærus on the bottom.

The river being so low, we see lines of sawdust perfectly level and parallel to one another on the side of the steep dark bank at the Hemlocks, for thirty rods or more visible at once, reminding you of a coarse chalk line made by snapping a string, not more than half an inch wide much of it, but more true than that would be. The sawdust adheres to the perfectly upright bank and probably marks the standstill or highest water for the time. This level line drawn by Nature is agreeable to behold. 

The large Rana fontinalis sits enjoying the warmth on the muddy shore. I hear the first hylodes by chance, but no doubt they have been heard some time. 

Hear the hum of bees on the maples. 

Rye-fields look green. 

Pickerel dart, and probably have some time. 

The sweet-gale is almost in bloom; say next pleasant day. [It sheds its pollen the same night in my chamber, — from the old mill-site, north side.]

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, April 1, 1860

The red maple buds are considerably expanded, and no doubt make a greater impression of redness. See April 10, 1853 ( "The male red maple buds now show eight or ten (ten counting everything) scales, alternately crosswise, and the pairs successively brighter red or scarlet, which will account for the gradual reddening of their tops. They are about ready to open.")

As we paddle up the Assabet we hear the wood turtles and painted turtles rustling down the bank into the water, This and the previous two days have brought them out in numbers. See  April 1, 1858 ("See wood turtles coupled on their edges at the bottom, where the stream has turned them up.") See also  March 31, 1858 ("The painted and wood turtles have seemed to be out in surprising abundance at an unusually early date this year, but I think I can account for it. The river is remarkably low," ) and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau,the Painted Turtle (Emys picta); A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Wood Turtle (Emys insculpta)

I hear the first hylodes by chance, but no doubt they have been heard some time. See March 23, 1859 ("While reconnoitring there, we hear the peep of one hylodes somewhere in this sheltered recess in the woods."); March 31, 1855 (“I go listening for the croak of the first frog, or peep of a hylodes."); March 31, 1857 (“How gradually and imperceptibly the peep of the hylodes mingles with and swells the volume of sound which makes the voice of awakening nature! If you do not listen carefully for its first note, you probably will not hear it, and, not having heard that, your ears become used to the sound, so that you will hardly notice it at last, however loud and universal."); April 2, 1852 ("I hear a solitary hyla for the first time.")

The river being so low, we see lines of sawdust perfectly level and parallel to one another on the side of the steep dark bank at the Hemlocks. . . .reminding you of a coarse chalk line made by snapping a string, not more than half an inch wide much of it, but more true than that would be. See April 1, 1858 ("The river is at summer level. . . . It is remarkable that the river seems rarely to rise or fall gradually, but rather by fits and starts, and hence the water-lines, as indicated now by the sawdust, are very distinct parallel lines four or five or more inches apart.”) See also November 23, 1853 ("What an engineer this water is! It comes with its unerring level . . . an obvious piece of geometry in nature.") and alao A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, at the Leaning Hemlocks.

The large Rana fontinalis sits enjoying the warmth on the muddy shore. See March 22. 1860 ("The yellow-spot turtle and wood turtle, Rana fontinalis, and painted tortoise come forth."); March 24, 1859 ("There sits also on the bank of the ditch a Rana fontinalis, and it is altogether likely they were this species that leaped into a ditch on the 10th. This one is mainly a bronze brown, with a very dark greenish snout, etc., with the raised line down the side of the back. This, methinks, is about the only frog which the marsh hawk could have found hitherto."); April 5, 1858 ("What I call the young bullfrog, about two and a half inches long, — though it has no yellow on throat. It has a bright-golden ring outside of the iris as far as I can see round it. Is this the case with the bullfrog? May it not be a young Rana fontinalis? No yellow to throat.."); See also A Book of Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Identifying the Green Frog in Spring.

Hear the hum of bees on the maples. See April 1, 1858 ("The white maples are abundantly out to-day. . . .We hold the boat beneath one, surprised to hear the resounding hum of honey-bees, which are busy about them,"); April 1, 1852 ('' Saw the first bee of the season on the railroad causeway,") See also A Book of the Seasons by Henry Thoreau, White Maple Buds and Flowers

The sweet-gale is almost in bloom; say next pleasant day. See April 22, 1855 ("The blossoms of the sweet-gale are now on fire over the brooks, contorted like caterpillars")

A kingfisher's nest, six or seven feet deep in the bank.

June 6.

June 6, 2019

P. M. — To Well Meadow. 

Yellow wood-sorrel out. Umbelled thesium, how long? 

Red avens, how long? 

Stellaria longifolia, at Well Meadow Head, how long? 

Cardamine rhomboidea has green seed.

Hear of a kingfisher's nest, just found in a sand bank behind Abner Buttrick's, with six fresh eggs, of which I have one. The boy said it was six or seven feet deep in the bank.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, June 6, 1859

Stellaria longifolia, at Well Meadow Head, how long? See June 6, 1854 ("The Stellaria longifolia has been out, apparently, a day or two."); See also June 8, 1856 ("Stellaria longrfolia opposite Barbarea Shore not yet out")

Hear of a kingfisher's nest, just found in a sand bank. See June 16, 1859  ("Examined a kingfisher's nest, — though there is a slight doubt if I found the spot. . . .Could feel nothing in it, but it may have been removed. Have an egg from this.”). See also  April 10, 1859 ("See a kingfisher flying very low, in the ricochet manner, across the water. "); April 11, 1856 ("Saw a kingfisher on a tree over the water. Does not its arrival mark some new movement in its finny prey? He is the bright buoy that betrays it!"); April 15, 1855 ("See and hear a kingfisher—do they not come with the smooth waters of April? — hurrying over the meadow as if on urgent business.”); April 17, 1858 ("See several kingfishers"); April 22, 1855 ("The bluish band on the breast of the kingfisher leaves the pure white beneath in the form of a heart"); April 23, 1854 (“A kingfisher with his crack, — cr-r-r-rack.”); April 24, 1854 ("The kingfisher flies with a crack cr-r-r-ack and a limping or flitting flight from tree to tree before us ”); May 10, 1854 ("Above the railroad bridge I see a kingfisher twice sustain himself in one place, about forty feet above the meadow, by a rapid motion of his wings, somewhat like a devil's-needle, not progressing an inch, apparently over a fish.”); June 9, 1854 ("The air is now full of shad-flies, and there is an incessant sound made by the fishes leaping for their evening meal, . . .Meanwhile the kingfishers are on the lookout for the fishes as they rise. I see one dive in the twilight and go off uttering his cr-r-ack, cr-r-rack. "); June 12, 1854 ("Scare a kingfisher on a bough over Walden. As he flies off, he hovers two or three times thirty or forty feet above the pond, and at last dives and apparently catches a fish, with which he flies off low over the water to a tree."); June 25, 1854 ("I observe many kingfishers at Walden and on the Assabet, very few on the dark and muddy South Branch.”); July 28, 1858 ("Heard a kingfisher, which had been hovering over the river, plunge forty rods off. "); August 6, 1858 ("The kingfisher is seen hovering steadily over one spot, or hurrying away with a small fish in his mouth, sounding his alarum nevertheless. ") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau. The Kingfisher

The twenty-two herbaceous flowers which I have known to be open before the first of May.

April 10. 

A calm day at last, the water almost smooth and now so low that I cannot cross the meadows. 

So ends the spring freshet (apparently), which began (not to include the winter one) March 8th and was at its height the 17th and 18th. It has lasted a month, and to-day, too, ends the windy spell. Since the 6th (q. v.) there have been two days, the 7th and 8th, of strong northwest wind, and one, the 9th, of very strong and yet colder and more northerly wind than before.

This makes twenty-two days of windy weather in all, reckoning only from the last still days (the 17th and 18th of March) and not including to-day. Of these, eleven days have been of very strong and cold northwest wind, the last, or yesterday, more northerly, — except the first, when the wind was southwest, — seven of strong wind and generally northwest, and four only of moderate wind. 

We had rain on the 18th, 22d, 24th, 25th, 29th of March, and 3d of April, and always with an easterly or southerly wind; or as often as the wind came from the east or south it brought rain, with generally considerable wind driving it, and it invariably cleared off cold with a wind from the northwest. 

The wind has regularly gone down with the sun, and risen again with it. It has been so strong as to interfere with all outdoor occupations. Yet I have not observed a single tree which was blown down by it. 

P. M. — Paddle to Well Meadow. 

I see some remarkable examples of meadow-crust floated off on the A. Wheeler meadow and above, densely covered with button-bushes and willows, etc. One sunk in five feet of water on a sandy shore, which I must examine again. 

I hear of a cinquefoil found in bloom on the 8th. It was in this sprout-land, where it was protected. 

This, with bluets, mouse-ear, and Viola ovata (of the herbaceous plants), I should call pasture flowers (among those of March and April). 

I might class the twenty-two herbaceous flowers which I have known to be open before the first of May thus: — 

• Garden flowers Chickweed and shepherd's-purse. 
• Meadow flowers Skunk-cabbage, caltha, chrysosplenium, dandelion, strawberry, Viola cucullata. Ranunculus repens (?). 
• Rock flowers Saxifrage, crowfoot, columbine, and tower-mustard. 
• Woodland flowers Epigaea, anemone, and thalictrum. 
• Pasture flowers Cinquefoil, bluets, mouse-ear, and Viola sagittata. 
• Water flowers Callitriche verna and nuphar. 

The woody plants — trees and shrubs — might be arranged under three heads, viz. : — 

Wet Land             Dry Land     Intermediate 
Alders, both (?)      Aspens            Elms 
White maple          Hazels           Red maple 
Most willows         Arbutus             Peach 
Sweet-gale        (?)Arbor-vitae       Abele 
Benzoin        Red cedar   Cultivated cherry Cassandra         Fir-balsam 
White alder [?]   (?) Sweet-fern 
Larch                   Shad-bush 
                          Salix humilis 
                          S. tristis 
                           S. rostrata 
                           Yew 


The hellebore buds [?] are quite conspicuous and interesting to-day, but not at all unrolled, though six or eight inches high. 

The Alnus serrulata appears to grow on drier land than the other sometimes. 

See a kingfisher flying very low, in the ricochet manner, across the water. 

Sheldrakes and gulls and black ducks still. 

Hear the first stuttering frog croak — probably halecina — in the last Cassandra Pond.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal,  April 10, 1859

The twenty-two herbaceous flowers which I have known to be open before the first of May. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Earliest Flower

This makes twenty-two days of windy weather. See April 6, 1859 ("For nineteen days, from the 19th of March to the 6th of April, both inclusive, we have had remarkably windy weather. For ten days of the nineteen the wind has been remarkably strong and violent . . .The last seven, including to-day, have all been windy, five of them remarkably so; wind from northwest."); April 8, 1859 ("We have had, most of the time, during this windy weather for a month past, when the wind was northwest, those peculiar brushy clouds which look as if a little snow or rain was falling in the northwest, but they prove to be wind chiefly.")

See a kingfisher flying very low, in the ricochet manner, across the water.  See  April 11, 1856 ("Does not its arrival mark some new movement in its finny prey?"); See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau The Kingfisher

Hear the first stuttering frog croak — probably halecina.:Rana halecina (Lithobates pipiens)  – Northern Leopard Frog. See   April 3, 1858 (“I stood perfectly still, and ere long they began to reappear one by one, and spread themselves out on the surface. They were the R. halecina. I could see very plainly the two very prominent yellow lines along the sides of the head and the large dark ocellated marks, even under water, on the thighs, etc. Gradually they begin to recover their voices, but it is hard to say at first which one of the dozen within twenty feet is speaking. . . .. Their note is a hard dry tut tut tut tut, not at all ringing like the toad’s, and produced with very little swelling or motion of the throat, but as much trembling of the whole body; and from time to time one makes that faint somewhat bullfrog-like er er er. Both these sounds, then, are made by one frog, and what I have formerly thought an early bullfrog note was this. This, I think, is the first frog sound I have heard from the river meadows or anywhere, except the croaking leaf-pool frogs and the hylodes. . . . This might be called the Day of the Snoring Frogs, or the Awakening of the Meadows. “); April 5, 1855 ("Hear from one half-flooded meadow that low, general, hard, stuttering tut tut tut of frogs,—the awakening of the meadow.”);  April 8, 1852 ("To-day I hear the croak of frogs in small pond-holes in the woods"); ; April 9, 1853 (“The whole meadow resounds, probably from one end of the river to the other, this evening, with this faint, stertorous breathing. It is the waking up of the meadows." );April 13, 1855 ("The small croaking frogs are now generally heard in all those stagnant ponds or pools in woods floored with leaves, which are mainly dried up in the summer.");  ; April 13, 1856 ("As I go by the Andromeda Ponds, I hear the tut tut of a few croaking frogs. . ."); April 15, 1855 ("That general tut tut tut tut, or snoring, of frogs on the shallow meadow heard first slightly the 5th. )

The note of the wood pewee is now more prominent, while birds generally are silent.

August 6. 

P. M. —— Walk to Boulder Field. 

The broom is quite out of bloom; probably a week or ten days. It is almost ripe, indeed. I should like to see how rapidly it spreads. The dense roundish masses, side by side, are three or four feet over and fifteen inches high. They have grown from near the ground this year. The whole clump is now about eighteen feet from north to south by twelve wide. 

Within a foot or two of its edge, I detect many slender little plants springing up in the grass, only three inches high, but, on digging, am surprised to find that they are two years old. They have large roots, running down straight as well as branching, much stouter than the part above ground. Thus it appears to spread slowly by the seed falling from its edge, for I detected no runners. 

It is associated there with indigo, which is still abundantly in bloom. 

I then looked for the little groves of barberries which some two months ago I saw in the cow-dung thereabouts, but to my surprise I found some only in one spot after a long search. They appear to have generally died, perhaps dried up. These few were some two inches high; the roots yet longer, having penetrated to the soil beneath. Thus, no doubt, some of those barberry clumps are formed; but I noticed many more small barberry plants standing single, most commonly protected by a rock. 

Cut a couple of those low scrub apple bushes, and found that those a foot high and as wide as high, being clipped by the cows, as a hedge with shears, were about twelve years old, but quite sound and thrifty.

If our sluggish river, choked with potamogeton, might seem to have the slow-flying bittern for its peculiar genius, it has also the sprightly and aerial kingbird to twitter over and lift our thoughts to clouds as white as its own breast. 

Emerson is gone to the Adirondack country with a hunting party. Eddy says he has carried a double-barrelled gun, one side for shot, the other for ball, for Lowell killed a bear there last year. But the story on the Mill-Dam is that he has taken a gun which throws shot from one end and ball from the other! 

I think that I speak impartially when I say that I have never met with a stream so suitable for boating and botanizing as the Concord, and fortunately nobody knows it. I know of reaches which a single country seat would spoil beyond remedy, but there has not been any important change here since I can remember. The willows slumber along its shore, piled in light but low masses, even like the cumuli clouds above. 

We pass haymakers in every meadow, who may think that we are idlers. But Nature takes care that every nook and crevice is explored by some one. While they look after the open meadows, we farm the tract between the river’s brinks and behold the shores from that side. We, too, are harvesting an annual crop with our eyes, and think you Nature is not glad to display her beauty to us? 

Early in the day we see the dewdrops thickly sprinkled over the broad leaves of the potamogeton. These cover the stream so densely in some places that a web footed bird can almost walk across on them. 

Nowadays we hear the squealing notes of young hawks. 

The kingfisher is seen hovering steadily over one spot, or hurrying away with a small fish in his mouth, sounding his alarum nevertheless. 

The note of the wood pewee is now more prominent, while birds generally are silent. 

This is pure summer; no signs of fall in this, though I have seen some maples, as above the Assabet Spring, already prematurely reddening, owing to the water, and for some time the Cornus sericea has looked brownish red. 

Every board and chip cast into the river is soon occupied by one or more turtles of various sizes. The sternothaerus oftenest climbs up the black willows, even three or more feet.

I hear of pickers ordered out of the huckleberry-fields, and I see stakes set up with written notices forbidding any to pick there. Some let their fields, or allow so much for,the picking. Sic transit gloria ruris.

We are not grateful enough that we have lived part of our lives before these evil days came. What becomes of the true value of country life? What if you must go to market for it? Shall things come to such a pass that the butcher commonly brings round huckleberries in his cart? It is as if the hangman were to perform the marriage ceremony, or were to preside at the communion table. 

Such is the inevitable tendency of our civilization, — to reduce huckleberries to a level with beef-steak. The butcher’s item on the door is now “calf’s head and huckleberries.” 

I suspect that the inhabitants of England and of the Continent of Europe have thus lost their natural rights with the increase of population and of monopolies. The wild fruits of the earth disappear before civilization, or are only to be found in large markets. The whole country becomes, as it were, a town or beaten common, and the fruits left are a few hips and haws.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 6, 1858

If our sluggish river, choked with potamogeton, might seem to have the slow-flying bittern for its peculiar genius,... See August 2, 1856  ("This antediluvian bird, creature of the night, is a fit emblem of a dead stream like this Musketicook. This especially is the bird of the river. There is a sympathy between its sluggish flight and the sluggish flow of the stream, — its slowly lapsing flight, even like the rills of Musketicook and my own pulse sometimes.")

We pass haymakers in every meadow. We, too, are harvesting an annual crop with our eyes, and think you Nature is not glad to display her beauty to us? See July 30, 1856 ("I saw haymakers at work dressed simply in a straw hat, boots, shirt, and pantaloons, the shirt worn like a frock over their pants. The laborer cannot endure the contact with his clothes."); August 3, 1859 ("The haymakers are quite busy on the Great Meadows, it being drier than usual. It being remote from public view, some of them work in their shirts or half naked. "); August 5, 1854 ("I find that we are now in the midst of the meadow-haying season, and almost every meadow or section of a meadow has its band of half a dozen mowers and rakers, either bending to their manly work with regular and graceful motion.")

They appear to have generally died, perhaps dried up. See June 28, 1858 ("I see in many places little barberry bushes just come up densely in the cow-dung, like young apple trees, the berries having been eaten by the cows."); May 29, 1858 ("I mistook dense groves of little barberries in the droppings of cows in the Boulder Field for apple trees at first. So the cows eat barberries, and help disperse or disseminate them exactly as they do the apple! That helps account for the spread of the barberry, then.")

The note of the wood pewee is now more prominent, while birds generally are silent. See August 9, 1856 ("The notes of the wood pewee and warbling vireo are more prominent of late, and of the goldfinch twittering over"); August 18, 1860 ("The note of the wood pewee sounds prominent of late.”)

August 6. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, August 6

 

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 

A pinkish patch on side-hill.

July 28. 

July 28, 2018

P. M.—-To Conantum. 

From wall corner saw a pinkish patch on side-hill west of Baker Farm, which turned out to be epilobium, a rod across. Through the glass it was as fine as a moss, but with the naked eye it might have been mistaken for a dead pine bough. This pink flower was distinguished perhaps three quarters of a mile.

Heard a kingfisher, which had been hovering over the river, plunge forty rods off. 

The under sides of maples are very bright and conspicuous nowadays as you walk, also of the curled panicled andromeda leaves. Some grape leaves, also, are blown up.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, July 28, 1858

A pinkish patch on side-hill  west of Baker Farm, which turned out to be epilobium, distinguished perhaps three quarters of a mile. See July 28, 1852 ("Epilobium coloratum, roadside just this side of Dennis's"); August 21, 1858 ("I still see the patch of epilobium on Bee Tree Hill as plainly as ever, though only the pink seed-vessels and stems are left"): See also July 24, 1857 (“Great fields of epilobium or fire-weed, a mass of color.); July 31, 1856 (“Dense fields of the great epilobium now in its prime, like soldiers in the meadow, resounding with the hum of bees.”)

Heard a kingfisher, which had been hovering over the river, plunge forty rods off. See June 12, 1854 (“As he flies off, he hovers two or three times thirty or forty feet above the pond, and at last dives ”); August 6, 1858 ("The kingfisher is seen hovering steadily over one spot, or hurrying away with a small fish in his mouth, sounding his alarum nevertheless.")  See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau. The Kingfisher

July 28. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, July 28

From wall corner saw 

a pinkish patch on side-hill 

west of Baker Farm

turned out to be 

epilobium

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