Columbine already eaten by bees.

April 18.

To Lee’s Cliff by boat. 

A strong northwest wind. The waves were highest off Hubbard’s second grove, where they had acquired their greatest impetus and felt the full force of the wind. Their accumulated volume was less beyond on account of the turn in the river. The greatest undulation is at the leeward end of the longest broad reach in the direction of the wind. I was steering there diagonally across the black billows, my boat inclined so as almost to drink water. 

Scare up the same two black ducks (and twice again). The under sides of their wings show quite light and silvery as they rise in the light. 

Red maple stamens in some places project considerably, and it will probably blossom to-morrow if it is pleasant. 

The farmer neglects his team to watch my sail. 

The slippery elm, with its round rusty woolly buds and pale-brown ashy twigs. 

That pretty, now brown-stemmed moss with green oval fruit. 

Common saxifrage and also early sedge I am surprised to find abundantly out—both—considering their backwardness April 2d. Both must have been out some, i. e. four or five, days half-way down the face of the ledge. 

Crowfoot, apparently two or three days. Antennaria at end of Cliff as you descend, say yesterday. Turritis stricta. 

Columbine, and already eaten by bees. Some with a hole in the side. 

It is worth the while to go there to smell the catnep. I always bring some home for the cat at this season. 

See those great chocolate puffballs burst and diffusing their dust on the side of the hill. 

At the sandy place where I moored my boat, just this side this Cliff, the Selaginella apus is abundant, and on Conantum shore near elms thirty or forty rods below.

Left boat opposite Bittern Cliff. 

Bear-berry grows by path from river, seven rods beyond last pine, south side, now strongly flower budded. 

Observed a large mass of white lily root with the mud washed up, the woolly steel-blue root, with  singular knobs for offshoots and long, large, succulent white roots from all sides, the leaf-buds yellow and lightly rolled up on each side. 

Small sallow next above tristis, three feet high, in path to Walden. 

Walden is open entirely to-day for the first time, owing to the rain of yesterday and evening. I have observed its breaking up of different years commencing in ’45, and the average date has been April 4th. 

This evening I hear the snipes generally and peeping of hylas from the door. 

A small brown wasps’ (?) nest (last year’s, of course) hung to a barberry bush on edge of Lee’s Cliff.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, April 18, 1856


Steering there diagonally across the black billows, my boat inclined so as almost to drink water. See . April 14, 1856 ("The boat, tossed up by the rolling billows, keeps falling again on the waves with a chucking sound which is inspiriting"); April 29, 1856 (" Sailing is much like flying, and from the birth of our race men have been charmed by it")

Scare up the same two black ducks See April 17, 1856 ("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. .") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the American Black Duck

Red maple stamens in some places project considerably. See April 23, 1856 ("The red maple did not shed pollen on the 19th and could not on the 20th, 21st, or 22d, on account of rain; so this must be the first day, — the 23d.") See also note to April 11, 1860 ("Acer rubrum west side Deep Cut, some well out.") Also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Red Maple

The farmer neglects his team to watch my sail. March 26, 1855 ("Sail down to the Great Meadows. A strong wind with snow driving from the west and thickening the air. The farmers pause to see me scud before it.")

This evening I hear the snipes generally and peeping of hylas from the door. See April 18, 1854 ("One[snipe] booms now at 3 p. m."); April 18, 1855 ("The rush sparrows tinkle now at 3 P. M. far over the bushes, and hylodes are peeping in a distant pool."); April 18, 1860 ("Melvin says he has heard snipe some days, but thinks them scarce.") See also A Book of Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Snipe

Walden is open entirely to-day for the first time, ... the average date has been April 4th. See note to March 14, 1860  ("No sooner has the ice of Walden melted than the wind begins to play in dark ripples over the surface of the virgin water.") and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Ice-out

A bay-wing on the railroad fence sings.

April 13

Sunday. 8 A.M. — Up railroad. 

Cold, and froze in the night. 

The sallow will not open till some time to-day. 

I hear a bay-wing on the railroad fence sing, the rhythm somewhat like, char char (or here here), che che, chip chip chip (fast), chitter chitter chitter chit (very fast and jingling), tchea tchea (jinglingly). It has another strain, considerably different, but a second also sings the above. Two on different posts are steadily singing the same, as if contending with each other, notwithstanding the cold wind. 

P. M. — To Walden and Fair Haven Ponds. 

Still cold and windy. 

The early gooseberry leaf-buds in garden have burst, -- now like small green frilled horns. 

Also the amelanchier flower-buds are bursting. 

As I go down the railroad causeway, I see a flock of eight or ten bay-wing sparrows flitting along the fence and alighting on an apple tree. There are many robins about also. Do they not incline more to fly in flocks a cold and windy day like this? 

The snow ice is now all washed and melted off of Walden, down to the dark-green clear ice, which appears to be seven or eight inches thick and is quite hard still. At a little distance you would mistake it for water; further off still, as from Fair Haven Hill, it is blue as in summer. You can still get on to it from the southerly side, but elsewhere there is a narrow canal, two or three to twelve feet wide, next the shore. It may last four or five days longer, even if the weather is warm. 

As I go by the Andromeda Ponds, I hear the tut tut of a few croaking frogs, and at Well Meadow I hear once or twice a prolonged stertorous sound, as from river meadows a little later usually, which is undoubtedly made by a different frog from the first. 

Fair Haven Pond, to my surprise, is completely open. It was so entirely frozen over on the 8th that I think the finishing stroke must have been given to it but by last night’s rain. Say then apparently April 13th (?).

Return over the Shrub Oak Plain and the Cliff. 

Still no cowslips nor saxifrage. 

There were alders out at Well Meadow Head, as large bushes as any. Can they be A. serrulata? Vide leaves by and by. 

Standing on the Cliffs, I see most snow when I look southwest; indeed scarcely a particle in any other direction, far or near, from which and from other observations, I infer that there is most snow now under the northeast sides of the hills, especially in ravines there. 

At the entrance to the Boiling Spring wood, just beyond the orchard (of Hayden), the northeast angle of the wood, there is still a snow-drift as high as the wall, or three and a half feet deep, stretching quite across the road at that height, and the snow reaches six rods down the road. I doubt if there is as much in the road anywhere else in the town. It is quite impassable there still to a horse, as it has been all winter. 

This is the heel of the winter. 

Scare up two turtle doves in the dry stubble in Wheeler’s hill field by the railroad. I saw two together once before this year; probably they have paired.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, April 13, 1856

The sallow will not open till some time to-day. See April 13, 1856 ("The sallow up railroad will [shed pollen], if it is pleasant, to-morrow . . .  the reddish anthers are beginning to push from one side near the end, and you know that a little yellow flame will have burst out there by to-morrow.") 

I hear a bay-wing  on the railroad fence sing. . . . Two on different posts are steadily singing the same. See  April 13, 1854 (" Did I see a bay-wing? "); April 13, 1855 (“See a sparrow without marks on throat or breast, running peculiarly in the dry grass in the open field beyond, and hear its song, and then see its white feathers in tail; the bay-wing.” );  See also April 2, 1858 (”On the side of Fair Haven Hill I go looking for bay wings . . . At last I see one, which . . . warbles a peculiar long and pleasant strain, . . .and close by I see another, apparently a bay-wing, though I do not see its white in tail, and it utters while sitting the same subdued, rather peculiar strain.”); A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Bay-Wing Sparrow and A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, As the Bay-Wing Sang

Also the amelanchier flower-buds are bursting. See April 2, 1853 ("The amelanchier buds look more forward than those of any shrub I notice");  April 11, 1856 ("The flower-buds of the amelanchier are somewhat expanded,"); April 17, 1860 ("The amelanchier flower-buds are conspicuously swollen"); April 18, 1855 ("The shad-bush flower-buds, beginning to expand, look like leaf-buds bursting now.") See also  A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Shad-bush, Juneberry, or Service-berry (Amelanchier canadensis)

As I go by the Andromeda Ponds, I hear the tut tut of a few croaking frogs. See 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.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Wood Frog (Rana sylvatica)

At Well Meadow I hear once or twice a prolonged stertorous sound, as from river meadows a little later usually, which is undoubtedly made by a different frog from the first. See April 13, 1859 ("To-day is the awakening of the meadows now partly bare. I hear the stuttering note of probably the Rana halecina (see one by shore) come up from all the Great Meadow,"); see also March 31, 1857 ("To-day both croakers and peepers are pretty numerously heard, and I hear one faint stertorous (bullfrog-like ??) sound on the river meadow.";  April 15, 1855 ("That general tut tut tut tut, or snoring, of frogs on the shallow meadow heard first slightly the 5th. There is a very faint er er er now and then mixed with it"); April 16, 1856 ("I hear that same stertorous note of a frog or two as was heard the 13th, apparently from quite across all this flood, and which I have so often observed before. What kind is it?"); May 23, 1856 ("At the same time I hear a low, stertorous, dry, but hard-cored note from some frog in the meadows and along the riverside; often heard in past years but not accounted for. Is it a Rana palustris?") and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Leopard Frog (Rana Halecina) in Spring

Fair Haven Pond, to my surprise, is completely open. See  March 26, 1860 ("Fair Haven Pond may be open by the 20th of March, as this year [1860], or not till April 13 as in '56,"); ; March 26, 1857 ("  Fair Haven .is open; may have been open several days; there is only a little ice on the southeast shore. "); March 27, 1858 ("Fair Haven Pond four fifths clear."); March 28, 1855 ("The river has not yet quite worn its way through Fair Haven Pond, but probably will to-morrow."March 31, 1855 ("). March 28, 1858 ("Fair Haven Pond is open. This and Flint's and Walden all open together this year"); Looking from the Cliffs I see that  Fair Haven Pond will open by day after to-morrow. "); April 4, 1852 (“This pond is now open; only a little ice against the Pleasant Meadow.”); .  April 7, 1854 ("Fair Haven is completely open")

Still no cowslips nor saxifrage.  See March 27, 1855 ("Am surprised to see the cowslip so forward, showing so much green, in E. Hubbard’s Swamp, in the brook, where it is sheltered from the winds. The already expanded leaves rise above the water. If this is a spring growth, it is the most forward herb I have seen");   April 8, 1856  ("I find two cowslips in full bloom, shedding pollen; and they may have opened two or three days ago; for I saw many conspicuous buds here on the 2d");  April 9, 1853 ("The cowslips are well out, – the first conspicuous herbaceous flower. ."); April 13, 1855 ("Many cowslip buds show a little yellow, but they will not open there [Second Division] for two or three days. The road is paved with solid ice there.  "); April 3, 1853 ("To my great surprise the saxifrage is in bloom. It was, as it were, by mere accident that I found it. I had not observed any particular forwardness in it, when, happening to look under a projecting rock in a little nook on the south side of a stump, I spied one little plant which had opened three or four blossoms high up the Cliff"); s. April 6, 1858 ("On a few small warm shelves under the rocks the saxifrage . . .; has got up three or four inches, and may have been out four or five days"); April 13, 1854 ("The saxifrage is pretty common, ahead of the crowfoot now, and its peduncles have shot up.') See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Earliest Flower  and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Cowslip in Early Spring and A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Saxifrage in Spring

There were alders out at Well Meadow Head . . . Can they be A. serrulata?  See  April 13, 1855 ("The serrulata will undoubtedly blossom to-morrow in some places.");  April 2, 1856 ("The alder scales do not even appear relaxed yet ");   April 4, 1856 ("The alder scales south of the railroad, beyond the bridge, are loosened. This corresponds to the opening (not merely expansion showing the fuzziness) of the white maple buds.");  April 9, 1856 ("The Alnus incana, especially by the railroad opposite the oaks, sheds pollen.");  . April 11, 1856 ("Seek out some young and lusty-growing alder (as on the 9th), with clear, shining, and speckled bark, in the warmest possible position,. . .Some will be in full bloom above, while their extremities are comparatively dead, as if struck with a palsy in the winter. Soon will come a rude wind and shake their pollen copiously over the water"); April 15, 1856 ("What I think the Alnus serrulata (?) will shed pollen to-day on the edge of Catbird Meadow. Is that one at Brister’s Spring and at Depot Brook crossing? Also grows on the west edge of Trillium Wood."); July 7, 1856 ("I see a difference now between the alder leaves near Island and edge of meadow westward, on Hill; the former slightly downy beneath, the latter (apparently Alnus serrulata) green and smooth but yet not pointed at base");  July 15, 1857 ("Two woodcocks in the shady alder marsh at Well Meadow  . . . go off with a whistling flight."); July 30, 1853 ( I was correct about the alders. The incana has a rounder leaf ; the other is more oblong and is quite smooth beneath") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The Alders

Contending sparrows   

on the railroad fence – bay-wings

singing the same strain.

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, A bay-wing on the railroad fence sings

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-560413

The pleasant ringing note of the pine warbler

April 11

8.30 A. M. — To Tarbell’s to get black and canoe birch sap. 

Going up the railroad, I see a male and female rusty grackle alight on an oak near me, the latter apparently a flaxen brown, with a black tail. She looks like a different species of bird. Wilson had heard only a tchuck from the grackle, but this male, who was courting his mate, broke into incipient warbles, like a bubble burst as soon as it came to the surface, it was so aerated: Its air would not be fixed long enough. 

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!

And hear in the old place, the pitch pine grove on the bank by the river, the pleasant ringing note of the pine warbler. Its  a-che, vitter vitter, vitter vitter, vitter vitter, vitter vitter, vet rings through the open pine grove very rapidly. I also heard it at the old place by the railroad, as I came along. It is remarkable that I have so often heard it first in these two localities, i.e. where the railroad skirts the north edge of a small swamp densely filled with tall old white pines and a few white oaks, and in a young grove composed wholly of pitch pines on the otherwise bare, very high and level bank of the Assabet. When the season is advanced enough, I am pretty sure to hear its ringing note in both those places. 

The hazel sheds pollen to-day; some elsewhere possibly yesterday. 
The sallow up railroad will, if it is pleasant, to-morrow. 

When I cut or break white pine twigs now, the turpentine exudes copiously from the bark, even from twigs broken off in the fall and now freshly broken, clear as water, or crystal. How early did it? 

Set two spouts in a canoe birch fifteen inches in diameter, and two in a black birch two feet plus in diameter. The canoe birch sap flowed rather the fastest. 

I have now got four kinds of birch sap. That of the white birch is a little tinged brown, apparently by the bark; the others are colorless as water. I am struck by the coolness of the sap, though the weather may be warm. Like wild apples, it must be tasted in the fields, and then it has a very slightly sweetish and acid taste, and cool as iced water. 

I do not think I could distinguish the different kinds of birch with my eyes shut. I drank some of the black birch wine with my dinner for the name of it; but, as a steady drink, it is only to be recommended to outdoor men and foresters. 

Now is apparently the very time to tap birches of all kinds. I saved a bottleful each of the white, canoe, and black birch sap (the yellow I boiled), and, in twenty-four hours, they had all three acquired a slight brown tinge but the white birch the most brown. They were at first colorless. 

On the whole, I have not observed so much difference in the amount of sap flowing from the six kinds of trees which I have tapped as I have observed between different trees of the same kind, depending on position and size, etc. This flowing of the sap under the dull rinds of the trees is a tide which few suspect. 

Though the snow melted so much sooner on the east side of the railroad causeway than on the west, I notice that it still lies in a broad, deep bank on the east side  of Cheney’s row of arbor-vitae, while the ground is quite bare on the west. Whence this difference?

A few more hylas peep to-day, though it is not so warm as the 9th. These warm pleasant days I see very few ducks about, though the river is high. 

The current of the Assabet is so much swifter, and its channel so much steeper than that of the main stream, that, while a stranger frequently cannot tell which way the latter flows by his eye, you can perceive the declination of the channel of the former within a very short distance, even between one side of a tree and another. You perceive the waters heaped on the upper side of rocks and trees, and even twigs that trail in the stream. 

Saw a pickerel washed up, with a wound near its tail, dead a week at least. Was it killed by a fish hawk? Its oil, when disturbed, smoothed the surface of the water with splendid colors. Thus close ever is the fair to the foul. The iridescent, oily surface. The same object is ugly or beautiful, according to the angle from which you view it. 

Here, also, in the river wreck is the never-failing teazle, telling of the factory above, and sawdust from the mill. The teased river! These I do not notice on the South Branch. 

I hear of one field plowed and harrowed, — George Heywood’s. Frost out there earlier than last year. 

You thread your way amid the rustling oak leaves on some warm hillside sloping to the south, detecting no growth as yet, unless the flower-buds of the amelanchier are somewhat expanded, when, glancing along the dry stems, in the midst of all this dryness, you detect the crimson stigmas of the hazel, like little stars peeping forth, and perchance a few catkins are dangling loosely in the zephyr and sprinkling their pollen on the dry leaves beneath. 

You take your way along the edge of some swamp that has been cleared at the base of some south hillside, where there is sufficient light and air and warmth, but the cold northerly winds are fended off, and there behold the silvery catkins of the sallows, which have already crept along their lusty osiers, more than an inch in length, till they look like silvery wands, though some are more rounded, like bullets. The lower part of some catkins which have lost their bud-scales emit a tempered crimson blush through their down, from the small scales within. The catkins grow longer and larger as you advance into the warmest localities, till at last you discover one catkin in which the reddish anthers are beginning to push from one side near the end, and you know that a little yellow flame will have burst out there by to-morrow, if the day is fair. 

I might have said on the 8th: Behold that little  hemisphere of green in the black and sluggish brook, amid the open alders, sheltered under a russet tussock. It is the cowslips’ forward green. Look narrowly, explore the warmest nooks; here are buds larger yet, showing more yellow, and yonder see two full-blown yellow disks, close to the water’s edge. Methinks they dip into it when the frosty nights come. Have not these been mistaken for dandelions?

Or, on the 9th: This still warm morning paddle your boat into yonder smooth cove, close up under the south edge of that wood which the April flood is bathing, and observe the great mulberry-like catkins of yonder aspen curving over and downward, some an inch or more in length, like great reddish caterpillars covered thickly with down, forced out by heat, and already the sides and ends of some are loose and of a pale straw-color, shedding their pollen. These, for their forwardness, are indebted to the warmth of their position. 

Now for the white maple the same day: Paddle under yonder graceful tree which marks where is the bank of the river, though now it stands in the midst of a flood a quarter of a mile from land; hold fast by one of its trailing twigs, for the stream runs swiftly here. See how the tree is covered with great globular clusters of buds. Are there no anthers nor stigmas to be seen? Look upward to the sunniest side. Steady! When the boat 'has ceased its swaying, do you not see two or three stamens glisten like spears advanced on the sunny side of a cluster? Depend on it, the bees will find it out before noon, far over the flood as it is. 

Seek out some young and lusty-growing alder (as on the 9th), with clear, shining, and speckled bark, in the warmest possible position, perchance where the heat is reflected from some bank or hillside and the water bathes its foot. The scales of the catkins generally are loosened, but on the (sunniest cheek of the clump, be hold one or two far more considerably loosened, wholly or partially dangling and showing their golden insides. Give the most forward of these a chuck, and you will get a few grains of its yellow dust in your hand. Some will be in full bloom above, while their extremities are comparatively dead, as if struck with a palsy in the winter. Soon will come a rude wind and shake their pollen copiously over the water.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, April 11, 1856

I see a male and female rusty grackle. . . this male, who was courting his mate, broke into incipient warbles, like a bubble burst See March 29, 1853 ("It would be worth the while to attend more to the different notes of the blackbirds."); March 29, 1858 ("I see what I suppose is the female rusty grackle; black body with green reflections and purplish-brown head and neck, but I notice no light iris.");  April 3, 1855 ("The first grackles [rusty grackles, or rusty blackbirds.] I have seen. I detected them first by their more rasping note . . . after a short stuttering, then a fine, clear whistle."); April 9, 1855 ("Wilson says that the only note of the rusty grackle is a chuck, though he is told that at Hudson’s Bay, at the breeding-time, they sing with a fine note. Here they utter not only a chuck, but a fine shrill whistle.");  See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Signs of the Spring: The grackle arrives.

Now is apparently the very time to tap birches of all kinds. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Birches in Season

A stranger frequently cannot tell which way the [main channel] flows.  See April 16, 1852 ("Many a foreigner who has come to this town has worked for years on its banks without discovering which way the river runs.")

The teased river! See April 2, 1853 ("Together with the driftwood on the shore of the Assabet and the sawdust from Heywood's mill, I pick up teasel-heads from the factory with the wool still in them. How many tales the stream tells!”); November 18, 1860 ("I frequently see the heads of teasel, called fuller’s thistle, floating on our river, having come from factories above.")

Saw a kingfisher on a tree over the water.   Does not its arrival mark some new movement in its finny prey? See April 1, 1860 ("A kingfisher seen and heard."); April 10, 1859 ("See a kingfisher flying very low, in the ricochet manner, across the water."); April 15, 1855 ("See and hear a kingfisher—do they not come with the smooth waters of April?”); See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Kingfisher

The pleasant ringing note of the pine warbler. See April 9, 1856 (While I am looking at the hazel, I hear from the old locality, the edge of the great pines and oaks in the swamp by the railroad, the note of the pine warbler . . . cool and inspiring, like a part of the evergreen forest itself, the trickling of the sap."); April 12, 1858 ("The woods are all alive with pine warblers now. Their note is the music to which I survey."); April 15, 1855 ("In the meanwhile, as we steal through the woods, we hear the pleasing note of the pine warbler, bringing back warmer weather."); April 15, 1859 ("Go to a warm pine wood-side on a pleasant day at this season after storm, and hear it ring with the jingle of the pine warbler.  See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau,  the Pine Warbler.

 The hazel sheds pollen to-day; some elsewhere possibly yesterday. . . . the crimson stigmas of the hazel, like little stars peeping forth, and perchance a few catkins are dangling loosely. See March 27, 1853 ("The high color of this minute, unobserved flower, at this cold, leafless, and almost flowerless season! It is a beautiful greeting of the spring"); March 27, 1859 ("Of our seven indigenous flowers which begin to bloom in March, four, i. e. the two alders, the aspen, and the hazel, are not generally noticed so early, if at all, and most do not observe the flower of a fifth, the maple. The first four are yellowish or reddish brown at a little distance, like the banks and sward moistened by the spring rain."); April 4. 1853("The hazel bloom is about one tenth of an inch long (the stigmas) now"); April 7, 1854 ("The hazel stigmas are well out and the catkins loose, but no pollen shed yet.  "); April 7, 1855 ("The female flowers of the hazel are just beginning to peep out."); April 9, 1856 ("The stigmas already peep out, minute crimson stars");   April 13, 1855 ("The common hazel just out. It is perhaps the prettiest flower of the shrubs that have opened. A little bunch of (in this case) half a dozen catkins, one and three quarters inches long, trembling in the wind, shedding golden pollen on the hand, and, close by, as many minute, but clear crystalline crimson stars at the end of a bare and seemingly dead twig. For two or three days in my walks, I had given the hazel catkins a fillip with my finger under their chins to see if they were in bloom, but in vain; but here, on the warm south side of a wood, I find one bunch fully out and completely relaxed. They know when to trust themselves to the weather. "); See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau: the Hazel

 

The sallow up railroad will [shed pollen], if it is pleasant, to-morrow. . . .  the reddish anthers are beginning to push from one side near the end, and you know that a little yellow flame will have burst out there by to-morrow. See April 13, 1856 ("The sallow will not open till some time to-day ");  April 17, 1855 ("The second sallow catkin (or any willow) I have seen in blossom —there are three or four catkins on the twig partly open "); April 18, 1852 (" The most interesting fact, perhaps, at present is these few tender yellow blossoms, these half-expanded sterile aments of the willow, seen through the rain and cold, — signs of the advancing year, pledges of the sun's return."); April  18, 1855 ("A little sallow, about two feet high . . . with reddish anthers not yet burst, will bloom to-morrow in Well Meadow Path. ")

I might have said on the 8th: Behold that little  hemisphere of green in the black and sluggish brook. See  April 8, 1856 ("There, in that slow, muddy brook near the head of Well Meadow, within a few rods of its source, where it winds amid the alders, which shelter the plants some what, while they are open enough now to admit the sun, I find two cowslips in full bloom, shedding pollen. . . if the river had risen as high as frequently, they would have been submerged.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Cowslip in Early Spring

Now for the white maple  . . . See how the tree is covered with great globular clusters of buds. . . do you not see two or three stamens glisten like spears advanced on the sunny side of a cluster? See April 10, 1855.(" Early on the morning of the 8th I paddled up the' Assabet looking for the first flowers of the white maple . . . the round clusters of its bursting flower-buds spotting the sky above me, and on a close inspection found a few which . . .blossomed the day before");  April 14, 1855 ("White maples are now generally in bloom."); See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, White Maple Buds and Flowers

Seek out some young and lusty-growing alder (as on the 9th) . . . Soon will come a rude wind and shake their pollen copiously over the water. See April 9, 1856 ( The Alnus incana, especially by the railroad opposite the oaks, sheds pollen. ""); April 10, 1855  ("Early on the morning of the 8th I paddled . . .slowly along the riverside looking closely at the alder catkins and shaking the most loose, till at length I came to a bush which had. . . one looser and more yellowish catkin, which, as I have said, on a close examination showed some effete anthers near the peduncle");  April 11, 1852  (" I was pleased to find the Alnus incana ( ?) in bloom in the water, its long sterile aments, yellowish-brown, hanging in panicles or clusters at the ends of the drooping branchlets, while all the twigs else are bare and the well-cased and handsome leaf-buds are not yet expanded at all. It is a kind of resurrection of the year, these pliant and pendulous blossoms on this apparently dead bush, while all is sere and tawny around, withered and bleached grass. A sort of harbinger of spring, this and the maple blossoms especially, and also the early willow catkins. . . This and the maple and the earliest willow are the most flower-like now.") See also  March 22, 1853 (" The very earliest alder is in bloom and sheds its pollen. I detect a few catkins at a distance by their distinct yellowish color. This the first native flower."); A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,  the Earliest Flower and A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The Alders

The ringing note of

the pine warbler first heard in

the same two places.

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The ringing note of the pine warbler

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-560811

The world and my life are simplified .

November 7. 

Another drizzling day, — as fine a mist as can fall. 

November 7, 2021

I find it good to be out this still, dark, mizzling afternoon; my walk or voyage is more suggestive and profitable than in bright weather. 

The view is contracted by the misty rain, the water is perfectly smooth, and the stillness is favorable to reflection. 

I am more open to impressions, more sensitive (not calloused or indurated by sun and wind), as if in a chamber still. 

My thoughts are concentrated; I am all compact. 

The solitude is real, too, for the weather keeps other men at home. 

This mist is like a roof and walls over and around, and I walk with a domestic feeling. 

The sound of a wagon going over an unseen bridge is louder than ever, and so of other sounds. 

I am compelled to look at near objects. 

All things have a soothing effect; the very clouds and mists brood over me. 

My power of observation and contemplation is much increased.

My attention does not wander. 

The world and my life are simplified. 

I see a painted tortoise swimming under water, and to my surprise another afterward out on a willow trunk this dark day. It is long since I have seen one of any species except the insculpta. They must have begun to keep below and go into winter quarters about three weeks ago. 

Looking west over Wheeler’s meadow, I see that there has been much gossamer on the grass, and it is now revealed by the dewy mist which has collected on it. 

Some green-briar leaves still left, a dull red or scarlet, others yellowish; also the silky cornel is conspicuously dull-red, and others yellowish-red. 

And the sallow on river’s brink (not cordata), with a narrow leaf pointed at both ends, shows some clear chrome yellow leaves atop. 

The white birches lose their lower leaves first, and now their tops show crescents or cones of bright-yellow (spring flames) leaves, some of the topmost even green still. 

The black willows almost everywhere entirely bare, yet the color of their twigs gives them the aspect of the crisp brown weeds of the river’s brink. 

How completely crisp and shrivelled the leaves and stems of the Polygonum amphibium var. terrestre, still standing above the water and grass! 

The river has risen a little more, the North Branch especially, and the pail-stuff which has drifted down it has been carried a few rods up the main stream above the junction. It rises and falls very suddenly, and I was surprised to see the other day a line of sawdust more than a foot above the water’s edge, showing that it had risen to that height and suddenly fallen without my knowledge. 

Opened a muskrat-house nearly two feet high, but there was no hollow to it. Apparently they do not form that part yet. 

Birds are pretty rare now. I hear a few tree sparrows in one place on the trees and bushes near the river, — a clear, chinking chirp and a half-strain,— a jay at a distance; and see a nuthatch flit with a ricochet flight across the river, and hear his gnah half uttered when he alights. 

A gray squirrel —as day before yesterday—runs down a limb of an oak and hides behind the trunk and I lose him. A red one runs along the trees to scold at me, boldly or carelessly, with a chuckling, bird like note and that other peculiar sound at intervals, between a purr and a grunt. He is more familiar than the gray and more noisy. What sound does the gray make? 

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, November 7, 1855

More open to impressions. See June 14, 1853 ("open to great impressions . . .you see those rare sights with the unconscious side of the eye.")

The view is contracted by the misty rain . . . I am compelled to look at near objects. See August 4, 1854 ("Rain and mist contract our horizon and we notice near and small objects”).  Also  December 16, 1855 ("The mist makes the near trees dark and noticeable"); February 6, 1852 (A mistiness makes the woods look denser, darker and more primitive.); November 29, 1850("The trees and shrubs look larger than usual when seen through the mist")

The world and my life are simplified. See January 7, 1857 ("I come out to these solitudes, where the problem of existence is simplified.

I see a painted tortoise swimming. See November 1, 1855 ("I see no painted tortoises out, and I think it is about a fortnight since I saw any."):  November 14, 1855 ("A clear, bright, warm afternoon. A painted tortoise swimming under water and a wood tortoise out on the bank."); See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Painted Turtle (Emys picta)

Opened a muskrat-house nearly two feet high, but there was no hollow to it. See    November 7, 1853 ("A muskrat-house on the top of a rock, too thin round the sides for a passage beneath, yet a small cavity at top, which makes me think that they use them merely as a sheltered perch above water."); November 7, 1858 ("I pass a musquash-house, apparently begun last night. ") See also September 20, 1855 ("Open a new and pretty sizable muskrat-house with no hollow yet made in it.") and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Musquash

Birds are pretty rare now.  See November 4, 1855 ("The winter is approaching. The birds are almost all gone. The note of the dee de de sounds now more distinct, prophetic of winter,"):November 5, 1858 ("It is quite still; no wind, no insect hum, and no note of birds, but one hairy woodpecker."); November 24, 1857 ("Nowadays birds are so rare I am wont to mistake them at first for a leaf or mote blown off from the trees or bushes")

See a nuthatch flit with a ricochet flight across the river, and hear his gnah half uttered when he alights. 

See November 7, 1858 ("The nuthatch is another bird of the fall which I hear these days and for a long time, — apparently ever since the young birds grew up. ") See also  October 20, 1856 ("Think I hear the very faint gnah of a nuthatch. Thus, of late, when the season is declining, many birds have departed, and our thoughts are turned towards winter (began to have a fire, more or less, say ten days or a fortnight ago), we hear the jay again more frequently, and the chickadees are more numerous and lively and familiar and utter their phebe note, and the nuthatch is heard again, and the small woodpecker seen amid the bare twigs");  November 26, 1860 ("I hear the faint note of a nuthatch . . .a phenomenon of the late fall or early winter; for we do not hear them in summer that I remember.”); December 1, 1857 ("I thus always begin to hear this bird on the approach of winter, as if it did not breed here, but wintered here.”) and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Nuthatch

A gray squirrel. . . runs down a limb of an oak and hides behind the trunk See November 13, 1857 (“ I see, on a white oak on Egg Rock, where the squirrels have lately made a nest for the winter of the dry oak leaves . . . I suspect it is a gray squirrel's nest.”); November 20, 1858 ("I have seen more gray squirrels of late . . . not merely because the trees are bare but because they are stirring about more, — nutting, etc.");  November 30, 1851 ("While the squirrels hid themselves in the tree-tops, I sat on an oak stump by an old cellar-hole and mused. This squirrel is always an unexpectedly large animal to see frisking about. ") 

A red one runs along the trees to scold at me, See December 1, 1857 ("I hear a red squirrel barking at me amid the pine and oak tops, and now I see him coursing from tree to tree.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Red Squirrel

The world and my life

are simplified this still, dark

mizzling afternoon.

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau,  The world and my life are simplified 

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

https://tinyurl.com/hdt-551107