There is quite a drought.

August 21

Sunday. P. M. — Walk over the Great Meadows and observe how dry they are. 

There is quite a drought, and I can walk almost anywhere over these meadows without wetting my feet. It is much drier than it was three weeks ago there. It is like the summer of '54. 

Almost all the grass has been cut and carried off. It is quite dry crossing the neck of the Holt. 

In many holes in the meadow, made by the ice, the water having dried up, I see many small fishes — pouts and pickerel and bream — left dead and dying. In one place there were fifty or one hundred pouts from four to five inches long with a few breams, all dead and dry. It is remarkable that these fishes have not all been devoured by birds or quadrupeds. 

The blue herons must find it easy to get their living now. Are they not more common on our river such years as this?

In holes where the water has just evaporated, leaving the mud moist, I see a hundred little holes near together, with occasionally an indistinct track of a bird between. Measuring these holes, I find them to be some two inches deep, or about the length of a snipe's bill, and doubtless they were made by them. I start one snipe. 

People now (at this low stage of water) dig mud for their compost-heaps, deepen wells, build bank walls, perchance, along the river, and in some places make bathing-places by raking away the weeds. Many are ditching.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 21, 1859

There is quite a drought, and I can walk almost anywhere over these meadows without wetting my feet. It is much drier than it was three weeks ago there. It is like the summer of '54.. See August 19, 1854 ("There is now a remarkable drought, some of whose phenomena I have referred to during several weeks past.”); August 22, 1854 ("I go again to the Great Meadows, to improve this remarkably dry season and walk where in ordinary times I cannot go.")

The blue herons must find it easy to get their living now. See August 22, 1854 ("Thus the drought serves the herons, etc., confining their prey within narrower limits, and doubtless they are well acquainted with suitable retired pools far in the marshes to go a-fishing in.")

In holes where the water has just evaporated, leaving the mud moist, I see a hundred little holes near together, with occasionally an indistinct track of a bird between. . . .I start one snipe.  See August 3, 1859 (". To-day I can walk dry over the greater part of the meadows, . . . many think it has not been so dry for ten years! Goodwin is there after snipes. I scare up one in the wettest part.")

People now (at this low stage of water) dig mud for their compost-heaps. See August 28, 1854 ("The farmers improve this dry spell to cut ditches and dig mud in the meadows and pond-holes. I see their black heaps in many places. ")

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

The eddy and wearing away of the bank at the stone bridge.

July 20. 

The little Holbrook boy showed me an egg which I unhesitatingly pronounced a peetweet's, given him by Joe Smith. The latter, to my surprise, declares it a meadow-hen's; saw the bird and young, and says the latter were quite black and had hen bills. Can it be so? 

Humphrey Buttrick says he finds snipes' nests in our meadows oftener than woodcocks'. 

P. M. — To Eddy Bridge. 

Abel Hosmer says that the Turnpike Company did not fulfill their engagement to build a new bridge over the Assabet in 1807; that the present stone bridge was not built till about the time the Orthodox meeting-house was built. (That was in 1826.) Benjamin says it was built soon after the meeting-house, or perhaps 1827, and was placed some fifty feet higher up-stream than the old wooden one. 

Hosmer says that the eddy and wearing away of the bank has been occasioned wholly by the bridge; that there was only the regular bend there before. He had thought that it was in consequence of the bridge being set askew or diagonally with the stream, so that the abutments turned the water and gave it a slant into the banks. I think that this did not create, only increased, the evil. 

The bank which it has worn away rises some sixteen feet above low water, and, considering the depth of the water, you may say that it has removed the sand to a depth of twenty-five feet over an area of a quarter of an acre, or say to the depth of three feet or a yard over two acres, or 9680 cubic yards or cartloads, which, at twenty-five cents per load, it would have cost $2420 to move in the ordinary manner, or enough to fill the present river for a quarter of a mile, calling it six rods wide and twelve feet deep. 

Beside creating some small islands and bars close by, this sand and gravel has, of course, been distributed along in the river and on the adjacent meadows below. 

Hosmer complains that his interval has accordingly been very much injured by the sand washed on to it below, — "hundreds of dollars" damage done to him. All this within some thirty-five years. 

It may well be asked what has become of all this sand? Of course it has contributed to form sand-bars below, possibly a great way below. 

Jacob Farmer tells me that he remembers that when about twenty-one years old he and Hildreth were bathing in the Assabet at the mouth of the brook above Winn's, and Hildreth swam or waded across to a sand bar (now the island there), but the water was so deep on that bar that he became frightened, and would have been drowned if he had not been dragged out and resuscitated by others. This was directly over where that island is now, and was then only a bar beginning under water. That island, as he said, had been formed within thirty-five years, or since the Eddy Bridge was built; and I suggest that it may have been built mainly of the ruins of that bank. 

It is the only island in the Assabet for two and a half miles. 

There is a perfect standstill in the eddy at Eddy Bridge now, and there is a large raft of grass, weeds, and lumber perfectly at rest there, against Hosmer's bank. The coarser materials — stones as big as a hen's egg — are dropped close by, but the sand must have been carried far down-stream. 

Hosmer says that when he digs down in his millet- field, twenty rods or more from the river, in his interval, at three or four feet depth he comes to coarse stones which look like an old bed of the river. I see them at each of the small wooden bridges, and very likely they underlie the whole of that interval, covered with sand. 

Such is the character of a river-bottom, — the stones from a hen's egg to the size of your head dropped down to one level, the sand being washed away, and now found in one stratum. 

So completely emasculated and demoralized is our river that it is even made to observe the Christian Sabbath, and Hosmer tells me that at this season on a Sunday morning (for then the river runs lowest, owing to the factory and mill gates being shut above) little gravelly islands begin to peep out in the channel below. Not only the operatives make the Sunday a day of rest, but the river too, to some extent, so that the very fishes feel the influence (or want of influence) of man's religion. 

The very rivers run with fuller streams on Monday morning. All nature begins to work with new impetuosity on Monday. 

I see where turtles' eggs are still being dug up!

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, July 20, 1859

The coarser materials — stones as big as a hen's egg — are dropped close by, but the sand must have been carried far down-stream. See July 16, 1859 ("It is remarkable how the stones are separated from the sand at the Eddy Bridge and deposited in a bar or islands by themselves a few rods lower down.")

Hear the te-e-e of a white-throat sparrow..

May 3

Surveying the Bedford road. 

Hear the te-e-e of a white-throat sparrow. 

I hear of phoebes', robins', and bluebirds' nests and eggs. 

May 3, 2019

I have not heard any snipes boom for about a week, nor seen a tree sparrow certainly since April 30 (? ?), nor F. hyemalis for several days.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 3, 1859

Surveying the Bedford road. See July 1, 1858 (“I am surveying the Bedford road these days, and have no time for my Journal.”)

Hear the te-e-e of a white-throat sparrow. See May 4, 1855 (“Myrtle-birds numerous, and sing their tea lee, tea lee in morning. White-throated sparrows here”).  See also  A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the White-throated Sparrow

I hear of phoebes', robins', and bluebirds' nests and eggs.  See May 3, 1858 (“Hear of robins' nests with four eggs. ”)

I have not heard any snipes boom for about a week. See April 30, 1858 (“I hear no snipe.”); compare May 4, 1855 (“Snipes feeding in numbers on the 29th April.”). See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Snipe

Nor nor seen a tree sparrow certainly since April 30 nor F. hyemalis for several days. See May 4, 1855 (“Have not noticed robins in flocks for two or three days. See no gulls, nor F. hyemalis nor tree sparrows now. ”) See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Dark-eyed Junco;  A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Tree Sparrow

Greenness prevails, a new season arrives

April 25. 

April 25, 2019

P. M. — To Kalmia Swamp. 

First notice martins.

I got to-day and yesterday the first decided impression of greenness beginning to prevail, summer-like. It struck me as I was going past some opening and by chance looked up some valley or glade, — greenness just beginning to prevail over the brown or tawny. It is a sudden impression of greater genialness in the air, when this greenness first makes an impression on you at some turn, from blades of grass decidedly green, though thin, in the sun and the still, warm air, on some warm orchard-slope perhaps. 

It reminds you of the time, not far off, when you will see the dark shadows of the trees there and buttercups spotting the grass. 

Even the grass begins to wave, in the 19th-of-April fashion. When the wind is still cool elsewhere, I glance up some warm southern slope, sunny and still, where the thinly scattered blades of green grass, lately sprung, already perchance begin to wave, and I am suddenly advertised that a new season has arrived. 

April 25, 1859

This is the beginning of that season which, methinks, culminates with the buttercup and wild pink and Viola pedata. 

It begins when the first toad is heard. Methinks I hear through the wind to-day — and it was the same yesterday — a very faint, low ringing of toads, as if distant and just begun. It is an indistinct undertone, and I am far from sure that I hear anything. It may be all imagination. 

I see the meadow-sweet, thimble-berry (even in a swamp), high blackberry, and (on a dry rock in the woods in a sunny place) some Vaccinium Pennsylvanicum leafing (even the last) apparently two or three days. Fern scrolls are eight inches high, — beyond Hubbard Bridge on the north bank of road. 

A mosquito endeavors to sting me. 

Ranunculus repens at Corner Spring apparently yesterday; five of them out now. Thus early now because exposed to light. 

The Viola blanda are numerously open there, say two days at least. 

Also bluets and potentilla are first noticed by me, and V. sagittate. 

The more yellowish red maples of this afternoon are one, barked, northeast corner Hubbard's Dracaena Grove, the easternmost tree of the row south of Hub bard's Grove, the larger about ten rods this side Hub bard Bridge, south side. The two at this end of bridge are quite red. 

I hear still the what what what of a nuthatch, and, directly after, its ordinary winter note of gnah gnah, quite distinct. I think the former is its spring note or breeding-note. 

E. Bartlett has found a crow's nest with four eggs a little developed in a tall white pine in the grove east of Beck Stow's. 

The snipe have hovered commonly this spring an hour or two before sunset and also in the morning. I can see them flying very high over the Mill-Dam, and they appear to make that sound when descending, — one quite by himself. 

Toads have been observed or disturbed in gardens for a week. 

One saw a striped snake the 3d of April on a warm railroad sand-bank, — a similar place to the others I heard of. 

Young Stewart tells me that he saw last year a pout's nest at Walden in the pond-hole by the big pond. The spawn lay on the mud quite open and uncovered, and the old fish was tending it. A few days after, he saw that it was hatched and little pouts were swimming about.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, April 25, 1859


The first decided impression of greenness beginning to prevail. See April 28, 1854 ("Perhaps the greenness of the landscape may be said to begin fairly now. . . .during the last half of April the earth acquires a distinct tinge of green, which finally prevails over the russet")

Even the grass begins to wave. . . and I am suddenly advertised that a new season has arrived. See May 19, 1860 ("This is the season when the meadow- grass is seen waving in the wind at the same time that the shadows of clouds are passing over it.."); May 27, 1855 ("The fields now begin to wear the aspect of June, their grass just beginning to wave");  May 30, 1852 (Now is the summer come. . . . A day for shadows, even of moving clouds, over fields in which the grass is beginning to wave.")

In the 19th-of-April fashion. See May 19, 1860 ("[T]hey say of the 19th of April, '75, — that "the apple trees were in bloom and grass was waving in the fields,")

It begins when the first toad is heard.  See  April 25, 1856 (“The toads have begun fairly to ring at noonday in amid the birches to hear them. The wind is pretty strong and easterly . . . It is a low, terrene sound, the undertone of the breeze. Now it sounds low and indefinitely far, now rises, as if by general consent, to a higher key, as if in another and nearer quarter, — a singular alternation.The now universal hard metallic ring of toads blended and partially drowned by the rippling wind. The voice of the toad, the herald of warmer weather.”); See slso April 13, 1853 ("First hear toads (and take off coat), a loud, ringing sound filling the air, which yet few notice."); April 13, 1858 ("Hear the first toad in the rather cool rain, 10 A. M."); April 15, 1856 (" I hear a clear, shrill, prolonged ringing note from a toad, the first toad of the year”); April 29, 1856 (“Do not the toads ring most on a windy day like this? ”); May 1, 1857 ("There is a cool and breezy south wind, and the ring of the first toad leaks into the general stream of sound, unnoticed by most. ") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The ring of Toads.

 The Viola blanda are numerously open [at Corner Spring], say two days at least. See  April 23, 1858 ("Saw a Viola blanda in a girl's hand.");;May 5, 1853 ("The Emerson children found blue and white violets May 1st at Hubbard's Close, probably Viola ovata and blanda; but I have not been able to find any yet.”).

I hear still the what what what of a nuthatch, and, directly after, its ordinary winter note of gnah gnah, quite distinct. I think the former is its spring note or breeding-note. See March 5, 1859 ("Going down-town this forenoon, I heard a white-bellied nuthatch on an elm within twenty feet, uttering peculiar notes and more like a song than I remember to have heard from it. There was a chickadee close by, to which it may have been addressed. It was something like to-what what what what what, rapidly repeated, and not the usual gnah gnah; and this instant it occurs to me that this may be that earliest spring note which I hear, and have referred to a woodpecker! ")See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Nuthatch

A crow's nest with four eggs a little developed in a tall white pine in the grove east of Beck Stow's. See May 5, 1855 (" I direct my steps to them and am soon greeted with an angry caw, and, within five minutes from my resolve, I detect a new nest close to the top of the tallest white pine in the [Beck Stow] swamp.")

One saw a striped snake the 3d of April on a warm railroad sand-bank. See April 3, 1859 ("C. says he saw a striped snake on the 30th"); April 2, 1858 ("At the spring on the west side of Fair Haven Hill, I startle a striped snake.. . . No doubt on almost every such warm bank now you will find a snake lying out"); April 9, 1856 ("saw a striped snake, which probably I had scared into the water from the warm railroad bank”); April 16, 1855 (A striped snake rustles down a dry open hillside where the withered grass is long. "); April 20, 1854 ("A striped snake on a warm, sunny bank.")

A small hawk flies swiftly past on the side of the hill, swift and low.

April 7.

April 7, 2019

The Cheney elm looks as if it would shed pollen to-morrow,[no], and the Salix purpurea will perhaps within a week. 

Standing under the north side of the hill, I hear the rather innocent phe phe, phe phe, phe phe, phe' of a fish hawk (for it is not a scream, but a rather soft and innocent note), and, looking up, see one come sailing from over the hill. The body looks quite short in proportion to the spread of the wings, which are quite dark or blackish above. He evidently has something in his talons. 

We soon after disturb him again, and, at length, after circling around over the hill and adjacent fields, he alights in plain sight on one of the half-dead white oaks on the top of the hill, where probably he sat before. As I look through my glass, he is perched on a large dead limb and is evidently standing on a fish (I had noticed something in his talons as he flew), for he stands high and uneasily, finding it hard to keep his balance in the wind. 

He is disturbed by our neighborhood and does not proceed at once to eat his meal. I see the tail of the fish hanging over the end of the limb. Now and then he pecks at it. I see the white on the crown of the hawk. It is a very large black bird as seen against the sky. Soon he sails away again, carrying his fish, as before, horizontally beneath his circles about over the adjacent pasture like a hawk hunting, though he can only be looking for a suitable place to eat his fish or waiting for us to be gone. 

Looking under the limb on which he was perched, we find a piece of the skin of a sucker (?) or some other scaly fish which a hawk had dropped there long since. No doubt many a fish hawk has taken his meal on that sightly perch. 

It seems, then, that the fish hawk which you see soaring and sailing so leisurely about over the land — for this one soared quite high into the sky at one time — may have a fish in his talons all the while and only be waiting till you are gone for an opportunity to eat it on his accustomed perch. 

I told Pratt my theory of the formation of a swamp on a hillside, but he thought that the growth of the alders, etc., there would not make the ground any more moist there, but less so, and stated that the soil (as he had noticed) was drier under rank grass in a mowing-field than at the same depth under a surface of bare and hot sand, because the grass took up the moisture from the soil. 

I saw a hole (probably of a woodchuck) partly dug on the east side of the hill, and three or four large stones lay on the fresh sand-heap thrown out, which the wood- chuck had pushed up from below. One was about six inches long by four or more wide and might weigh four pounds, and, looking into the hole, whose bottom I could not see, I saw another nearly as large about three feet down, on its way up. I have seen their holes dug in much worse places than this. This hole sloped downward at a considerable angle, so that the stones had to be pushed up a steep slope. 

A small hawk flies swiftly past on the side of the hill, swift and low, apparently the same as that of April 3d, a deep rusty brown. 

The woodchuck probably digs in a stony place that he may be the more secure. 

I hear there the hovering note of a snipe at 4.30 p.m., — unusually early in the day. 

Find a Sternothcerus odoratus so far from water on Simon Brown's knoll, where water has not been since about March 20th, that I think he was then washed and left there and has since lain in the ground. There are two or three small leeches on him, which may have adhered to him all winter. 

The white man's relics in the fields are like the Indian's, — pipes, pottery, and (instead of arrowheads) bullets.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, April 7, 1859

The Cheney elm looks as if it would shed pollen to-morrow.  See April 15, 1852 (“The broad flat brown buds on Mr. Cheney's elm, containing twenty or thirty yellowish-green threads, surmounted with little brownish-mulberry cups, which contain the stamens and the two styles, -- these are just expanding or blossoming now.”); April 16, 1856 (“Cheney’s elm shows stamens on the warm side pretty numerously.”); April 17, 1855 (“The flowers of the common elm at Lee’s are now loose and dangling, apparently well out a day or two in advance of Cheney’s, but I see no pollen. ”)


I hear the rather innocent phe phe, phe phe, phe phe, phe' of a fish hawk , and, looking up, see one come sailing from over the hill. See April 6, 1859 ("A fish hawk sails down the river, from time to time almost stationary one hundred feet above the water, notwithstanding the very strong wind.”); April 14, 1852 ("The streams break up; the ice goes to the sea. Then sails the fish hawk overhead, looking for his prey.”) April 25, 1858 (“ I hear the phe phe, phe phe, phe phe, phe phe, phe, the sharp whistling note, of a fish hawk. . . . There is about half a second between each note, and he utters them either while perched or while flying. He shows a great proportion of wing and some white on back. The wings are much curved. He sails along some eighty feet above the water’s edge, looking for fish, and alights again quite near. I see him an hour afterward about the same spot.”)See also A Book of Seasons, by Henry Thoreau The Osprey (Fish Hawk)

A small hawk flies swiftly past on the side of the hill, swift and low, apparently the same as that of April 3d, a deep rusty brown. See April 3, 1859 ("Near to the pond I see a small hawk, larger than a pigeon hawk, fly past, — a deep brown with a light spot on the side. I think it probable it was a sharp-shinned hawk.”) See also See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the sharp-shinned hawk.

I hear there the hovering note of a snipe at 4.30 p.m., — unusually early in the day. See April 7, 1858 ("Snipes rise two or three times as I go over the meadow"); see also April 6, 1854 ("Hear the snipe over the meadows this evening."); April 9, 1853 ("Hear the snipe a short time at early starlight"); April 9, 1855 ("Some twenty minutes after sundown I hear the first booming of a snipe.") and A Book of Seasons, by Henry Thoreau: the Snipe

No one dreamed of snipe an hour ago.

April 2. 

P. M. — To Lee's Cliff (walking). 

April 2, 2019

Alders [Incana on causeways, i. e. the earliest ones] generally appear to be past prime. 

I see a little snow ice in one place to-day. It is still windy and cool, but not so much so as yesterday. 

I can always sail either up or down the river with the rudest craft, for the wind always blows more or less with the river valley. But where a blunt wooded cape or hill projects nearly in the direction to which the wind is blowing, I find that it blows in opposite directions off that shore, while there may be quite a lull off the centre. This makes a baffling reach. Generally a high wood close upon the west side of our river, the prevailing winds being northwest, makes such a reach. 

There are many fuzzy gnats now in the air, windy as it is. Especially I see them under the lee of the middle Conantum cliff, in dense swarms, all headed one way, but rising and falling suddenly all together as if tossed by the wind. They appear to love best a position just below the edge of the cliff, and to rise constantly high enough to feel the wind from over the edge, and then sink suddenly down again. They are not, perhaps, so thick as they will be, but they are suddenly much thicker than they were, and perhaps their presence affects the arrival of the phoebe, which, I suspect, feeds on them. 

From near this cliff, I watch a male sheldrake in the river with my glass. It is very busily pluming it self while it sails about, and from time to time it raises itself upright almost entirely out of water, showing its rosaceous breast. It is some sixty rods off, yet I can see the red bill distinctly when it is turned against its white body. Soon after I see two more, and one, which I think is not a female, is more gray and far less distinctly black and white than the other. I think it is a young male and that it might be called by some a gray duck. However, if you show yourself within sixty rods, they will fly or swim off, so shy are they. Yet in the fall I sometimes get close upon a young bird, which dashes swiftly across or along the river and dives. 

In the wood on top of Lee's Cliff, where the other day I noticed that the chimaphila leaves had been extensively eaten and nibbled off and left on the ground, I find under one small pitch pine tree a heap of the cones which have been stripped of their scales, evidently by the red squirrels, the last winter and fall, they having sat upon some dead limbs above. They were all stripped regularly from the base upward, excepting the five to seven uppermost and barren scales, making a pretty figure like this: —   


I counted two hundred and thirty-nine cones under this tree alone, and most of them lay within two feet square upon a mass of the scales one to two inches deep and three or four feet in diameter. There were also many cones under the surrounding pines. Those I counted would have made some three quarts or more. These had all been cut off by the squirrels and conveyed to this tree and there stripped and eaten. They appeared to have devoured all the fruit of that pitch pine grove, and probably it was they that nibbled the wintergreen. 

No fruit grows in vain. 

The red squirrel harvests the fruit of the pitch pine. His body is about the color of the cone. I should like to get his recipe for taking out pitch, for he must often get his chaps defiled, methinks. These were all fresh cones, the fruit of last year, perhaps. There was a hole in the ground where they lodged by that tree.

I see fly across the pond a rather large hawk, and when at length it turns up am surprised to see a large blackish spot on the under side of each wing, reminding me of the nighthawk. Its wings appeared long and narrow, but it did not show the upper or under side till far off, — sailing [?] so level. What was it? 

The bass recently cut down at Miles Swamp, which averages nearly two and a half feet in diameter at the ground, has forty-seven rings, and has therefore grown fast. 

The black ash is about eighteen inches in diameter and has forty-eight rings. 

The white ash is about fifteen inches in diameter and has seventy-eight rings. 

I see the small botrychium still quite fresh in the open pasture, only a reddish or leathery brown, — some, too, yellow. It is therefore quite evergreen and more than the spleenworts. 

As I go down the street just after sunset, I hear many snipe to-night. This sound is annually heard by the villagers, but always at this hour, i. e. in the twilight, — a hovering sound high in the air, — and they do not know what to refer it to. It is very easily imitated by the breath. A sort of shuddering with the breath. It reminds me of calmer nights. Hardly one in a hundred hears it, and perhaps not nearly so many know what creature makes it. Perhaps no one dreamed of snipe an hour ago, but the air seemed empty of such as they; but as soon as the dusk begins, so that a bird's flight is concealed, you hear this peculiar spirit-suggesting sound, now far, now near, heard through and above the evening din of the village. I did not hear one when I returned up the street half an hour later.

H. D.Thoreau, Journal, April 2, 1859

The red squirrel harvests the fruit of the pitch pine. See January 22, 1856 ("At Walden, near my old residence, I find that . . ., some gray or red squirrel or squirrels have been feeding on the pitch pine cones extensively. "); March 8, 1859 ("Have I ever seen a squirrel eat the pine buds?") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Red Squirrel.

Alders [Incana on causeways, i. e. the earliest ones] generally appear to be past prime.. Compare  April 2, 1856 ("The alder scales do not even appear relaxed yet.");See April 8, 1855 ("I find also at length a single catkin of the Alnus incana, with a few stamens near the peduncle discolored and shedding a little dust when shaken; so this must have begun yesterday . ..  Though I have looked widely, I have not found the alder out before. "); April 8, 1859 ("The Alnus serrulata is evidently in its prime considerably later than the incana, for those of the former which I notice to-day have scarcely begun, while the latter chance to be done. The fertile flowers are an interesting bright crimson in the sun. “); April 9, 1852 ("Observe the Alnus incana, which is distinguished from the common by the whole branchlet hanging down, so that the sterile aments not only are but appear terminal, and by the brilliant polished reddish green of the bark, and by the leaves."); April 9, 1856 ("The Alnus incana, especially by the railroad opposite the oaks, sheds pollen.”). See also A Book of Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Alders


The bass recently cut down at Miles Swamp, which averages nearly two and a half feet in diameter at the ground, has forty-seven rings, and has therefore grown fast. See A Book of Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Basswood

Hardly one in a hundred hears it, and perhaps not nearly so many know what creature makes it. See April 9, 1858 ("Persons walking up or down our village street in still evenings at this season hear this singular winnowing sound in the sky over the meadows and know not what it is. This “booming” of the snipe is our regular village serenade. I heard it this evening for the first time, as I sat in the house, through the window. Yet common and annual and remarkable as it is, not one in a hundred of the villagers hears it, and hardly so many know what it is."); April 1, 1853 ("Now, at early starlight, I hear the Snipe’s hovering note as he circles over Nawshawtuct Meadow. "). April 7, 1859 ("I hear there the hovering note of a snipe at 4.30 p.m., — unusually early in the day."); April 25, 1859 ("The snipe have hovered commonly this spring an hour or two before sunset and also in the morning. I can see them flying very high over the Mill-Dam, and they appear to make that sound when descending, — one quite by himself.")  See also A Book of Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Snipe

Singing and whistling at the same time.

March 30. 

March 30, 2016

6 a.m. — To Hill (across water). 

Hear a red squirrel chirrup at me by the hemlocks (running up a hemlock), all for my benefit; not that he is excited by fear, I think, but so full is he of animal spirits that he makes a great ado about the least event. 

At first he scratches on the bark very rapidly with his hind feet without moving the fore feet. He makes so many queer sounds, and so different from one another, that you would think they came from half a dozen creatures. I hear now two sounds from him of a very distinct character, — a low or base inward, worming, screwing, or brewing, kind of sound (very like that, by the way, which an anxious partridge mother makes) and at the same time a very sharp and shrill bark, and clear, on a very high key, totally distinct from the last, — while his tail is flashing incessantly. 

You might say that he successfully accomplished the difficult feat of singing and whistling at the same time. 

P. M. — To Walden via Hubbard's Close. 

The green-bodied flies out on sheds, and probably nearly as long as the other; the same size as the house-fly. 

I see numerous large skaters on a ditch. This may be the Gerris lacustris, but its belly is not white, only whitish in certain lights. It has six legs, two feelers (the two foremost legs being directed forward), a stout-ish body, and brown above. The belly looks whitish when you look at it edgewise, but turned quite over (on its back), it is brown. 

A very small brown grasshopper hops into the water. 

I notice again (in the spring-holes in Hubbard's Close) that water purslane, being covered with water, is an evergreen, — though it is reddish. 

Little pollywogs two inches long are lively there. 

See on Walden two sheldrakes, male and female, as is common. So they have for some time paired. They are a hundred rods off. The male the larger, with his black head and white breast, the female with a red head. With my glass I see the long red bills of both. They swim at first one way near together, then tack and swim the other, looking around incessantly, never quite at their ease, wary and watchful for foes. A man cannot walk down to the shore or stand out on a hill overlooking the pond without disturbing them. They will have an eye upon him. 

The locomotive-whistle makes every wild duck start that is floating within the limits of the town. I see that these ducks are not here for protection alone, for at last they both dive, and remain beneath about forty pulse-beats, — and again, and again. I think they are looking for fishes. Perhaps, therefore, these divers are more likely to alight in Walden than the black ducks are. 

Hear the hovering note of a snipe.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, March 30, 1859

Hear a red squirrel chirrup at me by the hemlocks (running up a hemlock), all for my benefit; not that he is excited by fear, I think, but so full is he of animal spirits that he makes a great ado about the least event. See October 5, 1857 (“I hear the alarum of a small red squirrel. . . .  It is evident that all this ado does not proceed from fear. There is at the bottom, no doubt, an excess of inquisitiveness and caution, but the greater part is make-believe and a love of the marvellous.) See also A Book of Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Red Squirrel

I see numerous large skaters on a ditch. See March 29, 1853 ("Tried several times to catch a skater. Got my hand close to him; grasped at him as quick as possible; was sure I had got him this time; let the water run out between my fingers; hoped I had not crushed him; opened my hand; and lo! he was not there. I never succeeded in catching one.”) See also A Book of Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Water-bug (Gyrinus) and  Skaters (Hydrometridae)

See on Walden two sheldrakes, male and female, as is common. . .  They swim at first one way near together, then tack and swim the other, looking around incessantly, never quite at their ease, wary and watchful for foes. See March 30, 1858 ("The full plumaged males, conspicuously black and white and often swimming in pairs, appeared to be the most wary, keeping furthest out. ").See also March 27, 1858 ("They are now pairing. . . .At first we see only a male and female quite on the alert, some way out on the pond, tacking back and forth and looking every way."); April 7, 1855 ("But they will let you come only within some sixty rods ordinarily. I observe that they are uneasy at sight of me and begin to sail away in different directions."). Also see A Book of Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Sheldrake (Goosander, Merganser)

Hear the hovering note of a snipe. See March 29, 1858 ("At the first pool I also scared up a snipe. It rises with a single cra-a-ckand goes off with its zigzag flight, with its bill presented to the earth, ready to charge bayonets against the inhabitants of the mud.”); April 1, 1853 ("Now, at early starlight, I hear the Snipe’s hovering note as he circles over Nawshawtuct Meadow. . . . It sounds very much like a winnowing-machine increasing rapidly in intensity for a few seconds.”) See also A Book of Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Snipe

A pair of ravens 

now crossing in front of us

in erratic flight.

March 30, 2019

Waters waiting for ice.

November 11. 

Goodwin brings me this forenoon a this year’s loon, which he just killed on the river, — great northern diver, but a smaller specimen than Wilson describes and somewhat differently marked. It is twenty-seven inches long to end of feet by forty-four, and bill three and three-quarters to angle of mouth; above blackish-gray with small white spots (two at end of each feather). Beneath, pure white, throat and all, except a dusky bar across the vent. Bill chiefly pale bluish and dusky. You are struck by its broad, flat, sharp-edged legs, made to cut through the water rather than to walk with, set far back and naturally stretched out backward, its long and powerful bill, conspicuous white throat and breast. 

Dislodged by winter in the north, it is slowly travelling toward a warmer clime, diving in the cool river this morning, which is now full of light, the trees and bushes on the brink having long since lost their leaves, and the neighboring fields are white with frost. Yet this hardy bird is comfortable and contented there if the sportsman would let it alone.

 P. M. — To Island and J. P. Brown’s cold pond. 

A cold day. Now seek sunny and sheltered places as in early spring, the south side the island, for example. Certain localities are thus distinguished. And they retain this peculiarity permanently, unless it depends on a wood which may be cut. Thousands of years hence this may still be the warmest and sunniest spot in the spring and fall. 

I hear here a faint creaking of two or three crickets or locustae, but it is a steady sound, — not the common cricket’s,— long-continued, and when one pauses, generally another continues the strain, so that it seems absolutely continuous. They are either in the grass or on the bushes by the edge of the water, under this sunny wood-side. I afterward hear a few of the common cricket on the side of Clamshell. Thus they are confined now to the sun on the south sides of hills and woods. They are quite silent long before sunset. 

Snow-fleas are skipping on the surface of the water at the edge, and spiders running about. These become prominent now. 

The waters look cold and empty of fish and most other inhabitants now. Here, in the sun in the shelter of the wood, the smooth shallow water, with the stubble standing in it, is waiting for ice. Indeed, ice that formed last night must have recently melted in it. The sight of such water now reminds me of ice as much as of winter quarters. 

The flowering dogwood, though still leafy, is uninteresting and partly withered. 

Gossamer reflecting the light is another November phenomenon (as well as October). I see here, looking toward the sun, a very distinct silvery sheen from the cranberry vines, as from a thousand other November surfaces, though, looking down on them, they are dark purple. 

Speaking of twiggy mazes, the very stubble and fine pasture grasses unshorn are others reflecting the light, too, like twigs; but these are of a peculiar bleached brownish color, a principal ingredient in the russet of the earth’s surface. 

Going by the willow-row above railroad, scare up a small duck, —perhaps teal, —and, in the withered grass at Nut Meadow Brook, two black ducks, which rise black between me and the sun, but, when they have circled round to the east, show some silvery sheen on the under side of their wings. 

Am surprised to see a little ice in this brook in the shade, as I push far up it through a dense field of withered blue-joint,—a spot white with frost, a few inches over. Saw a small pool in the woods also skimmed over, and many ice-crystals heaved up in low ground. 

Scare up a bird which at first ran in the grass, then flew, —a snipe. 

See only a very few small water-bugs in the brook, but no large ones nor skaters.

As a general rule, the leaves hold on longest on our indigenous trees and shrubs which were the first to leaf out, e. g. aspen, white birch, meadow-sweet, gooseberry, roses, sallows. 

In the shade of the wood, on the hillside just west of the cold pond, am surprised to see the frost about the cistus not in the least melted. This, at least, is an evidence that cold weather is come. Looking closely at it, it reminds me by its form and position of the decodon bark half cracked open. It consists of four or five thin curled shavings of frost, so to speak horizontally grained, placed vertically; and based on the stem, one within another, and curling toward the same side, forming a sort of fool’s cap of different thicknesses, or cockles, or sugar-plums. It seems it is so cool that the frost about the cistus does not melt all day, in the shade. 

Coming home I have cold fingers, and must row to get warm. 

In the meadows the pitcher-plants are bright-red. 

This is the month of nuts and nutty thoughts, — that November whose name sounds so bleak and cheerless. Perhaps its harvest of thought is worth more than all the other crops of the year. Men are more serious now. 

I find, in the wood-path this side that pond, thirteen kernels of corn close together, and five of them have the germ uncovered, the thin husk that was over them torn off. This might have been done accidentally by the squirrel (?) in separating it from the ear or in transporting it. And this may be the origin of some accounts of their eating out the germ to prevent its sprouting. If they do eat it, perhaps it is because it is the softest (as it is) and perhaps the most savory part. These were at least a third of a mile from a corn-field.

The tail-coverts of the young hen-hawk, i. e. this year’s bird, at present are white, very handsomely barred or watered with dark brown in an irregular manner, somewhat as above, the bars on opposite sides of the midrib alternating in an agreeable manner. Such natural objects have suggested the “watered” figures or colors in the arts. Few mortals ever look down on the tail-coverts of a young hen-hawk, yet these are not only beautiful, but of a peculiar beauty, being differently marked and colored (to judge from Wilson’s account of the old) from those of the old bird. Thus she finishes her works above men’s sight.

The scarlet oak leaf! What a graceful and pleasing outline! a combination of graceful curves and angles.     These deep bays in the leaf are agreeable to us as the thought of deep and smooth and secure havens to the mariner. But both your love of repose and your spirit of adventure are addressed, for both bays and head lands are represented, — sharp-pointed rocky capes and rounded bays with smooth strands. To the sailor’s eye it is a much indented shore, and in his casual glance he thinks that if he doubles its sharp capes he will find a haven in its deep rounded bays. 

If I were a drawing master, I would set my pupils to copying these leaves, that they might learn to draw firmly and gracefully. It is a shore to the aerial ocean, on which the windy surf beats. 

How different from the white oak leaf with its rounded headlands, on which no lighthouse need be placed! Some white oak leaves retain a smothered inward crimson fire long after they have fallen very pure and complete, more interesting to me than their fresher glow, because more indestructible, — an evening glow. 

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, November 11, 1858

Now seek sunny and sheltered places as in early spring. See note to November 18, 1857 (“Now, as in the spring, we rejoice in sheltered and sunny places. ”)

Thousands of years hence this may still be the warmest and sunniest spot in the spring and fall. Compare August 19, 1852 (“Here is a recess apparently never frequented. Thus this rill flowed here a thousand years ago, and with exactly these environments. ”)

The month of nuts and nutty thoughts, — that November whose name sounds so bleak and cheerless. Perhaps its harvest of thought is worth more than all the other crops of the year. See January 30, 1854 ("The winter was made to concentrate and harden and mature the kernel of man's brain, to give tone and firmness and consistency to his thought. This harvest of thought the great harvest of the year. The human brain is the kernel which the winter itself matures. Now we burn with a purer flame like the stars.")

See only a very few small water-bugs in the brook, but no large ones nor skaters. See November 11, 1852 ("Did Harris call the water-bug Gyrinus to-day? ")

In the meadows the pitcher-plants are bright-red. See September 28, 1851 ("This swamp [the spruce swamp in Conant's Grove] contains beautiful specimens of the sidesaddle-flower (Sarracenia purpurea), better called pitcher-plant. . . . These leaves are of various colors from plain green to a rich striped yellow or deep red.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Purple Pitcher Plant

 A pleasing outline

of graceful curves and angles –

the scarlet oak leaf!

Go a-graping up Assabet with some young ladies.

September 25. 

A smart white frost last night, which has killed the sweet potato vines and melons. 

P. M. — Go a-graping up Assabet with some young ladies. 

The zizania fruit is green yet, but mostly dropped or plucked. Does it fall, or do birds pluck it? 

The Gentiana Andrewsii are now in prime at Gentian Shore. Some are turned dark or reddish-purple with age. 

There is a very red osier-like cornel on the shore by the stone-heaps. 

Edward Hoar says he found last year Datum Stramomlum in their garden. Add it, then, to our plants. 

In the evening Mr. Warren brings me a snipe and a pectoral sandpiper. This last, which is a little less than the snipe but with a longer wing, must be much like T. solitarius, and I may have confounded them. The shaft of the first primary is conspicuously white above. 

The catbird still mews occasionally, and the chewink is heard faintly. 

Melvin says he has found the pigeon hawk’s nest here (distinct from partridge hawk’s); also that he sometimes sees the larger yellow-legs here. Goodwin also says the last.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 25, 1858

Go a-graping up Assabet with some young ladies. See August 12, 1853 ("To Conantum by boat, berrying, with three ladies.")

The Gentiana Andrewsii are now in prime at Gentian Shore. See  August 29, 1858  ("Gentiana Andrewsii, one not quite shedding pollen.")

The catbird still mews occasionally, and the chewink is heard faintly. See October 4, 1857 ("Hear a catbird and chewink, both faint."); also September 21, 1854 ("Hear the chewink and the cluck of the thrasher.");  September 25, 1855 ("Meanwhile the catbird mews in the alders by my side"); September 21, 1856 ("I hear of late faint chewink notes in the shrubbery, as if they were meditating their strains in a subdued tone against another year."); ; September 19, 1858 ("Hear a chewink’s chewink. But how ineffectual is the note of a bird now! We hear it as if we heard it not, and forget it immediately.")

Melvin says that he sometimes sees the large yellow-legs here. See September 14, 1854 ("A flock of thirteen tell tales, great yellow-legs, start up with their shrill whistle from the midst of the great Sudbury meadow")

This “booming” of the snipe is our regular village serenade.

April 9.

April rain at last, but not much; clears up at night.

At 4.30 P.M. to Well Meadow Field.

The yew looks as if it would bloom in a day or two, and the staminate Salix humilis in the path in three or four days. Possibly it is already out elsewhere, if, perchance, that was not it just beginning on the 6th on the Marlborough road. The pistillate appear more forward. It must follow pretty close to the earliest willows.

I hear the booming of snipe this evening, and Sophia says she heard them on the 6th. The meadows having been bare so long, they may have begun yet earlier.

Persons walking up or down our village street in still evenings at this season hear this singular winnowing sound in the sky over the meadows and know not what it is. This “booming” of the snipe is our regular village serenade. 

I heard it this evening for the first time, as I sat in the house, through the window. Yet common and annual and remarkable as it is, not one in a hundred of the villagers hears it, and hardly so many know what it is. Yet the majority know of the Germanians who have only been here once. Mr. Hoar was almost the only inhabitant of this street whom I had heard speak of this note, which he used annually to hear and listen for in his sundown or evening walks.

R. Rice tells me that he has seen the pickerel-spawn hung about in strings on the brush, especially where a tree had fallen in. He thinks it was the pickerel’s because he has seen them about at the time. This seems to correspond with mine of April 3d, though he did [not] recognize the peculiar form of it.

I doubt if men do ever simply and naturally glorify God in the ordinary sense, but it is remarkable how sincerely in all ages they glorify nature. The praising of Aurora, for instance, under some form in all ages is obedience to as irresistible an instinct as that which impels the frogs to peep.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, April 9, 1858

The yew looks as if it would bloom in a day or two, and the staminate Salix humilis in the path in three or four days. See April 13, 1858 ("That unquestionable staminate Salix humilis beyond yew will not be out for three or four days. Its old leaves on the ground are turned cinder-color, as are those under larger and doubtful forms.")

This “booming” of the snipe is our regular village serenade. See April 9, 1853 ("Evening. -- Hear the snipe a short time at early starlight. . . . Louder than all is heard the shrill peep of the hylodes and the hovering note of the snipe, circling invisible above them all.");  April 9, 1855 ("Some twenty minutes after sundown I hear the first booming of a snipe."); See also April 15, 1856 (" I hear a part of the hovering note of my first snipe, circling over some distant meadow"); April 18, 1854 (" One[snipe] booms now at 3 p. m."); April 18, 1856 ("This evening I hear the snipes generally and peeping of hylas from the door. ")' April 25, 1859 ("The snipe have hovered commonly this spring an hour or two before sunset and also in the morning . . . and they appear to make that sound when descending, — one quite by himself.") and  A Book of Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Snipe

Pickerel-spawn hung about in strings on the brush. See April 3, 1858 ("a curious kind of spawn. It was white, each ovum about as big as a robin-shot or larger, with mostly a very minute white core, no black core, and these were agglutinated together in the form of zigzag hollow cylinders, two or three inches in diameter and one or two feet long, looking like a lady's ruff or other muslin work, on the bottom or on roots and twigs of willow and button-bush")   See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Pickerel