A fresh and inspiring dazzling bright day.

March 1

The last day for skating. It is a very pleasant and warm day, the finest yet, with considerable coolness in the air however, — winter still. 

March 1, 2025

The air is beautifully clear, and I trace at a distance the roofs and outlines of farmhouses amid the woods. 

We go listening for bluebirds, but only hear crows and chickadees. 

A fine seething air over the fair russet fields. 

The dusty banks of snow by the railroad reflect a wonderfully dazzling white due to the higher sun.

I am surprised to find the North River more frozen than the South, and we can cross it in many places. The spring sun shining on the sloping icy shores makes numerous dazzling ice-blinks, still brighter and prolonged with rectilinear sides in the reflection. 

I did well to walk in the forenoon, the fresh and inspiring half of this bright day.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, March 1, 1855

The last day for skating. See February 3, 1855 ("This will deserve to be called the winter of skating."); See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Winter of Skating

It is a very pleasant and warm day, the finest yet.  See March 2, 1855 ("Another still, warm, beautiful day like yesterday. "); March 15, 1860 ("On the whole the finest day yet . . . Here is the first fair, and at the same time calm and warm, day") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The world can never be more beautiful than now.

I am surprised to find the North River more frozen than the South. See March 1, 1856 ("Ask the sheldrake whether the rivers are completely sealed up.") and A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Ice-out

The spring sun shining on the sloping icy shores. See March 1, 1854 ("For some days past the surface of the earth, covered with water, or with ice where the snow is washed off, has shone in the sun as it does only at the approach of spring.")

We go listening for bluebirds, but only hear crows and chickadees.  A fine seething air over the fair russet fields. See February 22, 1855 ("Remarkably warm and pleasant weather, perfect spring. I even listen for the first bluebird. I see a seething in the air over clean russet fields. "); March 1, 1854 ("I hear the phoebe or spring note of the chickadee, and the scream of the jay is perfectly repeated by the echo from a neighboring wood "); March 1, 1856 ("I hear several times the fine-drawn phe-be note of the chickadee. . .Singular that I should hear this on the first spring day."). See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Signs of the Spring:   

• Listening for the Bluebird 
• The Spring Note of the Chickadee 
• The crowing of cocks, the cawing of crows

March 1.  See A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,   March 1

I did well to waik

the fresh and inspiring half

of this bright day.

We go listening 

for bluebirds, but only hear 

crows and chickadees. 

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, A fresh and inspiring dazzling bright day.

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

https://tinyurl.com/hdt-550301

***

March 1. 10 A. M. — To Derby's Bridge and return by Sam Barrett's, to see ice cakes and meadow crust.

The last day for skating.

It is a very pleasant and warm day, the finest yet, with considerable coolness in the air, however, — winter still.

The air is beautifully clear, and through [ it ] I love to trace at a distance the roofs and outlines of sober - colored farmhouses amid the woods.

We go listening for bluebirds, but only hear crows and chickadees.

A fine seething air over the fair russet fields.

The dusty banks of snow by the railroad reflect a wonderfully dazzling white from their pure crannies, being melted into an uneven, sharp, wavy surface.

This more dazzling white must be due to the higher sun.

I see some thick cakes of ice where an ice - car has broken up : I detect a large bubble four inches in diameter about a foot be neath the upper surface and six inches from the lower.

In confirmation of my theory, the grain of the ice, as indicated by the linear bubbles within it, was converging beneath this bubble, as the rays of light under a burning glass, and what was the under surface at that time was melted in a concave manner to within one and a half inches of the bubble, as appeared by the curvature in the horizontal grain of the more recently formed ice beneath.

I omit to draw the other horizontal grain.

The situation of this bubble also suggests that ice perhaps increases more above than below the plane of its first freezing in the course of a winter, by the addition of surface water and snow ice.

Examined again the ice and meadow - crust deposited just south of Derby's Bridge.

The river is almost down to summer level there now, being only three to four feet deep at that bridge.

It has fallen about eight feet since February 17. The ice is piled up there three or four feet deep, and no water beneath, and most of the cakes, which are about one foot thick, have a crust of meadow of equal thickness (i. e. from six inches to a foot) attached beneath.

I saw in one place three cakes of ice each with a crust of meadow frozen to it beneath, lying one directly upon another and all upon the original ice there, alternately ice and meadow, and the middle crust of meadow measured twenty eight by twenty - two feet.

In this case the earth was about six inches thick only for the most part, three to four feet high in all above original ice.

This lay on a gentle ridge or swell between the main Derby Bridge and the little one beyond, and it suggested that that swell might have been thus formed or increased.

As we went down the bank through A. Hosmer's land we saw great cakes, and even fields of ice, lying up high and dry where you would not suspect otherwise that water had been.

Some have much of the withered pickerel - weed, stem and leaves, in it, causing it to melt and break up soon in the sun.

I saw one cake of ice, six inches thick and more than six feet in diameter, with a cake of meadow of exactly equal dimensions attached to its underside, exactly and evenly balanced on the top of a wall in a pasture forty rods from the river, and where you would not have thought the water ever came.

We saw three white maples about nine inches in diameter which had been torn up, roots and sod together, and in some cases carried a long distance.

One quite sound, of equal size, had been bent flat and broken by the ice striking it some six or seven feet from the ground.

Saw some very large pieces of meadow lifted up or carried off at mouth of G. M. Barrett's Bay.

One measured seventy - four by twenty - seven feet.

Topped with ice almost always, and the old ice still beneath.

In some cases the black, peaty soil thus floated was more than one and a half feet thick, and some of this last was carried a quarter of a mile without trace of ice to buoy it, but probably it was first lifted by ice.

Saw one piece more than a rod long and two feet thick of black, peaty soil brought from I know not where.

The edge of these meadow - crusts is singularly abrupt, as if cut with a turf - knife.

Of course a great surface is now covered with ice on each side of the river, under which there is no water, and we go constantly getting in with impunity.

The spring sun shining on the sloping icy shores makes numerous dazzling ice - blinks, still brighter, and prolonged with rectilinear sides, in the reflection.

I am surprised to find the North River more frozen than the South, and we can cross it in many places.

I think the meadow is lifted in this wise: First, you have a considerable freshet in midwinter, succeeded by severe cold before the water ' has run off much.

Then, as the water goes down, the ice for a certain width on each side the river meadows rests on the ground, which freezes to it.

Then comes another freshet, which rises a little higher than the former.

This gently lifts up the river ice, and that meadow ice on each side of it which still has water under it, without breaking them, but overflows the ice which is frozen to the bot tom.

Then, after some days of thaw and wind, the latter ice is broken up and rises in cakes, larger or smaller with or without the meadow - crust beneath it, and is floated off before the wind and current till it grounds somewhere, or melts and so sinks, frequently three cakes one upon another, on some swell in the meadow or the edge of the upland.

The ice is thus with us a wonderful agent in changing the aspect of the surface of the river - valley.

I think that there has been more meadow than usual moved this year, because we had so great a freshet in midwinter succeeded by severe cold, and that by another still greater freshet before the cold weather was past.

Saw a butcher-bird, as usual on top of a tree, and distinguished from a jay by black wings and tail and streak side of head.

I did well to walk in the forenoon, the fresh and inspiring half of this bright day, for now, at mid afternoon, its brightness is dulled, and a fine stratus is spread over the sky.

Is not “the starry puff (Lycoperdon stellatum)” of the “Journal of a Naturalist,” which “remains driving about the pastures, little altered until spring," my five fingered fungus ?

The same tells of goldfinches (Fringilla carduelis) (Bewick calls it the " thistle - finch ”) "scattering all over the turf the down of the thistle, as they pick out the seed for their food.” It is singular that in this particular it should resemble our goldfinch, a different bird.

 

Now the springing foliage is like a sunlight on the woods

May 22.

5.30 a. m. — Up Assabet.  

May 22, 2019

Now begins the slightly sultryish morning air 

into which you awake early to hear 

the faint buzz of a fly 

or hum of other insect. 

The teeming air, deep and hollow, 

filled with some spiritus, 

pregnant as not in winter 

or spring, with room for imps, 

— good angels and bad, —

 

many chambers in it, 

infinite sounds. 

I partially awake the first time for a month at least. 

As if the cope of the sky lifted, 

the heat stretched and swelled it as a bladder, 

and it remained permanently higher 

and more infinite for the summer. Suggesting 

that the night has not been, with its incidents.

10 a. m. — To Fair Haven by boat. 

I rest in the orchard, doubtful 

whether to sit in shade or sun. 

Now the springing foliage 

is like a sunlight on the woods. 

I am first attracted 

and surprised 

when I look round and off to Conantum, 

at the smooth, lawn-like green fields. 

The air so clear 

— as not in summer — 

makes all things shine, 

as if all surfaces had been washed 

by the rains of spring 

and were not yet soiled 

or begrimed or dulled. You see 

even to the mountains clearly. 

The grass so short and fresh, 

the tender yellowish-green and silvery 

foliage of the deciduous trees 

lighting up the landscape, 

the birds now most musical, 

the sorrel beginning to redden 

the fields with ruddy health, — 

all these things make earth now a paradise. 

How many times 

I have been surprised  thus, 

on turning about on this very spot, 

at the fairness of the earth!

At Lee's Cliff. --

First observe the creak of crickets. It is quite general amid these rocks. The song suggests lateness, but only as we come to a knowledge of eternity after some acquaintance with time. It is only late for all trivial and hurried pursuits. It suggests a wisdom mature, never late, being above all temporal considerations, which possesses the coolness and maturity of autumn amidst the aspiration of spring and the heats of summer. They sit aside from the revolution of the seasons. Their strain is unvaried as Truth. 

Only in their saner moments do men hear the crickets. In their song they ignore our accidents. They are not concerned about the news. A quire has begun which pauses not for any news, for it knows only the eternal. 

I hear also pe-a-wee pe-a-wee, and then occasionally pee-yu, the first syllable in a different and higher key emphasized, — all very sweet and naive and innocent.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 22, 1854

The tender yellowish-green and silvery foliage of the deciduous trees lighting up the landscape, the birds now most musical — all these things make earth now a paradise. See May 17, 1852   (“The sun comes out and lights up the tender expanding leaves, and all nature is full of light and fragrance, and the birds sing without ceasing, and the earth is a fairyland. ”); May 18, 1852 (“this tender foliage, putting so much light and life into the landscape, is the remarkable feature at this date.”); May 18, 1851("The landscape has a new life and light infused into it. And to the eye the forest presents the tenderest green.”)

How many times I have been surprised thus, on turning about on this very spot, at the fairness of the earth! See  May 17, 1853 ("I was surprised, on turning round, to behold the serene and everlasting beauty of the world.”); October 7, 1857 ("When I turn round half-way up Fair Haven Hill, by the orchard wall, and look northwest, I am surprised for the thousandth time at the beauty of the landscape”); March 18, 1858 ("When I get two thirds up the hill, I look round and am for the hundredth time surprised by the landscape of the river valley and the horizon with its distant blue scalloped rim.”).  See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Reminiscence and Prompting

First observe the creak of crickets. See May 22, 1853 ("The crickets now first are generally heard.") See also May 24, 1857 ("Hear the first cricket as I go through a warm hollow, bringing round the summer with his everlasting strain."); June 4, 1857 (" One thing that chiefly distinguishes this season from three weeks ago is that fine serene undertone or earth-song as we go by sunny banks and hillsides, the creak of crickets, which affects our thoughts so favorably, imparting its own serenity.") andA Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Cricket in Spring

I hear also pe-a-wee pe-a-wee, and then occasionally pee-yu. See  May 22, 1853 ("The wood pewee’s warm note is heard") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Arrival of the Eastern Wood Pewee

May 22.  See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, May 22

Turning round, I am

surprised one more time by the

beauty of the world.

Springing foliage

lights up the landscape like a

sunlight on the woods.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau. 

Springing foliage is like a sunlight on the woods

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

 

tinyurl.com/hdt-540522 

I have an appointment with spring.

March 22

As soon as those spring mornings arrive in which the birds sing, I am sure to be an early riser. I am waked by my genius. I wake to inaudible melodies and am surprised to find myself expecting the dawn in so serene and joyful and expectant a mood.

I have an appointment with spring. She comes to the window to wake me, and I go forth an hour or two earlier than usual.

It is by especial favor that I am waked, not rudely but gently, as infants should be waked. Though as yet the trill of the chip-bird is not heard, — added, — like the sparkling bead which bursts on bottled cider or ale.

When we wake indeed, with a double awakening, not only from our ordinary nocturnal slumbers, but from our diurnal, we burst through the thallus of our ordinary life with a proper exciple, we awake with emphasis.

To Cliffs. 6 A. M.- There is a white frost on the ground.

One robin really sings on the elms. Even the cockerel crows with new lustiness. Already I hear from the railroad the plaintive strain of a lark or two. They sit now conspicuous on the bare russet ground. 

The tinkling  bubbles of the song sparrow are wafted from distant fenceposts, little rills of song that begin to flow and tinkle as soon as the frost is out of the ground.

The blackbird tries to sing, as it were with a bone in his throat, or to whistle and sing at once. Whither so fast, the restless creature, chuck, chuck, at every rod, and now and then whistle-ter-ee? 

The chill-lill of the blue snowbirds is heard again.

A partridge goes off on Fair Haven Hill-side with a sudden whir like the wad of a six-pounder, keeping just level with the tops of the sprouts. These birds and quails go off like a report.

It affects one's philosophy, after so long living in winter quarters, to see the day dawn from some hill. Our effete lowland town is fresh as New Hampshire. It is as if we had migrated and were ready to begin life again in a new country, with new hopes and resolutions. See your town with the dew on it, in as wild a morning mist (though thin) as ever draped it.

To stay in the house all day, such reviving spring days as the past have been, bending over a stove and gnawing one's heart, seems to me as absurd as for a woodchuck to linger in his burrow.  We have not heard the news then! Sucking the claws of our philosophy when there is game to be had! 

The tapping of the woodpecker, rat-tat-tat, knocking at the door of some sluggish grub to tell him that the spring has arrived, and his fate, this is one of the season sounds, calling the roll of birds and insects, the reveille.

The Cliff woods are comparatively silent. Not yet the woodland birds, except, perhaps, the woodpecker, so far as it migrates; only the orchard and river birds have arrived.

Probably the improvements of men thus advance the season. This is the Bahamas and the tropics or turning point to the redpoll. Is not the woodpecker (downy?) our first woodland bird? Come to see what effects the frost and snow and rain have produced on decaying trees, what trunks will drum.

Fair Haven Pond will be open entirely in the course of the day. 

The oak plain is still red. There are no expanding leaves to greet and reflect the sun as it first falls over the hills. To see the first rays of the sun falling over an eastern wooded ridge on to a western wood and stream and lake! 

I go along the riverside to see the now novel reflections. The subsiding waters have left a thou sand little isles, where willows and sweet-gale and the meadow itself appears. 

I hear the phoebe note of the chickadee, one taking it up behind another as in a catch, phe-bee phe-bee.

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.

One of my willow catkins in the pitcher has opened at length.

That is an interesting morning when one first uses the warmth of the sun instead of fire; bathes in the sun, as anon in the river; eschewing fire, draws up to a garret window and warms his thoughts at nature's great central fire, as does the buzzing fly by his side.

Like it, too, our muse, wiping the dust off her long-unused wings, goes blundering through the cobweb of criticism, more dusty still, what venerable cobweb is that, which has hitherto escaped the broom, whose spider is invisible, but the North American Review? — and carries away the half of it.

No sap flows from the maples I cut into, except that one in Lincoln.

What means it? Hylodes Pickeringii, a name that is longer than the frog itself! A description of animals, too, from a dead specimen only, as if, in a work on man, you were to describe a dead man only, omitting his manners and customs, his institutions and divine faculties, from want of opportunity to observe them, suggesting, perchance, that the colors of the eye are said to be much more brilliant in the living specimen, and that some cannibal, your neighbor, who has tried him on his table, has found him to be sweet and nutritious, good on the gridiron.

Having had no opportunity to observe his habits, because you do not live in the country.

Only dindons and dandies.

Nothing is known of his habits.

Food : seeds of wheat, beef, pork, and potatoes.



P. M. — To Martial Miles Meadow, by boat to Nut Meadow Brook.

Launched my new boat. It is very steady, too steady for me; does not toss enough and communicate the motion of the waves. Beside, the seats are not well arranged; when there are two in it, it requires a heavy stone in the stern to trim. But it holds its course very well with a side wind from being so flat from stem to stern.

The cranberries now make a show under water, and I always make it a point to taste a few.

Fresh clamshells have been left by the muskrats at various heights.

C. says he saw a painted tortoise yesterday. Very likely.

We started two ducks feeding behind a low spit of meadow. From Brooks's plates I should think them widgeons. [Brown thinks them sheldrakes.] They had the grayish-white breasts of the wood duck. They look as if they had dropped from heaven, motionless.

Saw a green grasshopper and a common caterpillar, also another beetle similar to that of yesterday, except that this was a sort of slate-color with two or three fawn-colored marks on each wing-case.

The spearheads of the skunk cabbage are now quite conspicuous.  I see that many flowers have been destroyed by the cold. In no case is the spathe unrolled, and I think it is not yet in blossom.

At Nut Meadow Brook, water-bugs and skaters are now plenty.

I see the Emys guttata with red spots. Some which I think to be the same sex have striated scales, while others are smooth above. What I take to be the female has a flat-edged shell as well as depressed sternum. The yellow spots appear like some yellow wood let in. The spots are brightest when they are in the water. They are in couples.

C. saw a frog.

Some willows will be out in a day or two. Silvery catkins of all sizes shine afar.

The two white feathers of the blue snowbird contrast prettily with the slate.

Returning to river, the water is blue as blue ink from this side.  Hubbard's field a smooth russet bank lit by the setting sun and the pale skim-milk sky above.

I told Stacy the other day that there was another volume of De Quincey's Essays (wanting to see it in his library).

"I know it " says he, "but I shan't buy any more of them, for nobody reads them."

I asked what book in his library was most read.

He said, “The Wide, Wide World.” 

In a little dried and bleached tortoiseshell about an inch and three quarters long, I can easily study his anatomy and the house he lives in. His ribs are now distinctly revealed under his lateral scales, slanted like rafters to the ridge of his roof, for his sternum is so large that his ribs are driven round upon his back.

It is wonderful to see what a perfect piece of dovetailing his house is, the different plates of his shell fitting into each other by a thousand sharp teeth or serrations, and the scales always breaking joints over them so as to bind the whole firmly together, all parts of his abode variously inter-spliced and dovetailed.

An architect might learn much from a faithful study of it.

There are three large diamond-shaped openings down the middle of the sternum, covered only by the scales, through [ which ], perhaps, he feels, he breasts the earth. His roof rests on four stout posts.This young one is very deep in proportion to its breadth. The Emys guttata is first found in warm, muddy ditches.

The bæomyces is not yet dried up.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, March 22, 1853

So  serene and joyful and expectant a mood. See September 2. 1856 ("It commonly chances that I make my most interesting botanical discoveries when I am in a thrilled and expectant mood.")

I have an appointment with spring. See Walden, “Spring” ("I am on the alert for the first signs of spring,”)

A double awakening. See Walden ("We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake, by an infinite expectation of the dawn.”)

Fair Haven Pond will be open entirely in the course of the day. See March 22, 1855 (" I cross Fair Haven Pond, including the river, on the ice, and probably can for three or four days yet..") ; March 22, 1854 ("Launch boat and paddle to Fair Haven . . . Fair Haven still covered and frozen anew in part.")

At Nut Meadow Brook, water-bugs and skaters are now plenty. See March 19, 1860 ("Myriads of water-bugs of various sizes are now gyrating, and they reflect the sun like silver. Why do they cast a double orbicular shadow on the bottom?"); March 22, 1860 ("The phenomena of an average March . . . the gyrinus, large and small, on brooks, etc., and skaters") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau,Signs of the Spring, the water-bug (Gyrinus)

Some willows will be out in a day or two. Silvery catkins of all sizes shine afar. See March 22, 1854 ("The now silvery willow catkins shine along the shore"); March 22. 1860 ("The phenomena of an average March . . . Vegetation fairly begins. . . bæomyces handsome; willow catkins become silvery, aspens downy; osiers, etc., look bright,. . .alder and hazel catkins become relaxed and elongated.");  March 21, 1855. ("Early willow . . .catkins are very conspicuous now . . .This increased silveriness was obvious, I think, about the first of March, perhaps earlier . . . It is the first decided growth I have noticed, and is probably a month old.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Signs of the Spring: Alder and Willow Catkins Expanding

The very earliest alder is in bloom and sheds its pollen.. . . the first native flower. See March. 23, 1853 ("A very handsome and interesting show they make with their graceful tawny pendants, inclining to yellow. They shake like ear-drops in the wind, perhaps the first completed ornaments with which the new year decks herself. Their yellow pollen is shaken down and colors my coat like sulphur as I go through them.")

I see the Emys guttata with red spots. . .  C. saw a frog . . . The Emys guttata is first found in warm, muddy ditches. See February 23, 1857 ("See two yellow-spotted tortoises in the ditch. . . these brilliantly spotted creatures. There are commonly two, at least. The tortoise is stirring in the ditches again. . . . The spots seem brighter than ever when first beheld in the spring, as does the bark of the willow. "); March 18, 1854 ("C. has already seen a yellow-spotted tortoise in a ditch."); March 22. 1860 ("The phenomena of an average March . . . those little frogs (sylvatica males ?) at spring-holes and ditches, the yellow-spot turtle and wood turtle, Rana fontinalis, and painted tortoise come forth, and the Rana sylvatica croaks.. ") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Yellow-Spotted Turtle (Emys guttata) and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Signs of the Spring: Frogs, and Turtles Stirring

The spearheads of the skunk cabbage are now quite conspicuous. . . .it is not yet in blossom. See  March 22, 1860; ("The phenomena of an average March . . . The skunk-cabbage begins to bloom (23d)"); March 21, 1858 ("The skunk-cabbage at Clamshell is well out, shedding pollen. It is evident that the date of its flowering is very fluctuating, according to the condition in which the winter leaves the crust of the meadow.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Signs of Spring: the Skunk Cabbage

 Waked by my genius

 in so serene joyful and 

expectant a mood.

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau,  An appointment with spring.

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

https://tinyurl.com/hdt5303

 

The world can never be more beautiful than now

May 18

It is fine clear atmosphere, only the mountains blue.  Shall we have much of this weather after this? There is scarcely a flock of cloud in the sky. 

The heaven is now broad and open to the earth in these longest days. 

The world can never be more beautiful than now, for, combined with the tender fresh green, you have this remarkable clearness of the air. 

I doubt if the landscape will be any greener.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 18, 1852

The world can never be more beautiful than now.  See May 1850 ("I still sit on its Cliff in a new spring day, and look over the awakening woods and the river, and hear the new birds sing, with the same delight as ever. It is as sweet a mystery to me as ever, what this world is."); May 5, 1852 ("Every part of the world is beautiful today.”); May 17, 1852 ("I was surprised, on turning round, to behold the serene and everlasting beauty of the world."); May 22, 1854 ("How many times I have been surprised thus, on turning about on this very spot, at the fairness of the earth!”);  October 7, 1857 ("When I turn round half-way up Fair Haven Hill, by the orchard wall, and look northwest, I am surprised for the thousandth time at the beauty of the landscape."); December 5, 1856 ("I have never got over my surprise that I should have been born into the most estimable place in all the world, and in the very nick of time, too.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The world can never be more beautiful than now.

 May 18. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, May 18 

This tender fresh green –

the world can never be more

beautiful than now.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,  The world beautiful now

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-520518

The first wave of summer from the south..

May 7

4.30 A.M. -To Cliffs.  Heard a robin singing powerfully an hour ago, and song sparrows, and the cocks. Beginning, I may say, with robins, song sparrows, chip-birds, bluebirds, etc., I walk through larks, pewees, pigeon woodpeckers, chickadees, towhees, huckleberry-birds, wood thrushes, brown thrasher, jay, catbird, etc., etc. Enter a cool stratum of air beyond Hayden’s. Hear the first partridge drum. 

The first oven-bird. 

There appear to be one or more little warblers in the woods this morning which are new to the season, about which I am in doubt, myrtlebirds among them. For now, before the leaves, they begin to people the trees in this warm weather. The first wave of summer from the south.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal  May 7, 1852

The first oven-bird. See May 7, 1853 ("The woods now begin to ring with the woodland note of the oven-bird.") See also May 1, 1852 (" I think I heard an oven-bird just now, - wicher wicher whicher wich."); May 4, 1855 ("In cut woods a small thrush, with crown inclining to rufous, tail foxy, and edges of wings dark-ash; clear white beneath. I think the golden-crowned?");   May 16, 1858 ("A golden-crowned thrush hops quite near. It is quite small, about the size of the creeper, with the upper part of its breast thickly and distinctly pencilled with black, a tawny head; and utters now only a sharp cluck for a chip."); June 7, 1853 ("The oven-bird runs from her covered nest, so close to the ground under the lowest twigs and leaves, even the loose leaves on the ground, like a mouse, that I can not get a fair view of her. She does not fly at all. Is it to attract me, or partly to protect herself ?  "); June 19, 1858 (" See an oven-bird's nest with two eggs and one young one just hatched. The bird flits out low, and is, I think, the same kind that I saw flit along the ground and trail her wings to lead me off day before yesterday") July 3, 1853  ("The oven-bird's nest in Laurel Glen is near the edge of an open pine wood, under a fallen pine twig and a heap of dry oak leaves. Within these, on the ground, is the nest, with a dome-like top and an arched entrance of the whole height and width on one side. Lined within with dry pine-needles"). See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The Oven-bird

Warblers in the woods this morning which are new to the season . . . See May 28, 1855 ("I have seen within three or four days two or three new warblers “); May 15, 1860 ("Deciduous woods now swarm with migrating warblers, especially about swamps.”)