A hard rain falling. River rising.

November 13.

It has rained hard the 11th, 12th, and 13th, and the river is at last decidedly rising.

On Friday, 10th, it was still at summer level.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, November 13, 1854

The ripe Canada plum

August 16.

AUGUST 16, 2020

2 P. M. — River about ten and a half inches above summer level. 

Apparently the Canada plum began to be ripe about the 10th.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 16, 1860

River about ten and a half inches above summer level. See August 2, 1860 ("At 2 P. M. the river is twelve and seven eighths above summer level, higher than for a long time, on account of the rain of the 31st."); August 12, 1860 ("River at 5 P. M. three and three quarters inches below summer level."); August 22, 1860 ("The river is fifteen and three quarters inches above summer level ."); September 1 1860 ("River about eight inches above summer level yesterday .")

August 16. See A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,  August 16

 

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau

"A book, each page written in its own season,

out-of-doors, in its own locality.”

~edited, assembled and rewritten by zphx © 2009-2021

At this moment these turtles are on their way inland to lay their eggs.

June 12. 

P . M. Up Assabet.

I find several Emys insculpta nests and eggs, and see two painted turtles going inland to lay at 3 P. M. 

At this moment these turtles are on their way inland to lay their eggs all over the State, warily drawing in their heads and waiting when you come by.

Here is a painted turtle just a rod inland, its back all covered with the fragments of green leaves blown off and washed up yesterday, which now line the shore . It has come out through this wrack. 

As the river has gone down, these green leaves mark the bank in lines just like sawdust. 

I see a young yellow-spot turtle in the Assabet, still quite broad and roundish though I count about seven striæ. It is very handsome. 

At 7. 30 P. M.  I hear many toads, it being a warm night, but scarcely any hylodes. [17th, have heard no more hylodes.]

River ten and one third above summer level.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, June 12, 1860

I find several Emys insculpta nests and eggs. See June 11, 1858 ("Looking carefully to see where the ground had been recently disturbed, I dug with my hand and could directly feel the passage to the eggs, and so discovered two or three nests with their large and long eggs, – five eggs in one of them."). See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau,the Wood Turtle (Emys insculpta)

   

Warily drawing in their heads and waiting when you come by. See June 5, 1858 ("I now see a painted turtle in a rut, crossing a sandy road. They are now laying, then. When they get into a rut they find it rather difficult to get out, and, hearing a wagon coming, they draw in their heads, lie still, and are crushed")

A painted turtle just a rod inland . See . May 27, 1855 ("See a painted turtle on a hill forty or fifty feet above river, probably laying eggs."); June 7, 1860 ("A painted turtle beginning her hole for eggs at 4 P.M."); June 14, 1853 ("On the Strawberry Hill on the further side of White Pond, about fifty feet above the pond and a dozen rods from it, found a painted tortoise laying her eggs.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Painted Turtle (Emys picta)

Green leaves mark the bank in lines just like sawdust. See April 1, 1858 ("It is remarkable that the river seems rarely to rise or fall gradually, but rather by fits and starts, and hence the water-lines, as indicated now by the sawdust, are very distinct parallel lines four or five or more inches apart.”); April 1, 1860 ("We see lines of sawdust perfectly level and parallel to one another on the side of the steep dark bank at the Hemlocks, for thirty rods or more visible at once, reminding you of a coarse chalk line made by snapping a string, not more than half an inch wide much of it, but more true than that would be. The sawdust . . .probably marks the standstill or highest water for the time.”)

I see a young yellow-spot turtle in the Assabet, still quite broad and roundish though I count about seven striæ. See March 10, 1853 ("I am surprised to find on the rail a young tortoise, an inch and one sixteenth long in the shell, . . .which I think must be the Emys guttata, for there is a large and distinct yellow spot on each dorsal and lateral plate, . . . two yellow spots on each side of the hind head and one fainter on the top of the head. . . . It is about seven eighths of an inch wide. See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Yellow-Spotted Turtle

I hear many toads, it being a warm night, but scarcely any hylodes. See . June 12, 1855  (" I hear the toad . . . still. . . .This rich, sprayey note possesses all the shore. It diffuses itself far and wide over the water and enters into every crevice of the noon, and you cannot tell whence it proceeds") See also June 16, 1860 ("It appears to me that these phenomena occur simultaneously, say June 12th, viz.: -Heat about 85° at 2 P. M. True summer . Hylodes cease to peep . Purring frogs (Rana palustris) cease . Lightning - bugs first seen . Bullfrogs trump generally . Mosquitoes begin to be really troublesome . Afternoon thunder - showers almost regular . Sleep with open window ( 10th), and wear thin coat and ribbon on neck . Turtles fairly and generally begun to lay.")

The sprayey note of toads now more than ever, after the rain.

May 31. 

Rained hard during the night.

May 31, 2020

At 6 P. M. the river has risen to half an inch below summer level, having been three to four inches below summer level yesterday morning. 

I hear the sprayey note of toads now more than ever, after the rain.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 31, 1860

I hear the sprayey note of toads now more than ever, after the rain. See May 31, 1858 ("Does not the voice of the toad along the river sound differently now from what it did a month ago? "); May 13, 1860 ("It is so warm that I hear the peculiar sprayey note of the toad generally at night."); May 16, 1853 ("Nature’appears to have passed a crisis. . . . The sprayey dream of the toad has a new sound."); May 19, 1854 ("I hear the sprayey-note frog now at sunset."); May 25, 1859 ("Hear within a day or two what I call the sprayey note of the toad, different and later than its early ring."); May 25, 1860 ("5 P.M. the toads ring loud and numerously, as if invigorated by this little moisture and coolness.”) See also June 13, 1851 ("The different frogs mark the seasons pretty well,- the peeping hyla, the dreaming frog, and the bullfrog.") and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Ring of Toads

May 31. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, May 31

I hear the sprayey 

note of toads more than ever –

now after the rain.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau

"A book, each page written in its own season,

out-of-doors, in its own locality.”

~edited, assembled and rewritten by zphx © 2009-2021

A kind of mining bee.

May 10.

River six and one eighth inches below summer level.

Thermometer at 2 P. M., 71°. The winds died away with April. 

In the midst of a remarkable drought. Hear of great fires in the woods up country the past week, it is so dry. Some farmers plowed around their houses to save them. 

P. M. – To Bateman’s Pond.

Salix alba flower in prime and resounding with the hum of bees on it. The sweet fragrance fills the air for a long distance. How much the planting of this willow adds to the greenness and cheerfulness of our landscape at this season! 

As I stand on Hunt’s Bridge, I notice the now comparatively dark green of the canary grass (Phalaris), the coarse grass vigorously springing up on the muddy islands and edges, the glaucous green of Carex stricta tufts, and the light yellowish green of the very coarse sedges of the meadow. 

Going over the hill behind S. Brown’s, when we crossed the triangular space between the roads beyond the pump-maker’s, I saw countless little heaps of sand like the small ant-hills, but, looking more closely, the size of the holes (a little less than a quarter of an inch) and the comparative irregularity of the heaps — as if the sand had been brought forth and dropped in greater quantity at once — attracted my attention and I found they were the work of bees.

The bees were hovering low over the surface, and were continually entering and issuing from the holes. They were about the size of a honey-bee, black bodied, with, I thought, yellow thighs, -- if it was not pollen. Many of the holes appeared to have been freshly stopped up with granules of moist sand. These holes were made close together in the dry and sandy soil there, with very little grass on it, sloping toward the west, between the roads, and covered a triangular space some seven rods by three. I counted twenty-four in a square foot. There must have been some twenty-five thousand of these nests in all. The surface was yellowed with them. Evidently a kind of mining bee. 

I see in roadside hard sward, by the brook beyond, a sedge darker than the stricta and not in tufts, quite short. Is it the C. vulgaris? Its leading spikes are effete. 

Evergreen-forest note.

Some very young oaks — white oak, etc. — in woods begin to leaf. 

Hear the first cricket. 

The red maples, fruiting now, are in the brick-red state. 

I heard yesterday one or two warblers. One’s note was, in rhythm, like a very feeble field sparrow. Was it the redstart? Probably one or two strange warblers now. Was it not the parti-colored warbler, — with bluish head and yellow beneath, but not the screeper note, but note ending with a jingle slightly like the field sparrow? 

Meadow fox-tail grass out several days.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 10, 1860

Salix alba flower in prime and resounding with the hum of bees. See May 10, 1853 ("At this season the traveller passes through a golden gate on causeways where these willows are planted, as if he were approaching the entrance to Fairyland."); May 10, 1854 ("I perceive the sweetness of the willows on the causeway."). See also May 3, 1853  ('The willows (Salix alba) where I keep my boat resound with the hum of bees and other insects"); May 9, 1852 ("I smell the blossoms of the willows, . . . a quarter of a mile to windward. "); May 11, 1854 ("The willows on the Turnpike now resound with the hum of bees,"); May 12, 1855 ("I perceive the fragrance of the Salix alba, now in bloom, more than an eighth of a mile distant. They now adorn the causeways with their yellow blossoms and resound with the hum of bumblebees,"); May 14, 1852 ("Going over the Corner causeway, the willow blossoms fill the air with a sweet fragrance, and I am ready to sing,")

The glaucous green of Carex stricta tufts, and the light yellowish green of the very coarse sedges of the meadow. By the brook beyond, a sedge darker than the stricta and not in tufts, quite short. See May 10, 1858 ("That early glaucous, sharp-pointed, erect sedge, grass like, by the riverside is now apparently in prime.") See also June 19, 1859 ("The prevailing sedge of Heywood Meadow by Bartlett Hill-side, that which showed yellow tops in the spring, is the Carex stricta.")

One or two strange warblers now. See April 19, 1854 ("Within a few days the warblers have begun to come."); April 30, 1859 ("This first off-coat warmth just preceding the advent of the swamp warblers (parti-colored, red start, etc.) brings them out."); May 7, 1852 ("For now, before the leaves, they begin to people the trees in this warm weather."); May 11, 1853 ("How many little birds of the warbler family are busy now about the opening buds, while I sit by the spring! They are almost as much a part of the tree as its blossoms and leaves. They come and give it voice. "); May 15, 1859 (“Now, when the warblers begin to come in numbers with the leafing of the trees, the woods are so open that you can easily see them. ”);May 15, 1860 ("Deciduous woods now swarm with migrating warblers, especially about swamps.”);May 18, 1856 ("The swamp is all alive with warblers about the hoary expanding buds of oaks, maples, etc., and amid the pine and spruce."); May 23, 1857("This is the time and place to hear the new-arriving warblers, the first fine days after the May storm. When the leaves generally are just fairly expanding,")

May 10. SeeA Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, May 10

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau

"A book, each page written in its own season,

out-of-doors, in its own locality."

 ~edited, assembled and rewritten by zphx ©  2009-2021

The white-fingered flower of the sprout-lands.

May 6. 

May 6, 2017

River three and one fourth inches below summer level. Why is it only three eighteenths of an inch lower than last Sunday (April 29)? For we are in the midst of a remarkable drought, and I think that if there had been any rain within a week near the sources of the river I should have heard of it. Is it that these innumerable sources of the river which the springs in the meadows are, are able to keep up the supply? The river had been falling steadily a good while before. Why, then, has it not fallen more the past week?

The dog’s-tooth violet was sent from Cambridge in flower, May 1st. 

2 P. M. – To Second Division. 

74°; wind southeast; and hazy. 

A goldfinch apparently not quite in summer dress; with a dark-brown, not black, front. 

See a song sparrow’s nest with four eggs in the side of a bank, or rather ditch. I commonly find the earliest ones in such sheltered and concealed places. What did they do before the white man came here with his ditches and stone walls? 

(Methinks by the 13th I hear the bay wing sing the oftenest.)

 As I go down the warm sandy path in the gully behind J. P. Brown’s, I see quite a number of Viola pedata, indigo-weed shoots six inches high, a prenanthes leaf eight inches high, and two-leaved Solomon’s-seal pushing up, — all signs of warm weather. 

As the leaves are putting forth on the trees, so now a great many herbaceous plants are springing up in the woods and fields. 

There is a peculiar stillness associated with the warmth, which the cackling of a hen only serves to deepen, increasing the Sabbath feeling.

In the Major Heywood path see many rather small (or middle-sized) blackish butterflies. 

The Luzula campestris is apparently in prime. Oryzopsis grass well out, how long? 

Now at last we seek the shade these days, as the most grateful. Sit under the pines near the stone guide post on the Marlborough road. The note of the pine warbler, which sounded so warm in March, sounds equally cool now. 

The Second Division rush is not yet out. It is the greatest growth of what you may call the grass kind as yet, the reddish tops, say sixteen inches high (above the now green), trembling in the wind very agreeably. 

The dark beds of the white ranunculus in the Second Division Brook are very interesting, the whitish stems seen amid and behind the dark-brown old leaves. 

The white-throated sparrow, and probably the 28th of April. 

The large osmunda ferns, say one foot high, some of them; also a little brake one foot high. 

Hear probably a yellow-throated vireo in the woods. 

A creeper (black and white) yesterday. 

Sit on the steep north bank of White Pond. The Amelanchier Botryapium in flower now spots the brown sprout-land hillside on the southeast side, across the pond, very interestingly. Though it makes but a faint impression of color, I see its pink distinctly a quarter of a mile off. It is seen now in sprout-lands half a dozen years old, where the oak leaves have just about all fallen except a few white oaks. (It is in prime about the 8th.) Others are seen directly under the bank on which we sit, on this side, very white against the blue water. Many at this distance would not notice those shad bush flowers on the hillside, or (would) mistake them for whitish rocks. They are the more interesting for coming thus between the fall of the oak leaves and the expanding of other shrubs and trees. 

Some of the larger, near at hand, are very light and elegant masses of white bloom. The white-fingered flower of the sprout-lands. In sprout-lands, having probably the start or preëminence over the other sprouts, from not being commonly, or at all, cut down with the other trees and shrubs, they are as high or higher than any of them for five or six years, and they are so early that they feel almost the full influence of the sun, even amid full grown deciduous trees which have not leafed, while they are considerably sheltered from the wind by them.  

There is so fine a ripple on White Pond that it amounts to a mere imbrication, very regular. 

The song of the robin heard at 4:30 P. M., this still and hazy day, sounds already vespertinal. 

Maple keys an inch and a half long. 

Mists these mornings. 

Our second shad-bush out, how long? It is generally just beginning in the woods. 

My chamber is oppressively warm in the evening.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 6, 1860

I see quite a number of Viola pedata. See May 6, 1859 ("Viola pedata begins to be common about white pine woods there") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Violets

The note of the pine warbler, which sounded so warm in March, sounds equally cool now. See April 2, 1853 ("Hear and see what I call the pine warbler, --vetter vetter vetter vetter vet, -- the cool woodland sound. ") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Pine Warbler

Hear probably a yellow-throated vireo in the woods. See May 6, 1859 ("Hear yellow-throat vireo, and probably some new warblers."). See also May 27, 1854 ("I see and hear the yellow-throated vireo. It is somewhat similar (its strain) to that of the red-eye, prelia pre-li-ay, with longer intervals.")

A creeper (black and white) yesterday. See May 11, 1856 ("The black and white creeper also is descending the oaks, etc., and uttering from time to time his seeser seeser seeser. What a rich, strong striped blue-black and white bird.") See also A Book of the Seasons,   by Henry Thoreau, The Black and White Creeper

A goldfinch apparently not quite in summer dress; with a dark-brown, not black, front. See April 7, 1855 ("They are merely olivaceous above, dark about the base of the bill, but bright lemon-yellow in a semicircle on the breast; black wings and tails, with white bar on wings and white vanes to tail. I never saw them here so early before; or probably one or two olivaceous birds I have seen and heard of other years were this.")

See a song sparrow’s nest with four eggs in the side of a bank, or rather ditch. I commonly find the earliest ones in such sheltered and concealed places. See April 30, 1858 ("I find a Fringilla melodia nest with five eggs.. . . perfectly sheltered under the shelving turf and grass on the brink of a ditch. ") See also A Book of Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Song Sparrow (Fringilla melodia)

In the Major Heywood path the The Luzula campestris is apparently in prime. Oryzopsis grass well out. See May 1 1859 ("Luzula campestris. Also the Oryzopsis Canadensis by the Major Heywood path-side . . . six inches high or more, with fine bristle-like leaves.").

The Amelanchier Botryapium in flower now spots the brown sprout-land hillside. See May 2, 1855 ("Amelanchier Botryapium yesterday leafed."); May 5, 1860 ("Amelanchier Botryapiumflower in prime."); May 8, 1854 ("The early Amelanchier Botryapium overhangs the rocks and grows in the shelves, with its loose, open-flowered racemes, curving downward, of narrow-petalled white flowers, red on the back and innocently cherry-scented"); May 10, 1854 ("The shad-bush in blossom is the first to show like a fruit tree on the hill sides . . .before even its own leaves are much expanded. ") May 12, 1855 ("I now begin to distinguish where at a distance the Amelanchier Botryapium, with its white against the russet, is waving in the wind."); May 17, 1853 (“The petals have already fallen from the Amelanchier Botryapium, and young berries are plainly forming.”)

Maple keys an inch and a half long. See May 1, 1860 ("The sugar maple keys (or buds?) hang down one inch, quite.")

A good deal of coolness in the wind, so that I can scarcely find a comfortable seat.

May 2

River three and five sixteenths below summer level. 

I observed on the 29th that the clams had not only been moving much, furrowing the sandy bottom near the shore, but generally, or almost invariably, had moved toward the middle of the river. Perhaps it had something to do with the low stage of the water. 

I saw one making his way — or perhaps it had rested since morning-over that sawdust bar just below Turtle Bar, toward the river, the surface of the bar being an inch or two higher than the water. Probably the water, falling, left it thus on dry (moist) land.

I notice this forenoon (11. 30 A. M. ) remarkably round-topped white clouds just like round-topped hills, on all sides of the sky, often a range of such, such as I do not remember to have seen before. There was considerable wind on the surface, from the northeast, and the above clouds were moving west and southwest, -- a generally distributed cumulus.    

What added to the remarkableness of the sight was a very fine, fleecy cirrhus, like smoke, narrow but of indefinite length, driving swiftly eastward beneath the former, proving that there were three currents of air, one above the other.  (The same form of cloud prevailed to some extent the next day.) 

Salix alba apparently yesterday.  

The early potentillas are now quite abundant.

P. M.    – To stone heaps and stone bridge. 

Since (perhaps) the middle of April we have had much easterly (northeast chiefly) wind, and yet no rain, though this wind rarely fails to bring rain in March.  (The same is true till 9th of May at least; i. e., in spite of east winds there is no rain.)

I find no stone heaps made yet, the water being very low. (But since — May 8th-I notice them, and perhaps I overlooked them before.) 

I notice on the east bank by the stone-heaps, amid the bushes, what I supposed to be two woodchucks' holes, with a well-worn path from one to the other, and the young trees close about them, aspen and black cherry, had been gnawed for a foot or more upward for a year or two.  There were some fresh wounds, and also old and extensive scars of last year partially healed. 

The naked viburnum is leafing.

The sedge apparently Carex Pennsylvanica has now been out on low ground a day or two.   

A crowd of men seem to generate vermin even of the human kind.  In great towns there is degradation undreamed of elsewhere, — gamblers, dog-killers, rag pickers.  Some live by robbery or by luck.  There was the Concord muster (of last September).  I see still a well dressed man carefully and methodically searching for money on the muster-fields, far off across the river.  I turn my glass upon him and notice how he proceeds.  (I saw them searching there in the fall till the snow came.) He walks regularly and slowly back and forth over the ground where the soldiers had their tents, — still marked by the straw, — with his head prone, and poking in the straw with a stick, now and then turning back or aside to examine something more closely. He is dressed, methinks, better than an average man whom you meet in the streets. How can he pay for his board thus? He dreams of finding a few coppers, or perchance a half-dime, which have fallen from the soldiers' pockets, and no doubt he will find something of the kind, having dreamed of it, --having knocked, this door will be opened to him.  

Walking over the russet interval, I see the first red-winged grasshoppers. They rise from the still brown sod before me, and I see the redness of their wings as they fly. They are quite shy and hardly let me come within ten feet before they rise again, — often before I have seen them fairly on the ground.   

It was 63° at 2 P. M., and yet a good deal of coolness in the wind, so that I can scarcely find a comfortable seat. (Yet a week later, with thermometer at 60° and but little wind, it seems much warmer.) We have had cool nights of late.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 2, 1860

Salix alba apparently yesterday. See May 2, 1853 (" Summer yellowbird on the opening Salix alba.?"). See also  April 24, 1855 ("The Salix alba begins to leaf. "); April 29, 1855 ("For two or three days the Salix alba, with its catkins (not yet open) and its young leaves, or bracts (?), has made quite a show, before any other tree, —a pyramid of tender yellowish green in the russet landscape."); April 30, 1859 (Salix alba leafing, or stipules a quarter of an inch wide; probably began a day or two.");    May 10, 1858 (" For some days the Salix alba have shown their yellow wreaths here and there, suggesting the coming of the yellowbird, and now they are alive with them.")

The naked viburnum is leafing. See April 30, 1859 ("The viburnum buds are so large and long, like a spear-head, that they are conspicuous the moment their two leafets diverge and they are lit up by the sun.");  May 1, 1854 ("The viburnum (Lentago or nudum) leaves unexpectedly forward at the Cliff Brook and about Miles Swamp. ")

The early potentillas are now quite abundant. See May 1, 1854 (“At Lee's Cliff find the early cinquefoil”); May 8, 1860 ("The cinquefoil is closed in a cloudy day, and when the sun shines it is turned toward it."); May 17, 1853 ("The early cinquefoil is now in its prime and spots the banks and hillsides and dry meadows with its dazzling yellow. How lively! It is one of the most interesting yellow flowers. ")

No wonder that they are never made dizzy by high climbing, that were born in the top of a tree.

April 25.

April 25, 2020

A cold day, so that the people you meet remark upon it, yet the thermometer is 47° at 2 P. M. We should not have remarked upon it in March. It is cold for April, being windy withal. 

I fix a stake on the west side the willows at my boat‘s place, the top of which is at summer level and is about ten and a half inches below the stone wharf there. The river is one and one fourth inches above summer level to-day. That rock northwest of the boat‘s place is about fifteen inches (the top of it) below summer level. Heron Rock top (just above the junction of the rivers) is thirteen inches above summer level. I judge by my eye that the rock on the north side, where the first bridge crossed the river, is about four inches lower than the last.

Mr. Stewart tells me that he has found a gray squirrel‘s nest up the Assabet, in a maple tree. I resolve that I too will find it. 

I do not know within less than a quarter of a mile where to look, nor whether it is in a hollow tree, or in a nest of leaves. I examine the shore first and find where he landed. I then examine the maples in that neighborhood to see what one has been climbed. I soon find one the bark of which has been lately rubbed by the boots of a climber, and, looking up, see a nest. 

It was a large nest made of maple twigs, with a centre of leaves, lined with finer, about twenty feet from the ground, against the leading stem of a large red maple. I noticed no particular entrance. 

When I put in my hand from above and felt the young, they uttered a dull croak-like squeak, and one clung fast to my hand when I took it out through the leaves and twigs with which it was covered. It was yet blind, and could not have been many days old, yet it instinctively clung to my hand with its little claws, as if it knew that there was danger of its falling from a height to the ground which it never saw. The idea of clinging was strongly planted in it.

There was quite a depth of loose sticks, maple twigs, piled on the top of the nest. No wonder that they become skillful climbers who are born high above the ground and begin their lives in a tree, having first of all to descend to reach the earth. They are cradled in a tree-top, in but a loose basket, in helpless infancy, and there slumber when their mother is away. No wonder that they are never made dizzy by high climbing, that were born in the top of a tree, and learn to cling fast to the tree before their eyes are open.

On my way to the Great Meadows I see boys a-fishing, with perch and bream on their string, apparently having good luck, the river is so low. 

The river appears the lower, because now, before the weeds and grass have grown, we can see by the bare shore of mud or sand and the rocks how low it is. At midsummer we might imagine water at the base of the grass where there was none.

I hear the greatest concerts of blackbirds, – red wings and crow blackbirds nowadays, especially of the former (also the 22d and 29th). The maples and willows along the river, and the button-bushes, are all alive with them. They look like a black fruit on the trees, distributed over the top at pretty equal distances.

It is worthwhile to see how slyly they hide at the base of the thick and shaggy button-bushes at this stage of the water. They will suddenly cease their strains and flit away and secrete themselves low amid these bushes till you are past; or you scare up an unexpectedly large flock from such a place, where you had seen none. 

I pass a large quire in full blast on the oaks, etc., on the island in the meadow northwest of Peter‘s. Suddenly they are hushed, and I hear the loud rippling rush made by their wings as they dash away, and, looking up, I see what I take to be a sharp-shinned hawk just alighting on the trees where they were, having failed to catch one. They retreat some forty rods off, to another tree, and renew their concert there. 

The hawk plumes himself, and then flies off, rising gradually and beginning to circle, and soon it joins its mate, and soars with it high in the sky and out of sight, as if the thought of so terrestrial a thing as a blackbird had never entered its head. 

It appeared to have a plain reddish-fawn breast. The size more than anything made me think it a sharp-shin.

When looking into holes in trees to find the squirrel‘s nest, I found a pout partly dried, with its tail gone, in one maple, about a foot above the ground. This was probably left there by a mink. 

Minott says that, being at work in his garden once, he saw a mink coming up from the brook with a pout in her mouth, half-way across his land. The mink, observing him, dropped her pout and stretched up her head, looking warily around, then, taking up the pout again, went onward and went under a rock in the wall by the roadside. He looked there and found the young in their nest, — so young that they were all “red” yet.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, April 25, 1860

Mr. Stewart tells me that he has found a gray squirrel‘s nest up the Assabet, in a maple tree. See note to June 1, 1860 ("Young Stewart tells me that when he visited again that gray squirrel's nest which I described about one month ago up the Assabet, the squirrels were gone, and he thought that the old ones had moved them, for he saw the old about another nest. . . .This makes three gray squirrels' nests that I have seen and heard of (seen two of them) this year, made thus of leaves and sticks open in the trees. ")

They look like a black fruit on the trees, distributed over the top at pretty equal distances. See March 16, 1860 ("They cover the apple trees like a black fruit."); April 30, 1855 ("Red-wing blackbirds now fly in large flocks, covering the tops of trees—willows, maples, apples, or oaks—like a black fruit , and keep up an incessant gurgling and whistling, — all for some purpose; what is it? ”)


Looking up, I see what I take to be a sharp-shinned hawk. See  April 27, 1860 ("I saw yesterday, and see to-day, a small hawk which I take to be a pigeon hawk. This one skims low along over Grindstone Meadow, close to the edge of the water, and I see the blackbirds rise hurriedly from the buttonbushes and willows before him.") and note to July 21, 1858 ("It was the Falco fuscus, the American brown or slate-colored hawk.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau The Sharp-shinned Hawk.

Minott says that, being at work in his garden once, he saw a mink coming up from the brook with a pout in her mouth. See note to April 15, 1858 ("I looked round and saw a mink under the bushes within a few feet.")

Spring leaf-out begins.

April 24. 

April  24, 2016

The river is only half an inch above summer level.

The meadow-sweet and hardhack have begun to leaf.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, April 24, 1860


The river is only half an inch above summer level. See April 24, 1852 ("The water is still over the causeway on both sides of Carlisle Bridge for a long distance. It is a straight flood now for about four miles.");  April 24, 1857 ("The water is at its height, higher than before this year.") See aksi April 1, 1858 ("The river is at summer level; has not been up this spring, and has fallen to this.")

 The meadow-sweet and hardhack have begun to leaf. See  April 24, 1852 ("The leaves of the hardhack, curled up, show their white under sides");April 24, 1855 ("The Salix alba begins to leaf. "); April 24, 1856 ("The earliest gooseberry leaf has spread a third of an inch or more.") See also April 25, 1859 ("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 "); May 4, 1852 ("The meadow-sweet begins to leave out") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Spring leaf-out.

I mark a willow eight feet above summer level.

September 16. 

7 a.m. — River fallen one and a half inches. Is three feet and seven eighths of an inch above summer level, i. e. at notch on tree. 

I mark a willow eight feet above summer level.

See no zizania seed ripe, or black, yet, but almost all is fallen.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 16, 1860

River fallen one and a half inches. Is three feet and seven eighths of an inch above summer level, i. e. at notch on tree. See June 23, 1860 ("At 7 p. m. the river is fifteen and three fourths inches above summer level.") September 13, 1860 ("The river this morning, about 7 A.M., is already twenty-eight and a half inches above summer level, and more than twenty inches of this is owing to the rain of yesterday and last night!! . . . At evening the river is five inches higher than in the morning.");  September 14, 1860 ("A. M. — River still rising; at 4 p. m. one and an eighth inches higher than in morning."); September 15, 1860 ("In morning river is three feet two and a half plus inches above summer level. Thus it reached its height the third day after the rain; had risen on the morning of the third day about thirty inches on account of the rain of one day (the 12th)."); September 17, 1860 ("6.30 a. m. — River thirty-four and an eighth above summer level, or fallen about four inches since evening of 15th."); September 19, 1860 (" 4 p. m. — River fallen about one foot."); September 27, 1860 ("Sept. 27. A. M. —. River about thirty-five inches above summer level, and goes no higher this time.")

See no zizania seed ripe, or black, yet, but almost all is fallen. See September 4, 1852 ("The zizania ripe, shining black, cylindrical kernels, five eighths of an inch long."); September 25, 1858 ("The zizania fruit is green yet, but mostly dropped or plucked. Does it fall, or do birds pluck it?")

Low-water plants.

August 1. 

August 1, 2019

6 a.m. — River is at summer level. 

This being Monday morning, the river is probably lower than at any other time in the week. 

Am surprised to see in water opposite between Monroe's and Dodd's the Myriophyllum ambiguum var. natans, amid the Bidens Beckii. It must have been out (under water) a fortnight. A pretty sprig of pectinate leafets above the capillary-leafed and slimy mass. 

The B. Beckii (just beginning to bloom) just shows a few green leafets above its dark and muddy masses, now that the river is low. 

Evidently the above two and lilies, cardinal-flowers, etc., depend on the state of the river in June. After a very wet June I think there is less bloom on them. Some years the first two are not noticed at all. 

We have now got down to the water milfoil and the B. Beckii. These might be called low-water plants. 

The bottom is occasionally — though quite rarely in Concord — of soft shifting sand, ripple-marked, in which the paddle sinks, under four or five feet of water (as below the ash tree hole), and few weeds grow on such a shallow. 

Evidently the hill at Hemlocks would be a flowing sand-hill, if it were not held together by the hemlocks.  

The common cat-tail (about five feet high by rail road, beyond the South Bridge) has no interval between the two kinds of flowers, but mine of yesterday has, and yet it is much larger than the common. Can it, then, be the Typha angustifolia, which is described as smaller and rare? 

I see a kingbird hovering within six inches above the potamogetons, front of Cheney's, and repeatedly snapping up some insects, perhaps a devil's-needle.

The west edge of the Rock above Island is eleven and a half inches above summer level. Now, at 5 P. M., the river has risen an inch and a half since 6 A. M., though we have not had a drop of rain for three days, and then but a few drops, and it fell three quarters of an inch between yesterday (Sunday) morning and this morning. Is this rise owing to the water let on from various mill-ponds this Monday morning?

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 1, 1859

The B. Beckii (just beginning to bloom) just shows a few green leafets above its dark and muddy masses, now that the river is low. See August 2, 1856 ("Very common now are the few green emerald leafets of the Bidens Beckii, which will ere long yellow the shallow parts.")

The common cat-tail has no interval between the two kinds of flowers, but mine of yesterday has, and yet it is much larger than the common See July 31, 1859 ("Above the Sudbury causeway, I notice again that remarkable large and tall typha, apparently T. latifolia (yet there is at least more than an inch interval between the two kinds of flowers, judging from the stump of the sterile bud left on).")

I see a kingbird hovering within six inches above the potamogetons, front of Cheney's, and repeatedly snapping up some insects, perhaps a devil's-needle. See August 6, 1858 ("If our sluggish river, choked with potamogeton, might seem to have the slow-flying bittern for its peculiar genius, it has also the sprightly and aerial kingbird to twitter over and lift our thoughts to clouds as white as its own breast.")