From Smith's Hill I looked toward the mountain line.

September 27. 

Monday. P. M.— To C. Smith's Hill. 

September 27, 2019

The flashing clearness of the atmosphere. More light appears to be reflected from the earth, less absorbed. 

Green lice are still on the birches. 

At Saw Mill Brook many finely cut and flat ferns are faded whitish and very handsome, as if pressed, — very delicate. 

White oak acorns edible. Everywhere the squirrels are trying the nuts in good season. 

The touch-me-not seed-vessels go off like pistols, — shoot their seeds off like bullets. They explode in my hat. 

The arum berries are now in perfection, cone-shaped spikes an inch and a half long, of scarlet or vermilion- colored, irregular, somewhat pear-shaped berries springing from a purplish core. They are exactly the color of bright sealing-wax, or, I believe, the painted tortoise's shell; on club-shaped peduncles. The changed leaves of this are delicately white, especially beneath. Here and there lies prostrate on the damp leaves or ground this conspicuous red spike. 

The medeola berries are common now, and the large red berries of the panicled Solomon's-seal. 

It must have been a turtle dove that eyed me so near, turned its head sideways to me for a fair view, looking with a St. Vitus twitching of its neck, as if to recover its balance on an unstable perch, — that is their way. 

From Smith's Hill I looked toward the mountain line.

Who can believe that the mountain peak which he beholds fifty miles off in the horizon, rising far and faintly blue above an intermediate range, while he stands on his trivial native hills or in the dusty high way, can be the same with that which he looked up at once near at hand from a gorge in the midst of primitive woods? 

For a part of two days I travelled across lots once, loitering by the way, through primitive wood and swamps over the highest peak of the Peterboro Hills to Monadnock, by ways from which all landlords and stage-drivers endeavored to dissuade us. It was not a month ago. 

But now that I look across the globe in an instant to the dim Monadnock peak, and these familiar fields and copsewoods appear to occupy the greater part of the interval, I cannot realize that Joe Eavely's house still stands there at the base of the mountain, and all that long tramp through wild woods with invigorating scents before I got to it. 

I cannot realize that on the tops of those cool blue ridges are in abundance berries still, bluer than themselves, as if they borrowed their blueness from their locality. 

From the mountains we do not discern our native hills; but from our native hills we look out easily to the far blue mountains, which seem to preside over them. 

As I look northwestward to that summit from a Concord corn field, how little can I realize all the life that is passing between me and it, — the retired up-country farmhouses, the lonely mills, wooded vales, wild rocky pastures, and new clearings on stark mountain-sides, and rivers murmuring through primitive woods! 

All these, and how much more, I overlook. I see the very peak, — there can be no mistake, — but how much I do not see, that is between me and it! How much I overlook! In this way we see stars. 

What is it but a faint blue cloud, a mist that may vanish? 

But what is it, on the other hand, to one who has travelled to it day after day, has threaded the forest and climbed the hills that are between this and that, has tasted the raspberries or the blueberries that grow on it, and the springs that gush from it, has been wearied with climbing its rocky sides, felt the coolness of its summit, and been lost in the clouds there? 

When I could sit in a cold chamber muffled in a cloak each evening till Thanksgiving time, warmed by my own thoughts, the world was not so much with me.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 27, 1852

The arum berries are now in perfection, cone-shaped spikes an inch and a half long, of scarlet or vermilion- colored, irregular, somewhat pear-shaped berries springing from a purplish core. See September 28, 1856 (“The arum berries are still fresh and abundant, perhaps in their prime. . . .It is one of the most remarkable and dazzling, if not the handsomest, fruits we have.”)

The medeola berries are common now. See May 25, 1852 ("Medeola or cucumber-root in bud, with its two-storied whorl of leaves. "); July 24, 1853 ("The medeola is still in flower, though with large green berries"); August 26, 1859 ("Some medeola is quite withered. Perhaps they are somewhat frost-bitten. "); August 27, 1851 ("The Medeola Virginica, cucumber-root, the whorl-leaved plant, is now in green fruit"); September 1. 1856 ("A few medeola berries ripe"); September 2, 1853 ("The medeola berries are now dull glossy and almost blue-black; about three, on slender threads one inch long, arising in the midst of the cup formed by the purple bases of the whorl of three upper leaves."); September 3, 1853 ("To fill my basket with the neglected but beautiful fruit of the various species of cornels and viburnums, poke, arum, medeola, thorns, etc. Berries which are as beautiful as flowers, but far less known, the fruit of the flower"); September 11, 1859 ('September is the month when various small, and commonly inedible, berries in cymes and clusters hang over the roadsides and along the walls and fences, or spot the forest floor").; September 18, 1859 ("How little observed are the fruits which we do not use!"); October 6, 1858 ("The medeola leaves are a pale straw-color with a crimson centre; perhaps getting stale now.")

The  large red berries of the panicled Solomon's-seal. See October 20, 1852 ("The small red Solomon's-seal berries spot the ground here and there amid the dry leaves. ")

From Smith's Hill I looked toward the mountain line. See June 3, 1850 ("The most imposing horizons are those which are seen from tops of hills rising out of a river valley. . . . The landscape is a vast amphitheatre rising to its rim in the horizon."); September 12, 1851 ("It is worth the while to see the mountains in the horizon once a day"); November 11, 1851 ("The horizon has one kind of beauty and attraction to him who has never explored the hills and mountains in it, and another ... to him who has."); August 2, 1852 ("In many moods it is cheering to look across hence to that blue rim of the earth, and be reminded of the invisible towns and communities, for the most part also unremembered, which lie in the further and deeper hollows between me and those hills. . . , and be reminded how many brave and contented lives are lived between me and the horizon. . . . These hills extend our plot of earth; they make our native valley or indentation in the earth so much the larger."); August 5, 1852 (" From Smith's Hill beyond, there is as good a view of the mountains as from any place in our neighbor hood, because you look across the broad valley in which Concord lies first of all. The foreground is on a larger scale and more proportionate. The Peterboro Hills are to us as good as mountains. Hence, too, I see that fair river-reach, in the north."): March 31, 1853 ("It is affecting to see a distant mountain-top,. . . still as blue and ethereal to your eyes as is your memory of it.'); February 6, 1854 ("I see great shadows on the northeast sides of the mountains, forty miles off, the sun being in the southwest.");  August 14, 1854 (“I have come forth to this hill at sunset to see the forms of the mountains in the horizon.— to behold and commune with something grander than man. “); December 8, 1854 ("Why do the mountains never look so fair as from my native fields?"); October 22, 1857 ("But what a perfect crescent of mountains we have in our northwest horizon! Do we ever give thanks for it? "); November 4, 1857 (" But those grand and glorious mountains, how impossible to remember daily that they are there, and to live accordingly! They are meant to be a perpetual reminder to us, pointing out the way."): March 28, 1858 ("turning my glass toward the mountains, I can see the sun reflected from the rocks on Monadnock, and I know that it would be pleasant to be there too to-day as well as here"); May 17, 1858 ("I doubt if in the landscape there can be anything finer than a distant mountain-range. They are a constant elevating influence.")  See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, On Smith's Hill; A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Mountains in the Horizon

I cannot realize that on the tops of those cool blue ridges are in abundance berries still, bluer than themselves, as if they borrowed their blueness from their locality. See August 5, 1860 ("When we behold this summit at this season of the year, far away and blue in the horizon, we may think of the blueberries as blending their color with the general blueness of the mountain.")

These various shades of grass remind me of June, now close at hand.

May 28. 

May 28, 2018

May 28, 2018

I get the nest of the turtle dove above named, it being deserted and no egg left. It appears to have been built on the foundation of an old robin’s nest and consists of a loose wisp of straw and pinweed, the seedy ends projecting, ten inches long, laid across the mud foundation of the robin’s nest, with a very slight depression. Very loose and coarse material is artificially disposed, without any lining or architecture. It was close to a frequented path of the cemetery and within reach of the hand. 

Hear the wood pewee. 

P. M. — By boat to Great Meadows to look for the bittern's nest. 

The Cornus florida involucres are partly expanded, but not yet very showy. 

Salix nigra apparently one day in one place. 

The Salix pedicellaris, which abounds in the Great Meadows, is a peculiar and rather interesting willow, some fifteen inches high and scarcely rising above the grass even now. With its expanded reddish ovaries, it looks like the choke-berry in bud at a little distance. 

The Ranunculus Purshii is now abundant and conspicuous in river. 

I see common in these meadows what appears to be that coarse grass growing in circles, light or yellowish green, with dense wool-grass-like heads and almost black involucres, just begun to bloom. Is it the Scirpus sylvaticus var. atrovirens? (Vide pressed.) As I look far over the meadow, which is very wet, — often a foot of water amid the grass, – I see this yellowish green interspersed with irregular dark-green patches where it is wettest, just like the shadow of a cloud, – and mistook it for that at first. That was a dark-green and fine kind of sedge. These various shades of grass remind me of June, now close at hand. 

From time to time I hear the sound of the bittern, concealed in the grass, indefinitely far or near, and can only guess at the direction, not the distance. I fail to find the nest. 

I come, in the midst of the meadow, on two of the Emys meleagris, much larger than I have found before. Perhaps they are male and female, the one's sternum being decidedly depressed an eighth of an inch, the other's not at all. They are just out of the water, partly concealed by some withered grass, and hiss loudly and run out their long necks very far and struggle a good deal when caught. They continue to scratch my hand in their efforts to escape as I carry them, more than other turtles do. 

The dorsal shield of each is just seven inches long; the sternum of what appears to be the female is about an eighth inch shorter, of the male near a quarter of an inch longer, yet in both the projection of the sternum is chiefly forward. Breadth of shell in the male four and seven eighths, of female four and a half, in middle, but the female widens a little behind. Height of each about two and three quarters inches.

The smoothish dark-brown shells, high, regularly rounded, are very thickly but not conspicuously spotted (unless in water) with small oval or elongated yellow spots, as many as fifty or sixty to a scale, and more or less raying from the origin of the scale, becoming larger and horn-colored on the marginal scales especially of one. The thickly and evenly distributed yellow marks of the head and neck correspond to those of the shell pretty well. 

They are high-backed turtles. The sternum is horn-color, with a large dark or blackish spot occupying a third or more of the rear outer angle of each scale. The throat is clear light-yellow and much and frequently exposed. Tail, tapering and sharp. The claws are quite sharp and perfect. One closes its forward valve to within an eighth of an inch, but the posterior not so much, and evidently they are not inclined to shut up close, if indeed they can at this season, or at all. The sternum of the male, notwithstanding the depression, curves upward at each extremity much more than the female's. 

They run out their heads remarkably far and have quite a harmless and helpless expression, yet, from the visible length of neck, the more snake-like. About the size of the wood tortoise. Very regularly and smoothly rounded shells. Voided many fragments of common snail-shells and some insect exuviae. 

Hear for a long time, as I sit under a willow, a summer yellowbird sing, without knowing what it is. It is a rich and varied singer with but few notes to remind me of its common one, continually hopping about. 

See already one or two (?) white maple keys on the water. 

Saw the mouse-ear going to seed in Worcester the 23d. 

The red actaea is fully expanded and probably has been open two or three days, but there will be no pollen till to-morrow. 

What kind of cherry tree is that, now rather past prime, wild-red-cherry-like, if not it, between the actaea and river near wall? Some ten inches in diameter. 

Hear the night hawk? and see a bat to-night. 

The earliest cinnamon fern, apparently not long. 

E. Hoar finds the Eriophorum vaginatum at Ledum Swamp, with lead-colored scales; how long?

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

May 28, ,2018

The Ranunculus Purshii is now abundant and conspicuous in river. See May 26, 1855 ("The Ranunculus Purshii in that large pool in the Holden Swamp Woods makes quite a show at a little distance now."); June 6, 1857 ('The Ranunculus Purshii is in some places abundantly out now and quite showy. It must be our largest ranunculus (flower).”) See also May 18, 1853 ("Surprised to see a Ranunculus Purshii open.")

These various shades of grass remind me of June.  See May 27, 1855 ("The fields now begin to wear the aspect of June, their grass just beginning to wave;. . . ”);  May 27, 1853 ("A new season has commenced - summer - leafy June.”)

Two of the Emys meleagris, much larger than I have found before. See March 20, 1857 (“[Agassiz says t]he Cistuda Blandingii (which he has heard of in Massachusetts only at Lancaster) copulates at eight or nine years of age. He says this is not a Cistuda but an Emys.”); July 20 1857 (“De Kay does not describe the Cistuda Blandingii as found in New York. ”)

See already one or two white maple keys on the water. See May 29, 1854 (“The white maple keys have begun to fall and float down the stream like the wings of great insects.”); May 30, 1853 ("The white maple keys falling and covering the river."); 

May 28. SeeA Book of the Seasons,, by Henry Thoreau, May 28

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

To measure the egg.

May 27. 

May 27, 2018

At Boston, Cambridge, and Concord. 

De Kay describes the Esox fasciatus, which is apparently mine of May 11th. As I count, the rays are the same in number, viz. “P. 13, V. 9, D. 14, A. 13, C. 20.” He says it is from six to eight inches long and abundant in New York; among other things is distinguished by “a muddy tinge of the roundish pectoral, abdominal, and ventral fins; and by a broad concave or lunated tail.” I do not observe the peculiarity in the tail in mine, now it is in spirits. 

Ed. Emerson shows me an egg of a bittern (Ardea minor) from a nest in the midst of the Great Meadows, which four boys found, scaring up the bird, last Monday, the 24th. It was about a foot wide on the top of a tussock, where the water around was about one foot deep. I will measure the egg. They were a little developed. It is clay-colored, one and seven eighths inches long by one and nine sixteenths, about the same size at each end.  

Also an egg of a turtle dove, one of two in a nest in a pitch pine, about six feet from the ground, in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, by the side of a frequented walk, on a fork on a nearly horizontal limb. The egg is milk-white, elliptical, one and three sixteenths inches long by seven eighths wide.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 27, 1858

De Kay describes the Esox fasciatus., which is apparently mine of May 11th. See May 11, 1858 (“the little brook (?) pickerel, of Hubbard's ditches, . . . I caught two directly. ”) See also Proceedings of the Boston Society of Natural History ("[Mr. Putnam] exhibited specimens of the young and adult pickerel, to show that the "short-nosed pickerel " is specifically distinct from the "long-nosed " — the Esox reticulatus — and said that the " short-nosed " species is the Esox fasciatus of Dekay, which is not the young of the Esox reticulates”)   See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Pickerel

A nest of a bittern (Ardea minor) in the midst of the Great Meadows about a foot wide on the top of a tussock. See  June 11, 1860 ("I hear a sound just like a small dog barking hoarsely, and, looking up, see it was made by a bittern  (Ardea minor), a pair of which flap over the meadows and probably nest in some tussock thereabouts.”)

Now is the time to paddle these smooth warm vernal waters.

May 3. 

Sunday. A remarkably warm and pleasant morning. A. M. — To Battle-Ground by river. 

I heard the ring of toads at 6 a. m. The flood on the meadows, still high, is quite smooth, and many are out this still and suddenly very warm morning, pushing about in boats. 

Now, thinks many a one, is the time to paddle or push gently far up or down the river, along the still, warm meadow's edge, and perhaps we may see some large turtles, or muskrats, or otter, or rare fish or fowl. It will be a grand forenoon for a cruise, to explore these meadow shores and inundated maple swamps which we have never explored. Now we shall be recompensed for the week's confinement to shop or garden. 

We will spend our Sabbath exploring these smooth warm vernal waters. Up or down shall we go? To Fair Haven Bay and the Sudbury meadows, or to Ball's Hill and Carlisle Bridge? Along the meadow's edge, lined with willow and alders and maples, under the catkins of the early willow, and brushing those of the sweet-gale with our prow, where the sloping pasture and the plowed ground, submerged, are fast drinking up the flood. What fair isles, what remote coast shall we explore? What San Salvador or Bay of All Saints arrive at? All are tempted forth, like flies, into the sun. 

All isles seem fortunate and blessed to-day; all capes are of Good Hope. 

The same sun and calm that tempts the turtles out tempts the voyagers. It is an opportunity to explore their own natures, to float along their own shores. The woodpecker cackles and the crow black bird utters his jarring chatter from the oaks and maples. All well men and women who are not restrained by superstitious custom come abroad this morning by land or water, and such as have boats launch them and put forth in search of adventure. 

Others, less free or, it may be, less fortunate, take their station on bridges, watching the rush of water through them and the motions of the departing voyagers, and listening to the notes of blackbirds from over the smooth water. They see a swimming snake, or a muskrat dive, — airing and sunning themselves there until the first bell rings. Up and down the town, men and boys that are under subjection are polishing their shoes and brushing their go-to-meeting clothes. 

I, a descendant of Northmen who worshipped Thor, spend my time worshipping neither Thor nor Christ; a descendant of Northmen who sacrificed men and horses, sacrifice neither men nor horses. I care not for Thor nor for the Jews. I sympathize not to-day with those who go to church in newest clothes and sit quietly in straight-backed pews. 

I sympathize rather with the boy who has none to look after him, who borrows a boat and paddle and in common clothes sets out to explore these temporary vernal lakes. I meet such a boy paddling along under a sunny bank, with bare feet and his pants rolled up above his knees, ready to leap into the water at a moment's warning. Better for him to read "Robinson Crusoe" than Baxter's "Saints' Rest."

I hear the soft, purring, stertorous croak of frogs on the meadow. 

The pine warbler is perhaps the commonest bird heard now from the wood-sides. It seems left [to] it almost alone to fill their empty aisles. 

The above boy had caught a snapping turtle, the third he had got this year. The first he said he got the fore part of April. He also had caught a bullfrog sitting on the shore just now. 

Thermometer from 1 to 2 p. m., at 78°. 

Neighbors come forth to view the expanding buds in their gardens. 

I see where some fish, probably a pickerel, darted away from high on the meadows, toward the river, and swims so high that it makes a long ripple for twenty rods. 

3 p. m. — To Cliffs. 

In the pool which dries up in Jonathan Wheeler's orchard, I see toads, or maybe frogs, spread out on the surface, uttering a short, loud, peculiar croak, not like that of the early croaking frog, nor the smooth, purring, stertorous one of this morning, but a coarse belching croak, at a little distance like quor and quar, being on various keys, but nearer like ow-oo-uk though one syllable or ar-r-r. Thus they lie, perhaps within a foot or two and facing each other, and alternately throwing their heads back, i. e. upward, swelling their white throats and uttering this abominable noise. 

Then one rushes upon the other, leaps upon him. They struggle and roll over and sink for a moment, and presently they show their heads again a foot or two apart. There are a dozen or more, with very prominent eyes, with bright golden irides. 

In another pool, in Warren's meadow, I hear the ring of toads and the peep of hylodes, and, taking off my stockings and shoes, at length stand in their midst. There are a hundred toads close around me, copulating or preparing to. These look at a little distance precisely like the last, but no one utters that peculiar rough, belching croak, only their common musical ring, and occasionally a short, fainter, interrupted, quivering note, as of alarm. They are continually swimming to and leaping upon each other. I see many large reddish-brown ones, probably females, with small grayish ones lying flat on their backs, the fore feet clasped around them. These commonly lie flat on the bottom, often as if dead, but from time [to time] the under one rises with its load to the surface, puts its nose out and then sinks again. 

The single ones leap upon these double ones and roll them over in vain like the rest. It is the single ones that ring and are so active. They make great gray, yellowish, greenish, or whitish bubbles (different specimens being thus various), as big as their heads. One that rings within a foot of me seems to make the earth vibrate, and I feel it and am thrilled to my very spine, it is so terrene a sound. It reminds me of many a summer night on the river. A bubbling ring, which is continuous about a minute, and then its bag must be inflated again. 

When I move suddenly, it is the single ones chiefly that conceal themselves. The others are not so easily disturbed. You would hardly believe that toads could be so excited and active. When that nearest ringer sounded, the very sod by my feet (whose spires rose above water) seemed to tremble, and the earth itself, and I was thrilled to my spine and vibrated to it. They like a rest for their toes when they ring. It is a sound as crowded with protuberant bubbles as the rind of an orange. A clear, ringing note with a bubbling trill. It takes complete possession of you, for you vibrate to it, and can hear nothing else. 

At length, too, a hylodes or two were heard close about me, but not one was seen. The nearest seemed to have his residence in my ear alone. It took such possession of my ear that I was unable to appreciate the source whence it came. 

It is so warm, mosquitoes alight on my hands and face. 

As I approach the entrance to the spring path, I hear some chickadees phe-be-ing. One sings phe-e — be' be — be' be, just as if another struck in immediately after the usual strain. 

Salix tristis is out to-day at least, perhaps yesterday, by what I may call S. tristis Path. 

Viola ovata is pretty common there. 

Above the Cliffs, scare up a pair of turtle doves from the stubble, which go off with their shrill rattling whistle. 

Corydalis glauca is five inches high. The pistillate Equisetum arvense shows itself. 

To-day we sit without fire. 

Emerson says that Brewer tells him my "night warbler" is probably the Nashville warbler.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 3, 1857

I heard the ring of toads at 6 a. m. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The ring of toads

Emerson says that Brewer tells him my "night warbler" is probably the Nashville warbler.  Thoreau;s night-warbler  is likely the oven-bird making its flight call. According to Emerson the night warbler is "a bird he had never identified, had been in search of twelve years, which always, when he saw it, was in the act of diving down into a tree or bush.”  See note to May 19, 1858 (" Heard the night-warbler begin his strain just like an oven-bird! I have noticed that when it drops down into the woods it darts suddenly one side to a perch when low.")

I would gladly walk far in this stormy weather.

May 10

The third day of rain. The river has again gone over the meadows, which were almost bare. 


P. M. —To Walden in rain. 

Some Vaccinium Pennsylvanicum out in Cut woods; maybe a day, as it has rained steadily the last two days. It seems to bloom with or immediately after the bear-berry. 

I would gladly walk far in this stormy weather, for now I see and get near to large birds. Two quails whir away from the old shanty stubble-field, and two turtle doves go of from an apple tree with their clikit. Also at Walden shore a pigeon hawk (or else sharp shinned), with deep-brown back, went off from close at hand. 

I see there, just above the edge of the Pool in Hubbard’s Wood Path, the Viola blanda passing into the V. lanceolata, which last also is now in bloom, probably earlier there than in wetter places. May have been as early as the blanda. 

Where the pitch pines were cut some years ago on Thrush Alley, I now see birches, oaks, and pitch and white pines. 

On the railroad causeway against Trillium Wood, I see an apparently native willow, a shrub, with greenish bark and conspicuous yellow catkins, now in full bloom, apparently a little earlier than the Salix alba, but its leafets or bracts much less advanced and conspicuous. Another on the Walden road. What is it? 

Mr. Prichard’s Canada plum will open as soon as it is fair weather.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 10, 1856

Some Vaccinium Pennsylvanicum out in Cut woods; maybe a day. See May 10, 1855  ("Vaccinium Pennsylvanicum, early blueberry, in bloom; probably may shed pollen.")

The third day of rain. I would gladly walk far in this stormy weather for now I see and get near to large birds. See April 19, 1852 ("To see the larger and wilder birds, you must go forth in the great storms like this. . . To see wild life you must go forth at a wild season. When it rains and blows, keeping men indoors, then the lover of Nature must forth."): May 13, 1852 ("They who do not walk in the woods in the rain never behold them in their freshest, most radiant and blooming beauty.") See also  A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Walking in the Rain

Just above the edge of the Pool in Hubbard’s Wood Path, the Viola blanda. See May 6, 1852 ("The first Viola blanda (sweet-scented white), in the moist ground . . . by this spring."). See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau the Violets

Where the pitch pines were cut some years ago on Thrush Alley. See April 28, 1856 ("Let me look at the site of some thick pine woods. . .and see what has sprung up.")

 On the railroad causeway against Trillium Wood, I see an apparently native willow,now in full bloom . . .apparently a little earlier than the Salix alba. See May 10, 1854 ("I perceive the sweetness of the willows on the causeway."); 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");

 May 12, 1855 (" I perceive the fragrance of the Salix alba, now in bloom, more than an eighth of a mile distant. ");May 14, 1852 ("Going over the Corner causeway, the willow blossoms fill the air with a sweet fragrance, and I am ready to sing,"); June 6, 1856 ("That willow, male and female, opposite to Trillium Woods on the railroad, I find to be the Salix rostrata . . . one of the ochre-flowered . . . willows ."). See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Willows on the Causeway

Mr. Prichard’s Canada plum will open as soon as it is fair weather.  See May 5, 1855 ("Canada plum and cultivated cherry and Missouri currant look as if they would bloom to-morrow.”); May 7, 1860 ("Canada plum in full bloom, or say in prime. Also common plum in full bloom?");  May 8, 1858 ("Broke off a twig of Prichard's Canada plum in the evening, from which I judge that it may have opened to-day."); May 10, 1855 ("Canada plum opens petals to-day and leafs. Domestic plum only leafs.”); May 12, 1856 ("Prichard’s Canada plum will probably bloom to-morrow.”); May 14, 1855 (“Domestic plums open; some maybe yesterday.”)

May 10.  See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, May 10

The third day of rain –

I would gladly walk far in 

this stormy weather.

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-560510

A bay-wing on the railroad fence sings.

April 13

Sunday. 8 A.M. — Up railroad. 

Cold, and froze in the night. 

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

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

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

Still cold and windy. 

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

Also the amelanchier flower-buds are bursting. 

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

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

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

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

Return over the Shrub Oak Plain and the Cliff. 

Still no cowslips nor saxifrage. 

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

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

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

This is the heel of the winter. 

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

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

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

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

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

As I go by the Andromeda Ponds, I hear the tut tut of a few croaking frogs. See April 13, 1855 ("The small croaking frogs are now generally heard in all those stagnant ponds or pools in woods floored with leaves, which are mainly dried up in the summer.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Wood Frog (Rana sylvatica)

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

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

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

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

Contending sparrows   

on the railroad fence – bay-wings

singing the same strain.

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

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau

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

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

 ~edited, assembled and rewritten by zphx ©  2009-2026

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