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.")

The first thunder this afternoon.

May 9. 

Black birch May 9, 2015

Surveying for Stow near Flint's Pond. 

Hear the warbling vireo and oven-bird; yellow-throat vireo(?). 

One helping me says he scared up a whip-poor-will from the ground. 

See black birch bloom fallen effete. 

The first thunder this afternoon.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 9, 1859

Hear the warbling vireo and oven-bird; yellow-throat vireo See May 9, 1860 ("Oven-bird, how long? ). See also May 1, 1852 ("I think I heard an oven-bird just now, - wicher wicher whicher wich.");  May 6, 1852 ("Hear the first warbling vireo this morning on the elms. This almost makes a summer. "); May 6, 1859 ("  Hear yellow-throat vireo, and probably some new warblers."); May 10, 1858 ("As I paddle along, hear the Maryland yellow-throat, the bobolink, the oven-bird, and the yellow-throated vireo.")

The first thunder this afternoon. See May 11, 1859 (“In that first thunder-shower, the evening of the 9th, the grass evidently erected itself and grew darker, as it were instantaneously”); see also May 10, 1857 ("Before night a sudden shower with some thunder and lightning; the first.”); May 11, 1854 (“It is surprising what an electrifying effect this shower appears to have had. It is like the christening of the summer. I suspect that summer weather may be always ushered in in a similar manner, — thunder-shower, rainbow, smooth water, and warm night”); May 12, 1858 (“I see now, as I go forth on the river, the first summer shower coming up in the northwest, a dark and well defined cloud with rain falling sheaf-like from it, . . .The thunder-cloud is like the ovary of a perfect flower. Other showers are merely staminiferous or barren. There are twenty barren to one fertile. It is not commonly till thus late in the season that the fertile are seen. In the thunder-cloud, so distinct and condensed, there is a positive energy, and I notice the first as the bursting of the pollen-cells in the flower of the sky.”)

That swamp is a singularly wild place

September 6.

 6 A. M. — To Merrick’s shore. 

Hear a warbling vireo, sounding very rare and rather imperfect. I think this is what I have mistaken for the young purple finch note. 

Also hear apparently a yellow-throated vireo. 

That fine spreading-panicled dark-purple grass, now rising all along the river near the waterside, is Panicum agrostoides; in prime. That finer and narrower-panicled, now out of bloom, is red-top, or else white bent; with the former.

River risen still higher, and weeds covered.

 P. M. — To Ledum Swamp. 

Going over Clamshell Plain, I see a very large flock of a hundred or more cowbirds about some cows. They whirl away on some alarm and alight on a neighboring rail fence, close together on the rails, one above another. Then away they whirl and settle on a white oak top near me. Half of them are evidently quite young birds, having glossy black breasts with a drab line down middle. The heads of all are light-colored, perhaps a slaty drab, and some apparently wholly of this color. 

On the hillside above Clamshell Ditch, grows that handsome grass of Sept. 1st (vide September 4th), evidently Sorghum nutans (Andropogon of Bigelow), chestnut beard grass, Indian grass, wood grass. It is much larger than what I saw before; is still abundantly in flower; four and a half feet high; leaves, perhaps arundinaceous, eighteen inches long; panicle, nine inches long. It is a very handsome, wild-looking grass, well enough called Indian grass, and I should have named it with the other andropogons, August 26th. 

With its narrow one-sided panicle of bright purple and yellow (I include the yellow anthers) often waving [?], raised high above the leaves, it looks like a narrow banner. It is of more vivid colors than its congeners, and might well have caught an Indian’s eye. These bright banners are now advanced on the distant hillsides, not in large armies, but scattered troops or single file, like the red men themselves. They stand thus fair and bright in our midst, as it were representative of the race which they are named after, but for the most part unobserved. It stands like an Indian chief taking a last look at his beloved hunting grounds. 

The expression of this grass haunted me for a week after I first passed and noticed it, like the glance of an eye. 

Aster patens past prime at Money-Diggers’ Hill. Polygonum tenue, how long? 

Solidago nemoralis is apparently in prime on Lupine Hill; some of it past. It is swarming with butterflies, — yellow, small red, and large, — fluttering over it. 

At Ledum Pool edge, I find the Woodwardia Virginica fern, its fruit mostly turned deep reddish-brown. It appears to grow only close to the pool, part of the fruit forming two lines parallel with the midrib. A third part of the nesaea there is turned scarlet. Kalmia glauca is again in bloom. The hairy huckleberries are rather scarce and soft. They are in sipid and leave a hairy skin in the month. 

That swamp is a singularly wild place, without any natural outlet. I hear of a marsh hawk’s nest there this summer. I see great spiders there of an uncommon kind, whose webs —the main supporting line — stretch six feet in the clear from spruce to spruce, as high as my head, with a dense web of the usual form some fifteen inches in diameter beneath. 

Stopped and talked with W. W. and ate a watermelon with him on the grass. Once his senseless democracy appeared. He spoke with an ignorant pride of Buchanan’s telegraphic message, of which most of us were ashamed; said he supposed he had more learning than Victoria! But the less said about them the better. 

Seeing a stake-driver flying up the river, he observed that when you saw that bird flying about it was a never failing sign of a storm approaching. How many of these sayings like this arise not from a close and frequent observation of the phenomena of nature, but from a distant and casual one!

I find very common in prime by roadsides, in dry ground, etc., Vilfa vaginaeflora, rush grass, hidden-flowered vilfa; also by Corner roadside, beyond brooks, Panicum filiforme with and like P. sanguinale, apparently in prime, and with last fills the old mullein-field in front of Bear Garden Hill. 

Is that narrowly-linear-leaved potamogeton, all immersed and now forming dense beds in the Assabet, a distinct species, or only the immersed leaves of one? Vide pressed. 

A year ago last spring I gave to Edith Emerson and to Sophia some clasping hound’s-tongue seeds, it being very rare hereabouts, wishing to spread it. Now and for a long time it has been a pest in the garden (it does not bloom till the second year), by its seeds clinging to our clothes. Mrs. E. has carried it to Boston thus, and I have spent twenty minutes at once in clearing myself of it. So it is in a fair way to be dispersed.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 6, 1858


Hear a warbling vireo, sounding very rare and rather imperfect. I think this is what I have mistaken for the young purple finch note. See note to  September 6, 1859 ("I hear occasionally a half-warbled strain from a warbling vireo in the elm-tops, as I go down the street nowadays"); also  September 3, 1858 ("I hear a faint warble from time to time from some young or old birds, from my window these days. Is it the purple finch again, — young birds practicing?"); August 25, 1858 ("The note of a warbling vireo sounds very rare")


Now and for a long time it has been a pest in the garden. See June 5, 1858 ("Clasping hound's-tongue in garden.")

Great cumuli slowly drifting in the intensely blue sky

June 11

P. M. —To Flint’s Pond. 

The locust in graveyard shows but few blossoms yet. 

It is very hot this afternoon, and that peculiar stillness of summer noons now reigns in the woods. I observe and appreciate the shade, as it were the shadow of each particular leaf on the ground.

I think that this peculiar darkness of the shade, or of the foliage as seen between you and the sky, is not accounted for merely by saying that we have not yet got accustomed to clothed trees, but the leaves are rapidly acquiring a darker green, are more and more opaque, and, besides, the sky is lit with the intensest light. It reminds me of the thunder-cloud and the dark eyelash of summer. 

June 11, 2019

Great cumuli are slowly drifting in the intensely blue sky, with glowing white borders. 

The red-eye sings incessant, and the more indolent yellow-throat vireo, and the creeper, and perhaps the redstart? or else it is the parti-colored warbler. 

I perceive that scent from the young sweet-fern shoots and withered blossoms which made the first settlers of Concord to faint on their journey. 

Saw yesterday a great yellow butterfly with black marks. 

See under an apple tree, at entrance of Goose Pond Path from Walden road, a great fungus with hollow white stem, eight or nine inches high, whose black funereal top has melted this morning, leaving a black centre with thin white scales on it. 

All the cistuses are shut now that I see, and also the veiny-leaved hieracium with one leaf on its stem, not long open. 

I notice no white lily pads near the bathing-rock in Flint’s Pond. See a bream’s nest two and a quarter feet diameter, laboriously scooped out, and the surrounding bottom for a diameter of eight feet (! !) comparatively white and clean, while all beyond is mud and leaves, etc., and a very large green and cupreous bream with a centre, while half a dozen shiners are hovering about, apparently watching a chance to steal the spawn. 

A partridge with young in the Saw Mill Brook path. Could hardly tell what kind of creature it was at first, it made such a noise and fluttering amid the weeds and bushes. Finally ran off with its body flat and wings somewhat spread. 

Utricularia vulgaris very abundant in Everett’s Pool. 

A beautiful grass-green snake about fifteen inches long, light beneath, with a yellow space under the eyes along the edge of the upper jaw. 

The Rubus triflorus apparently out of bloom at Saw Mill, before the high blackberry has begun. 

Rice tells me he found a turtle dove’s nest on an apple tree near his farm in Sudbury two years ago, with white eggs; so thin a bottom you could see the eggs through.

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

The locust in graveyard shows but few blossoms yet. See June 7, 1854 ("The locusts so full of pendulous white racemes five inches long, filling the air with their sweetness and resounding with the hum of humble and honey bees"); June 9, 1852 ("The locust in bloom"); June 10, 1853 ("The locust bloom is now perfect, filling the street with its sweetness."); June 12, 1852 ("The locusts' blossoms in the graveyard fill the street with their sweet fragrance.")

I observe and appreciate the shade, as it were the shadow of each particular leaf on the ground. See June 2, 1854 ("These virgin shades of the year . . . how full of promise!  I would fain be present at the birth of shadow. It takes place with the first expansion of the leaves.");  June 4, 1860  (" A grateful but thin shade . . .so open that we see the fluttering of each leaf in its shadow.”)

I think that this peculiar darkness of the shade . . . reminds me of the thunder-cloud and the dark eyelash of summer. See June 9. 1856 ("Now I notice where an elm is in the shadow of a cloud,—the black elm-tops and shadows of June. It is a dark eyelash which suggests a flashing eye beneath. It suggests houses that lie under the shade, the repose and siesta of summer noons, the thunder-cloud, bathing, and all that belongs to summer."); May 29, 1857 ("The sunniness contrasts with the shadows of the freshly expanded foliage, like the glances of an eye from under the dark eyelashes of June.") See also May 27, 1859 ("The dark river, now that shades are increased, is like the dark eye of a maiden.") and note to June 6, 1855 ("The dark eye and shade of June.”)

The red-eye sings incessant. See June 11, 1852 ("The red-eye sings now in the woods, perhaps more than any other bird. “);  June 12, 1853 ("The red-eyed vireo is the bird most commonly heard in the woods.”)  See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The Red-eyed Vireo

The more indolent yellow-throat vireo.   See May 19, 1856 ("A yellow-throated vireo . . . singing indolently, ullia — eelya, and sometimes varied to eelyee.”) See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The Yellow-throated Vireo

Saw yesterday a great yellow butterfly with black marks. See June 3, 1859 ("A large yellow butterfly . . . three and a half to four inches in expanse. Pale-yellow, the front wings crossed by three or four black bars; rear, or outer edge, of all wings widely bordered with black, and some yellow behind it; a short black tail to each hind one, with two blue spots in front of two red-brown ones on the tail"); June 14, 1860 ("I see near at hand two of those large yellow (and black) butterflies . . . a small and slender swallow tail with reddish brown and blue at the tail; body black above and yellow along the sides. (C. says it is the Papilio Turnus of Say.)")

All the cistuses are shut now that I see. See May 30, 1853 ("The cistus out, probably yesterday, a simple and delicate flower, its stamens all swept to one side. It upholds a delicate saffron-golden (?) basin about nine inches from the ground."); June 3, 1854 ("The cistus is well out on the Cliffs; maybe several days."); June 7, 1855 ("Cistus, apparently yesterday, open.")

The veiny-leaved hieracium with one leaf on its stem, not long open. See  June 15, 1851 ("The Hieracium venosum, veiny-leaved hawkweed, with its yellow blossoms in the woodland path.");   August 21, 1851 ("I have now found all the hawkweeds. Singular these genera of plants, plants manifestly related yet distinct. They suggest a history to nature, a natural history in a new sense. ") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The Hawkweeds (hieracium)

A partridge with young in the Saw Mill Brook path. See June 14, 1858 ("Young partridges, when?"); June 27, 1852 ("I meet the partridge with her brood in the woods . . . She spreads her tail into a fan and beats the ground with her wings fearlessly within a few feet of me, to attract my attention while her young disperse.") See also  A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Partridge

A beautiful grass-green snake about fifteen inches long, light beneath, with a yellow space under the eyes along the edge of the upper jaw. See May 19, 1860 (“See a green snake, a very vivid yellow green, of the same color with the tender foliage at present, and as if his colors had been heightened by the rain.”); May 9, 1852 ("See a green snake, twenty or more inches long, on a bush, hanging over a twig with its head held forward six inches into the air, without support and motionless.”)  

The Rubus triflorus apparently out of bloom at Saw Mill.  See May 21, 1856  ("Rubus triflorus abundantly out at the Saw Mill Brook; how long?"); June 30, 1854  ("Rubus triflorus berries, some time, — the earliest fruit of a rubus.") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Raspberry

June 11. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, June 11

This hot afternoon

the stillness of summer noons 

in the shady woods.

Cumuli drifting

    in the intensely blue sky –

glowing white borders.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Great cumuli slowly drifting

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-560611

As he looked at my sail, I listened to his singing.

May 19

Thick fog in the morning, which lasted late in the forenoon and left behind it rainy clouds for the afternoon. 

P. M. — To Cedar Swamp. 

Landed at Island Neck, and saw a small striped snake in the act of swallowing a Rana palustris, within three feet of the water. The snake, being frightened, released his hold, and the frog hopped off to the water. 

Hear and see a yellow-throated vireo, which methinks I have heard before. Going and coming, he is in the top of the same swamp white oak and singing indolently, ullia — eelya, and sometimes varied to eelyee. 

The tanager is now heard plainly and frequently. 

Aquatic Wood-wagtail
(Audubon)

I see running along the water’s edge on the Island Neck, amid the twigs, a new bird, slender and somewhat warbler-like, but plainly a Turdus, with a deep, dark chocolate-brown back (apparently uniformly) , apparently cream-colored beneath, handsomely and abundantly spotted with dark brown, vent white, light flesh-colored legs, yellowish or cream-colored line over eyes. Me thinks it teetered or wagged its tail. Flew soon and was quite shy. I think it must have been the Turdus aquaticus from its dark chocolate-brown back and running along the water’s edge. Feel pretty sure, yet that is said to have white (?) over eye. I lost it before I had examined fully. Quite a discovery. Vide golden-crowned thrush carefully. 

Apple in bloom; some, no doubt, earlier. Night hawk’s squeak. Red-Wing’s nest made, and a robin's without mud, on black willow four feet above water. 

As I sail up the reach of the Assabet above Dove Rock with a fair wind, a traveller riding along the highway is watching my sail while he hums a tune. How inspiring and elysian it is to hear when the traveller or the laborer from a call to his horse or the murmur of ordinary conversation rises into song! It paints the landscape suddenly as no agriculture, no flowery crop that can be raised. It is at once another land, the abode of poetry. I am always thus affected when I hear in the fields any singing or instrumental music at the end of the day. It implies a different life and pursuits than the ordinary. As he looked at my sail, I listened to his singing. Perchance they were equally poetic, and we repaid each other. Why will not men oftener advertise me of musical thoughts? The singer is in the attitude of one inviting the muse, — aspiring. 

The Maryland yellow-throat amid the alders sings now, whit-we-chee whit-we-chee whit-we-chee whit-whit, the last two fast, or whit alone, or none.  

Woolly aphides on alder. 

The Smilacina trifolia will apparently bloom to-morrow or next day.

Returning, stopped at Barrett's sawmill while it rained a little. Was also attracted by the music of his saw. He was sawing a white oak log; was about to saw a very ugly and knotty white oak log into drag plank, making an angle. Said that about as many logs were brought to his mill as ten years ago, — he did not perceive the difference, — but they were not so large, and perhaps they went further for them. There were white oak, pine, maple, and walnut logs waiting to be sawed.

I observed that he was not grinding. No, he said, it was the first day he had not had a grist, though he had plenty of water; probably because the farmers were busy planting.  

A bullfrog, sluggish, by my boat’s place. 

On the 13th I saw washed up to the edge of the meadow, this side of Clamshell, portions of one or two large bluish-white eggs, apparently a size larger than hens’ eggs, which may have been laid last year by some wild fowl in the meadow. 

May 19, 2016

If my friend would take a quarter part the pains to show me himself that he does to show me a piece of roast beef, I should feel myself irresistibly invited. He says, — 

“ Come and see
Roast beef and me.”

I find the beef fat and well done, but him rare.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 19, 1856

Saw a small striped snake in the act of swallowing a Rana palustris . . . The snake, being frightened, released his hold, and the frog hopped off to the water. See  August 23, 1851 ("I saw a snake by the roadside and touched him with my foot . . . He had a toad in his jaws, which he was preparing to swallow with his jaws distended to three times his width, but he relinquished his prey in haste and fled"); July 23, 1856 ("A small bullfrog in the act of swallowing a young but pretty sizable apparently Rana palustris . . . I sprang to make him disgorge, but it was too late to save him.");

Hear and see a yellow-throated vireo, which methinks I have heard before. See  May 18, 1856 ("I think I hear a yellow-throated vireo. "); 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 and occasionally a whistle like tlea tlow, or chowy chow, or tully ho on a higher key.”) See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The Yellow-throated Vireo

The tanager is now heard plainly and frequently.  See     May 15, 1856 ("As I sat by the Riordan crossing, thought it was the tanager I heard? . . . it must have been a tanager, which I hear frequently the 19th. ");   May 22, 1853 ("Hear the hoarse note of the tanager and the sweet pe-a-wai."); May 23, 1853 ("I hear and see a tanager. How he enhances the wildness and wealth of the woods! ") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Scarlet Tanager in May

I see running along the water’s edge on the Island Neck, amid the twigs, a new bird, slender and somewhat warbler-like, but plainly a Turdus. See May 23, 1860 ("[I see]running along the shore close to the water, at different times, three or four water-thrushes (water wagtails, Turdus Noveboracensis ) . . . It is considerably like the golden-crowned thrush, but it has a distinct buffish-white line over the eye and the breast and sides distinctly striped with dark. All above uniform olive-brown. It may be distinguished at a distance from a sparrow by its wagging motion, teetering on its perch. It persistently runs along the shore, peetweet- and song-sparrow-like, running like a rail around the tussocks and other obstacles and appearing again at the water's edge. It was not very shy.") Note. In 1856, the warbler known today as the northern waterthrush (Parkesia noveboracensis) was most commonly referred to as

• Aquatic Wood-Wagtail, or
• New York Thrush or Water Thrush (Turdus noveboracensis or  Turdus aquaticus). 

Apple in bloom. See The blooming of the apple trees is becoming general.  See May 18, 1851 ("The blooming of the apple trees is becoming general. ") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Apple Blossom Time

 

A traveller riding along the highway is watching my sail while he hums a tune. See March 26, 1855 ('"Sail down to the Great Meadows. A strong wind with snow driving from the west and thickening the air. The farmers pause to see me scud before it."); April 18, 1856 ("The farmer neglects his team to watch my sail."); September 27, 1858 ("The farmers digging potatoes on shore pause a moment to watch my sail and bending mast.")

I am always thus affected when I hear in the fields any singing or instrumental music at the end of the day. See  April 19, 1856 ("Was awakened in the night to a strain of music dying away, — passing travellers singing."); June 14, 1851 ("How sweet and encouraging it is to hear the sound of some artificial music from the midst of woods or from the top of a hill at night, borne on the breeze from some distant farmhouse, — the human voice or a flute!"); June 16, 1852 ("A flute from some villager. How rare among men so fit a thing as the sound of a flute at evening!"); June 18, 1852 ("I hear a man playing a clarionet far off."); June 25, 1852 ("Now his day's work is done, the laborer plays his flute, — only possible at this hour."); July 12, 1851 ("I hear a human voice, — some laborer singing after his day's toil");   July 20, 1853 ("You are pretty sure also to hear some human music, vocal or instrumental, far or near.")  August 15, 1851 ("I hear now from Bear Garden Hill — I rarely walk by moonlight without hearing — the sound of a flute, or a horn, or a human voice.")

The Maryland yellow-throat amid the alders sings now. See May 10, 1858 ("As I paddle along, hear the Maryland yellow-throat, the bobolink, the oven-bird, and the yellow-throated vireo. . . . It is remarkable how many new birds have come all at once to-day.");  May 11, 1854 ("Now, some time after sunset, the robins scold and sing, the Maryland yellow-throat is heard amid the alders and willows by the waterside, and the peetweet and black birds, and sometimes a kingbird, and the tree-toad.")

The Smilacina trifolia will apparently bloom to-morrow or next day. See  May 4, 1856 ("Smilacina trifolia recently up; will apparently open in ten or twelve days. "); See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Three-leaved  false Solomon's-seal

 

Returning, stopped at Barrett's sawmill while it rained a little. Was also attracted by the music of his saw. See March 15, 1854 ("The sound of Barrett's sawmill in the still morning comes over the water very loud."); April 15, 1856 ("I hear very distinctly Barrett’s sawmill at my landing."); May 8, 1857 ("I hear the sound of Barrett's sawmill with singular distinctness."); August 17, 1858 ("Being overtaken by a shower, we took refuge in the basement of Sam Barrett’s sawmill, where we spent an hour.")

Wood pewee. See  May 17, 1853 ("I hear the wood pewee, — pe-a-wai. The heat of yesterday has brought him on."); May 17, 1854 ("Hear the wood pewee, the warm weather sound.");  May 22, 1854 ("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"); See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The Arrival of the Eastern Wood Pewee

May 19.  See A Book of the Seasons, A by Henry Thoreau, May 19

He looked at my sail – 

I listened to his singing

inviting the muse.

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, As he looked at my sail

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-560519