Wishing that I could find a dead duck floating on the water

April 6.

It clears up at 8 P. M. warm and pleasant, leaving flitting clouds and a little wind, and I go up the Assabet in my boat. 

The blackbirds have now begun to frequent the water’s edge in the meadow, the ice being sufficiently out. 

The April waters, smooth and commonly high, before many flowers (none yet) or any leafing, while the landscape is still russet and frogs are just awakening, is peculiar. 

April 6, 2020

It began yesterday. A very few white maple stamens stand out already loosely enough to blow in the wind, and some alder catkins look almost ready to shed pollen. On the hillsides I smell the dried leaves and hear a few flies buzzing over them. 

The banks of the river are alive with song sparrows and tree sparrows. They now sing in advance of vegetation, as the flowers will blossom, —those slight tinkling, twittering sounds called the singing of birds; they have come to enliven the bare twigs before the buds show any signs of starting. 

I see a large wood tortoise just crawled out upon the bank, with three oval, low, bug-like leeches on its sternum. 

You can hear all day, from time to time, in any part of the village, the sound of a gun fired at ducks. Yesterday I was wishing that I could find a dead duck floating on the water, as I had found muskrats and a hare, and now I see something bright and reflecting the light from the edge of the alders five or six rods off. Can it be a duck? 

I can hardly believe my eyes. I am near enough to see its green head and neck. I am delighted to find a perfect specimen of the Mergus merganser, or goosander, undoubtedly shot yesterday by the Fast-Day sportsmen, and I take a small flattened shot from its wing, — flattened against the wing—bone, apparently. The wing is broken, and it is shot through the head. 

(The chief wound was in a wing, which was broken. I afterward took three small shot from it, which were flattened against the bill’s base and perhaps (?) the quills’ shafts.)

It is a perfectly fresh and very beautiful bird, and as I raise it, I get sight of its long, slender vermilion bill (color of red sealing wax) and its clean, bright-orange legs and feet, and then of its perfectly smooth and spotlessly pure white breast and belly, tinged with a faint salmon (or tinged with a delicate buff inclining to salmon). 

This, according to Wilson, is one of the mergansers, or fisher ducks, of which there are nine or ten species and we have four in America. It is the largest of these four; feeds almost entirely on fin and shell fish; called water pheasant, sheldrake, fisherman diver, dun diver, sparkling fowl, harle, etc., as well as goosander. Go in April, return in November. 

Jardine has found seven trout in one female. Nuttall says they breed in the Russian Empire and are seen in Mississippi and Missouri in winter. He found a young brood in Pennsylvania. Yarrell says they are called also saw-bill and jack-saw; are sometimes sold in London market. 

Nest, according to Selby, on ground; according to others, in a hollow tree also. Found on the continent of Europe, northern Asia, and even in Japan. Some breed in the Orkneys and thereabouts.

My bird is 25 7/8 inches long and 35 in alar extent; from point of wing to end of primaries, 11 inches. 

It is a great diver and does not mind the cold. It appears admirably fitted for diving and swimming. Its body is flat, and its tail short, flat, compact, and wedge-shaped; its eyes peer out a slight slit or semicircle in the skin of the head; and its legs are flat and thin in one direction, and the toes shut up compactly so as to create the least friction when drawing them forward, but their broad webs spread them three and a half inches when they take a stroke. The web is extended three eighths of an inch beyond the inner toe of each foot. There are very conspicuous black teeth-like serrations along the edges of its bill, and this also is roughened so that it may hold its prey securely. 

The breast appeared quite dry when I raised it from the water. 

The head and neck are, as Wilson says, black, glossed with green, but the lower part of the neck pure white, and these colors bound on each other so abruptly that one appears to be sewed on to the other. It is a perfect wedge from the middle of its body to the end of its tail, and it is only three and a quarter - inches deep from back to breast at the thickest part, while the greatest breadth horizontally (at the root of the legs) is five and a half inches. In these respects it reminds me of an otter, which however I have never seen. - I suspect that I have seen near a hundred of these birds this spring, but I never got so near one before. 

In Yarrell’s plate the depth of the male goosander is to its length (i. e. from tip of tail to most forward part of breast) as thirty-seven to one hundred and three, or the depth is more than one third. This length in Yarrell’s bird, calling the distance from the point of the wing to the end of the primaries eleven inches, is about fourteen and a half inches, of which my three and a quarter is not one fourth. In Nuttall’s plate the proportion is thirty-two to ninety-one, also more than one third. I think they have not represented the bird flat enough.  

Yarrell says it is the largest of the British mergansers; is a winter visitor, though a few breed in the north of Britain; are rare in the southern counties. But, according to Yarrell, a Mr. Low in his Natural History of Orkney says they breed there, and, after breeding, the sexes separate; and Y. quotes Selby as saying that their nest is near the edge of the water, of grass, roots, etc., lined with down, sometimes among stones, in long grass, under bushes, or in a stump or hollow tree. 

Y. continues, egg “a uniform buff white,” two and a half inches long. Sometimes carry their young  on their backs in the water. It is common in Sweden and, according to the traveller Acerbi, in Lapland they give it a hollow tree to build in and then steal its eggs. The mother, he adds, carries her young to the water in her bill. 

Y. says it is well known in Russia and is found in Germany, Holland, France, Switzerland, Provence, and Italy. Has been seen near the Caucasus (and is found in Japan, according to one authority). Also in North America, Hudson’s Bay, Greenland, and Iceland.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, April 6, 1855

They now sing in advance of vegetation, as the flowers will blossom, . . .they have come to enliven the bare twigs before the buds show any signs of starting. See April 28, 1852 ("The spring flowers wait not to perfect their leaves before they expand their blossoms.)

White maple stamens stand out already loosely enough to blow in the wind. See April 6, 1853 ("Notice a white maple with almost all the staminate flowers above or on the top, most of the stamens now withered, before the red maple has blossomed. Another maple, all or nearly all female. The staminiferous flowers look light yellowish, the female dark crimson”); April 6, 1854 ("I am surprised to find so much of the white maples already out”); see also April 7, 1861 (" The white maple at the bridge not quite out.”); April 9, 1852 ("The maple by the bridge in bloom”); April 8, 1855 (I find some anthers effete and dark, and others still mealy with pollen. There are many in this condition. The crimson female stigmas also peeping forth. It evidently began to shed pollen yesterday.”).  Also see A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, White maple buds and flowers.

The banks of the river are alive with song sparrows . See April 6, 1856 ("The hedges resound with the song of the song sparrow."). See also Henry Thoreau, A Book of the Seasons: the Song Sparrow (Fringilla melodia)

A perfect specimen of the Mergus merganser, or goosander, undoubtedly shot yesterday by the Fast-Day sportsmen.  See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Sheldrake (Goosander, Merganser)

I see a large wood tortoise just crawled out upon the bank, with three oval, low, bug-like leeches on its sternum. See April 17, 1858 (" I take up a wood turtle on the shore, whose sternum is covered with small ants") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Wood Turtle (Emys insculpta)

White maple stamens 

already stand out enough

to blow in the wind.

it reminds me of 

an otter, which however 

i have never seen.

 

It is a sober, moist day, with a circle round the sun.

April 5

Fast-Day. 9 A. M. —To Sudbury line by boat. 

A still and rather warm morning, with a very thick haze concealing the sun and threatening to turn to rain. 

April 5, 2015

It is a smooth, April-morning water, and many sportsmen are out in their boats. I see a pleasure-boat, on the smooth surface away by the Rock, resting lightly as a feather in the air. 

Scare up a snipe close to the water’s edge, and soon after a hen-hawk from the Clamshell oaks. The last looks larger on his perch than flying. 

The snipe too, then, like crows, robins, blackbirds, and hens, is found near the waterside, where is the first spring (e.g. alders and white maples, etc., etc), and there too especially are heard the song and tree sparrows and pewees, and even the hen-hawk at this season haunts there for his prey. 

Inland, the groves are almost completely silent as yet. The concert of song and tree sparrows at willow-row is now very full, and their different notes are completely mingled. 

See a single white-bellied swallow dashing over the river. He, too, is attracted here by the early insects that begin to be seen over the water.  See this forenoon a great many of those little fuzzy gnats in the air.

It being Fast-Day, we on the water hear the loud and musical sound of bells ringing for church in the surrounding towns. 

It is a sober, moist day, with a circle round the sun, which I can only see in the reflection in the water.

The river appears to have risen still last night, owing to the rain of the 1st, and many spring cranberries are washed together at last, and now many new seeds, apparently of sedges, are loosened and washed up. 

Now that for the most part it is melted quite to its edge, and there is no ice there, the water has a warmer, April look close under my eye. Now is the first time this year to get spring cranberries. 

In many places now the river wreck is chiefly composed of Juncus militaris. Was it so in fall? 

There is a strong muskrat scent from many a shore. See a muskrat floating, which may have been drowned when the river was so high in midwinter, —for this is the second I have seen, —with the rabbit. 

I saw yesterday a yellow-spot and see to-day a painted tortoise, already out on the bank on a tuft of grass. 

The muskrat-hunter sits patiently with cocked gun, waiting for a muskrat to put out his head amid the button-bushes. He gets half a dozen in such a cruise.

Bush our boat with hemlock to get near some ducks, but another boat above, also bushed, scares them.

Hear from one half-flooded meadow that low, general, hard, stuttering tut tut tut of frogs,—the awakening of the meadow. 

Hear the cry of the peacock again. 

By 4 P. M. it begins to rain gently or mizzle. 

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, April 5, 1855

Fast Day. ~  A traditional day of fasting and prayer in New England celebrated on the third Monday in April, was replaced in Massachusetts by Patriots' Day, commemorating the Battles of Lexington and Concord.

A still and rather warm morning, with a very thick haze concealing the sun and threatening to turn to rain. See April 14, 1855 ("An overcast and moist day, but truly April—no sun all day—like such as began methinks on Fast Day, or the 5th. You cannot foretell how it will turn out.")

Scare up a snipe close to the water’s edge. See April 2, 1859 (" As I go down the street just after sunset, I hear many snipe to-night. This sound is annually heard by the villagers, but always at this hour, i. e. in the twilight, — a hovering sound high in the air, — and they do not know what to refer it to.");  April 10, 1854 ("There are many snipes now feeding in the meadows, which you come close upon, and then they go off with hoarse cr-r-r-ack cr-r-r-ack. They dive down suddenly from a considerable height sometimes when they alight"); See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau: the Snipe

Juncus militaris.  ~ Bayonet rush. Inhabits shallow water of lakes and slow-moving rivers.  Its fruit is a capsule, with at least three seeds in it.

We on the water hear the loud and musical sound of bells ringing for church in the surrounding towns. See April 15, 1855 ("The sound of church bells, at various distances, in Concord and the neighboring towns, sounds very sweet to us on the water this still day. It is the song of the villages heard with the song of the birds."); see also May 3, 1852 ("There is a grand, rich, musical echo trembling on the air long after the clock has ceased to strike. . . like a flower of sound. ") ; Walden ("Sometimes, on Sundays, I heard the bells, the Lincoln, Acton, Bedford, or Concord bell, when the wind was favorable, a faint, sweet, and, as it were, natural melody, worth importing into the wilderness. At a sufficient distance over the woods this sound acquires a certain vibratory hum") and A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Bells and Whistles

The muskrat-hunter . . . gets half a dozen in such a cruise. See April 7, 1853 ("It is Fast-Day, and many gunners are about the shore, which makes them shy. I never cross the meadow at this season without seeing ducks")

 That low, general, hard, stuttering tut tut tut of frogs,—the awakening of the meadow.. See April 5, 1854 ("the shrill peep of the hylodes borne to me from afar through the woods");  April 5, 1855 ("Hear from one half-flooded meadow that low, general, hard, stuttering tut tut tut of frogs,—the awakening of the meadow.”); April 5, 1857 ("I hear the croaking frogs at 9.30 P. M.");; April 5, 1858 ("The woods resound with the one [R. sylvatica], and the meadows day and night with the other [R. halecina], so that it amounts to a general awakening of the pools and meadows. "); April 5, 1860 (" a very faint distant ring of toads."). See also April 3, 1858 ("This might be called the Day of the Snoring Frogs, or the Awakening of the Meadows."); April 9, 1853 (“The whole meadow resounds, probably from one end of the river to the other, this evening, with this faint, stertorous breathing. It is the waking up of the meadows.")

April 5. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, April 5

A sober moist day

with a circle round the sun

seen in reflection.

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau,  A circle round the sun.

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau

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

out-of-doors, in its own locality.”

~edited, assembled and rewritten by zphx © 2009-2025

https://tinyurl.com/hdt-550405

The View from Mt. Misery

April 4

A fine morning, still and bright, with smooth water and singing of song and tree sparrows and some blackbirds. A nuthatch is heard on the elms, and two ducks fly upward in the sun over the river. 

P. M. — To Clematis Brook via Lee’s. 

A pleasant day, growing warmer; a slight haze. Now the hedges and apple trees are alive with fox colored sparrows, all over the town, and their imperfect strains are occasionally heard. Their clear, fox colored backs are very handsome. I get quite near to them. 

Stand quite near to what I call a hairy woodpecker -- but, seeing the downy afterward, I am in doubt about it. Its body certainly as big as a robin. It is a question of size between the two kinds. The rows of white spots near the end of the wings of the downy remind me of the lacings on the skirts of a soldier’s coat. 

I am surprised to find the pond, i. e. Fair Haven Pond, not yet fully open. There is a large mass of ice in the eastern bay, which will hardly melt to morrow. 

It is a fine air, but more than tempered by the snow in the northwest. All the earth is bright; the very pines glisten, and the water is a bright blue. A gull is circling round Fair Haven Pond, seen white against the woods and hillsides, looking as if it would dive for a fish every moment, and occasionally resting on the ice. 

The water above Lee’s Bridge is all alive with ducks. There are many flocks of eight or ten together, their black heads and white breasts seen above the water, - more of them than I have seen before this season, - and a gull with its whole body above the water, perhaps standing where it was shallow. 

Not only are the evergreens brighter, but the pools, as that upland one behind Lee’s, the ice as well as snow about their edges being now completely melted, have a peculiarly warm and bright April look, as if ready to be inhabited by frogs. 

I can now put a spade into the garden anywhere. The rain of April 1st and the warmth of to-day have taken out the frost there; but I cannot put a spade into banks by the meadow where there is the least slope to the north.

Returning from Mt. Misery, the pond and river reach presented a fine, warm view. The slight haze, which on a warmer day at this season softens the rough surfaces which the winter has left and fills the copses seemingly with life, — makes them appear to teem with life, — made the landscape remarkably fair. 

It would not be called a warm, but a pleasant day; but the water has crept partly over the meadows, and the broad border of button-bushes, etc., etc., off Wheeler’s cranberry meadow, low and nearly flat, though sloping regularly from an abrupt curving edge on the river side several rods into the meadow till it is submerged — this is isolated, but at this distance and through this air it is remarkably soft and elysian.

April 4, 2015

There is a remarkable variety in the view at present from this summit. The sun feels as warm as in June on my ear. Half a mile off in front is this elysian water, high over which two wild ducks are winging their rapid flight eastward through the bright air; on each side and beyond, the earth is clad with a warm russet, more pleasing perhaps than green; and far beyond all, in the north western horizon, my eye rests on a range of snow-covered mountains, glistening in the sun.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, April 4, 1855

In the north western horizon, my eye rests on a range of snow-covered mountains, glistening in the sun. . . . See April 4, 1852  ("I see the snow lying thick on the south side of the Peterboro Hills, . . .probably the dividing line at present between the bare ground and the snow-clad ground stretching three thousand miles to the Saskatchewan and Mackenzie and the Icy Sea.");  April 4, 1859 ("When I look with my glass, I see the cold and sheeny snow still glazing the mountains. This it is which makes  the wind so piercing cold."); February 21, 1855 ("I look at the Peterboro mountains with my glass from Fair Haven Hill. I think that there can be no more arctic scene than these mountains in the edge of the horizon completely crusted over with snow, with the sun shining on them, seen through a telescope over bare, russet fields and dark forests. . . “)

April 4. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, April 4

Snow-covered mountains

in the northwest horizon

glisten in the sun.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The View from Mt. Misery

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau

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

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

 ~edited, assembled and rewritten by zphx ©  2009-2024

tinyurl.com/hdt-550404

***

April 4, 2014

One of the wonderful things about living here is the mountains in every direction heading up north Main Street you see far into Chittenden and Mount Caramel, Nickwackett Mountain Lead Mine Mountain -- to the west is Mount Herrick and Birdseye-- to the south White Rocks and Dorset Peak-- viewed from West Rutland and N. Grove St. the Green Mountain ranges remarkable Pico Killington Mendon peak seen behind East Mountain and up close in downtown Rutland looking at East Mountain it is a wall sheer wall --to the south Bald Mountain to the north Blue Ridge Mountain-- all these mountains at one time or another living here these 66 years I have climbed.

hey let's go up Tom would say and we did Nickwackett East Mountain Bald Mountain Blue Ridge Killington Pico Mendon Bob’s Slide etc.

I've never been up Herrick though it sits outside my office.

Well what I'm getting around to is when the snow from this cold hard winter finally melted here, even though I've lived here all these years, I am just stunned at looking at the mountains still covered with snow and it is the whiteness and the brightness of the mountains standing all around this valley I cannot describe.

Today reading Henry Thoreau he stands on Mount Misery and looks to the northwest horizon he looks over the near landscape before him and in the"north western horizon my eyes rest on a range of snow covered mountains glistening in the sun.”

Stunning white and bright

mountains all these years standing

around this valley.

April 4, 2015. zphx

See April 2, 2019 (Overheard in the hospital waiting room:

"'The air won’t be warm,' my father always said, 'until they get the snow out of the mountain'")

A very large hawk

April 3,  2015

April 3

It is somewhat warmer, but still windy, and I go to sail down to the Island and up to Hubbard’s Causeway.



Most would call it cold to-day. I paddle without gloves. It is a coolness like that of March 29th and 30th, pleasant to breathe, and, perhaps, like that, presaging decidedly warmer weather. It is an amelioration, as nature does nothing suddenly.

The shores are lined with frozen spray-like foam, with an abrupt edge, a foot high often on the waterside. Occasionally where there are twigs there is a nest of those short, thick bulls’-horn icicles, pointing in every direction.

I see many hens feeding close to the river’s edge, like the crows, - and robins and blackbirds later, - and I have no doubt they are attracted by a like cause. The ground being first thawed there, not only worms but other insect and vegetable life is accessible there sooner than elsewhere.

See several pairs of ducks, mostly black.

Returning, when off the hill am attracted by the noise of crows, which betray to me a very large hawk, large enough for an eagle, sitting on a maple beneath them. Now and then they dive at him, and at last he sails away low round the hill, as if hunting.

The hillside is alive with sparrows, red-wings, and the first grackles 
[rusty grackles, or rusty blackbirds.] I have seen.  I detected them first by their more rasping note . . . after a short stuttering, then a fine, clear whistle. 

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, April 3, 1855

Most would call it cold to-day. I paddle without gloves. Compare April 3, 1852 ("It is very cold and windy, and I miss my gloves, left at home. Colder than the last moon"); See March 20, 1855 (“It is remarkable by what a gradation of days which we call pleasant and warm . . . At first a sunny, calm, serene winter day is pronounced spring, or reminds us of it; and then the first pleasant spring day perhaps we walk with our greatcoat buttoned up and gloves on.”);  April 26, 1860 ("To-day it is 53° at 2 P. M., yet cold, such a difference is there in our feelings. What we should have called a warm day in March is a cold one at this date in April. It is the northwest wind makes it cold.")

A coolness like that of March 29th and 30th. See March 29, 1855 ("I inhale with pleasure the cold but wholesome air . . . This, which is a chilling wind to my fellow, is decidedly refreshing to me."); March 30, 1855 ("To-day and yesterday have been bright, windy days. —west wind, cool, yet, compared with the previous colder ones, pleasantly, gratefully cool to me on my cheek.")

Nature does nothing suddenly. See September 17, 1839 ("Nature never makes haste; her systems revolve at an even pace."); June 14, 1851 ("How moderate, deliberate, is Nature! "); January 26, 1858 ("Nature loves gradation.");  November 17, 1858 ("Nature is moderate and loves degrees.");  January 14, 1861 ("Nature is slow but sure; she works no faster than need be.")

Those short, thick bulls’-horn icicles, pointing in every direction. See April 2, 1855 ("The wind is still very strong and cold from the north west . . . blowing the water . . . over the rocks and bushes along the shore, where it freezes in the shape of bulls’ horns.")

See several pairs of ducks, mostly black. See April 7, 1853 ("We cross the Great Meadows, scaring up many ducks at a great distance, some partly white, some apparently black, some brownish (?).  It is Fast-Day, and many gunners are about the shore, which makes them shy. I never cross the meadow at this season without seeing ducks. "); See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the American Black Duck

The noise of crows . . . betray to me a very large hawk, large enough for an eagle. See April 6, 1856 ("The crows had betrayed to me some large bird of the hawk kind which they were buffeting.); April 8, 1854 ("It sailed and circled along over the low cliff, and the crows dived at it in the field of my glass . . . It was undoubtedly a white-headed eagle.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the American Crow

Rusty grackles, or rusty blackbirds . . . after a short stuttering, then a fine, clear whistle. See April 9, 1855 ("Wilson says that the only note of the rusty grackle is a chuck, though he is told that at Hudson’s Bay, at the breeding-time, they sing with a fine note. Here they utter not only a chuck, but a fine shrill whistle."); April 11, 1856 (" See a male and female rusty grackle alight on an oak near me, the latter apparently a flaxen brown, with a black tail. She looks like a different species of bird. Wilson had heard only a tchuck from the grackle, but this male, who was courting his mate, broke into incipient warbles, like a bubble burst.");  April 14, 1855 ("I see half a dozen crow blackbirds uttering their coarse rasping char char. . . They also attain to a clear whistle with some effort, but seem to have some difficulty in their throats yet."): March 29, 1853 ("It would be worth the while to attend more to the different notes of the blackbirds.");March 29, 1858 ("I see what I suppose is the female rusty grackle; black body with green reflections and purplish-brown head and neck, but I notice no light iris. ") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Signs of the Spring: The grackle arrives.

April 3. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, April 3

A very large hawk

large enough for an eagle

mobbed by noisy crows.

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau,  A very large hawk

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau

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

out-of-doors, in its own locality.”

~edited, assembled and rewritten by zphx © 2009-2025

https://tinyurl.com/hdt-550403

High winds and wintry cold.

April 2.

Not only the grass but the pines also were greener yesterday for being wet.  To-day, the grass being dry, the green blades are less conspicuous than yesterday. It would seem, then, that this color is more vivid when wet, and perhaps all green plants, like lichens, are to some extent greener in moist weather. 

Green is essentially vivid, or the color of life, and it is therefore most brilliant when a plant is moist or most alive. A plant is said to be green in opposition to being withered and dead. The word, according to Webster, is from the Saxon grene, to grow, and hence is the color of herbage when growing. 

High winds all night, rocking the house, opening doors, etc. To-day also. It is wintry cold also, and ice has formed nearly an inch thick in my boat. 

P. M. — Down the river-bank. 

The wind is still very strong and cold from the north west, filling the air with dust and blowing the water, which has slightly risen, over the rocks and bushes along the shore, where it freezes in the shape of bulls’ horns about the osiers, making coarse rakes with its dependent icicles when the osiers are horizontal, also turtle-shells over the rocks. 

It is just such a wind and freezing as that of last March (18th, I think), and, if the meadow were flooded, there would probably be as much ice as then on the bushes. There may be wind enough for this phenomenon in the winter, but then there is no open water to be blown.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, April 2, 1855

Not only the grass but the pines also were greener yesterday for being wet. See April 1, 1855 ("When I look out the window I see that the grass on the bank on the south side of the house is already much greener than it was yesterday."); March 30, 1855 ("There is a very perceptible greenness on our south bank now"). See also December 28, 1851 ("The white pines look greener than usual in this gentle rain,");  May 11, 1854 ("Not only the wet grass looks many shades greener in the twilight, but the old pine-needles also.")

Green is essentially vivid, or the color of life, and it is therefore most brilliant when a plant is moist or most alive. See April 24, 1859  ("I am struck by the vivid greenness of the tips of the sedge just pushing up out of its dry tussocks in the water . . . this vivid green  . . .  is the renewal of life."); October 12, 1859 ("The dendroideum and lucidulum, etc., — how vivid a green ! — lifting their heads above the moist fallen leaves.")

High winds all night, rocking the house, opening doors. See February 29, 1852 (“High winds . . . The house shakes, and the beds and tables rock.”); March 6, 1855 (" Still stronger wind, shaking the house."); March 18, 1854 ("Very high wind this forenoon . . . Never felt it shake the house so much."); June 2, 1855 (“The wind shakes the house night and day.”)

Ice has formed nearly an inch thick in my boat.  See March 19, 1855 ("A fine clear and warm day for the season. Launched my boat."); March 20, 1855 ("A flurry of snow at 7 A. M. I go to turn my boat up.”);Compare November 24, 1853 ("Ice forms in my boat.”); November 24, 1855 ("Ice has frozen pretty thick in the bottom of my boat.”): November 26, 1855 ("Bottom of boat covered with ice.")

April 3. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, April 2

It is wintry cold

and ice has formed in my boat –

nearly an inch thick.

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, High winds and wintry cold.

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau

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

out-of-doors, in its own locality.”

~edited, assembled and rewritten by zphx © 2009-2025

https://tinyurl.com/hdt-550402

April comes in true.

April 1

The month comes in true to its reputation. We wake, though late, to hear the sound of a strong, steady, and rather warm rain on the roof, and see the puddles shining in the road. 

April 1, 2018

It lasts till the middle of the day, and then is succeeded by a cold northwest wind. This pattering rain and Sabbath morning combined make us all sluggards. 

When I look out the window I see that the grass on the bank on the south side of the house is already much greener than it was yesterday.  
P. M. —— To Conantum End.

At the first Conantum Cliff I am surprised to see how much the columbine leaves have grown in a sheltered cleft; also the cinquefoil, dandelion, yarrow, sorrel, saxifrage, etc., etc. They seem to improve the least warmer ray to advance themselves, and they hold all they get. 

See, resting on the edge of the ice in Fair Haven Pond, a white duck with black head, and a dark one. They take to the water when I appear on the hill a quarter of a mile off, and soon fly down the river rather low over the water. Were they not the same with those of the 16th ult.? 

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

The month comes in true to its reputation . . . a strong, steady, and rather warm rain. See April 1, 1854 ("Sparrows are particularly lively and musical in the yard this rainy and truly April day . . . The robin now begins to sing sweet powerfully . . . April has begun like itself. It is warm and showery”); April 1, 1857 ("It is a true April evening, feeling and looking as if it would rain, and already I hear a robin or two singing their evening song."); April 6, 1860 ("Rainy, more or less, — April weather.");   April 14, 1855 ("An overcast and moist day, but truly April—no sun all day—like such as began methinks on Fast Day, or the 5th. You cannot foretell how it will turn out. "); April 16, 1860 ("In afternoon a true April rain, dripping and soaking into the earth and heard on the roof,"); April 27, 1857 (" It is a true April morning . . . It will surely rain to-day, but when it will begin in earnest and how long it will last, none can tell."); See also  March 8, 1855 ("This sound reminds me of rainy, misty April days in past years. ");  April 2, 1854 ("Sitting on the rail over the brook, I hear something which reminds me of the song of the robin in rainy days in past springs.")

The grass on the bank on the south side of the house is already much greener than it was yesterday. See March 17, 1854 ("The grass is slightly greened on south bank-sides — on the south side of the house. The first tinge of green appears to be due to moisture more than to direct heat."); March 22, 1860 ("The phenomena of an average March are increasing warmth, melting the snow and ice and . . . some greenness appearing on south bank."); March 24, 1855 ("The earliest signs of spring in vegetation noticed thus far are the . . . grass on south banks."); March 30, 1855 ("There is a very perceptible greenness on our south bank now."); March 30, 1856 ("I can just see a little greening on our bare and dry south bank"). See also March 17, 1857 ("No mortal is alert enough to be present at the first dawn of the spring, but he will presently discover some evidence that vegetation had awaked some days at least before."); April 3, 1856 (" It is surprising how the earth on bare south banks begins to show some greenness in its russet cheeks in this rain and fog, -- a precious emerald-green tinge . . . I revive with Nature; her victory is mine. This is my jewelry.") and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Signs of the Spring, Greening grasses and sedges

Surprised to see how much the columbine leaves have grown in a sheltered cleft; also the cinquefoil, dandelion, yarrow, sorrel, saxifrage. See March 18,1853 (At Conantum Cliff the columbines have started and the saxifrage even . . . Both these grow there in high and dry chinks in the face of the cliff, where no soil appears, and the sunnier the exposure the more advanced."); April 2, 1856 ("Lee’s Cliff. The crowfoot and saxifrage seem remarkably backward; no growth as yet . . . The columbine, with its purple leaves, has grown five inches, and one is flower-budded, apparently nearer to flower than anything 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.");April 6, 1858 ("On a few small warm shelves under the rocks the saxifrage makes already a pretty white edging along the edge of the grass sod on the rocks; has got up three or four inches, and may have been out four or five days . . .I also notice one columbine, which may bloom in a week if it is pleasant weather."); April 7, 1855 ("At Lee’s Cliff I find the radical leaves of the early saxifrage, columbine, and the tower mustard, etc., much eaten apparently by partridges and perhaps rabbits."); April 7, 1860 ("Early potentilla out, - how long? - on side of Annursnack.");April 8, 1854 ("The columbine shows the most spring growth of any plant."); April 8, 1855 ("The columbine leaves in the clefts of Cliffs are one of the very earliest obvious growths. I noticed it the first of April."): April 10, 1859 ("I hear of a cinquefoil found in bloom on the 8th . . . Herbaceous flowers which I have known to be open before the first of May thus: . . . Rock flowers Saxifrage, crowfoot, columbine, and tower-mustard. . . Pasture flowers Cinquefoil, bluets, mouse-ear, and Viola sagittata."); April 18, 1856 ("Common saxifrage and also early sedge I am surprised to find abundantly out—both—considering their backwardness April 2d. Both must have been out some, i. e. four or five, days half-way down the face of the ledge . . . Columbine, and already eaten by bees. Some with a hole in the side"); April 19, 1858 ("Columbines and the early potentilla April 13th !!! "); April 22, 1860 ("The columbine is hardly yet out."); April 24, 1852 ("Sorrel is well under weigh, and cinquefoil"); April 25, 1852 ("Yarrow is started."); April 25, 1856 ("The cinquefoil well out . . . probably a day or two."); April 25, 1859 ("Also bluets and potentilla are first noticed by me"). See also April 2, 1856 ("t will take you half a lifetime to find out where to look for the earliest flower. . . .It is evident that it depends on the character of the season whether this flower or that is the most forward; whether there is more or less snow or cold or rain, etc.");  April 8, 1855 (“As to which are the earliest flowers, it depends on the character of the season, and ground bare or not, meadows wet or dry, etc., etc., also on the variety of soils and localities within your reach.”);  April 10, 1855 ("These few earliest flowers  . . .are remote and unobserved and often surrounded with snow, and most have not begun to think of flowers yet.") and  A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Earliest Flower

A white duck with black head, and a dark one. See March 16, 1855 ("Scared up two large ducks just above the bridge . One very large; white beneath, breast and neck; black head and wings and aft . The other much smaller and dark . Apparently male and female .. . . The larger sailed about on the watch , while the smaller , dark one dived repeatedly . . . This male I suspect was too large for the first , and , from its size and its great superiority in size to its companion , I think it the goosander or sheldrake . "). See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Signs of the Spring, Ducks Afar, Sailing on the Meadow; A Book of Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Sheldrake (Goosander, Merganser)

Warm rain on the roof 

puddles shining in the road –

April comes in true.

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, April comes in true.

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau

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

out-of-doors, in its own locality.”

~edited, assembled and rewritten by zphx © 2009-2025

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