The bushes ringing with the evening song of song sparrows and robins, and the evening sky reflected from the surface of the rippled water

April 25

A moist April morning. 

A small native willow leafing  and showing catkins to-day; also the black cherry in some places. 

The common wild rose to-morrow. Balm-of-Gilead will not shed pollen apparently for a day or more. Shepherd’s-purse will bloom to-day,—the first I have noticed which has sprung from the ground this season, or of an age. 

Say lilac begins to leaf with common currant. 

April 25, 2023

P. M. — To Beck Stow’s. 

Hear a faint cheep and at length detect the white throated sparrow, the handsome and well-marked bird, the largest of the sparrows, with a yellow spot on each side of the front, hopping along under the rubbish left by the woodchopper. I afterward hear a faint cheep very rapidly repeated, making a faint sharp jingle,—no doubt by the same. Many sparrows have a similar faint metallic cheep, —the tree sparrow and field sparrow, for instance. I first saw the white-throated sparrow at this date last year. 

Hear the peculiar squeaking notes of a pigeon woodpecker. 

Two black ducks circle around me three or four times, wishing to alight in the swamp, but finally go to the river meadows. I hear the whistling of their wings. Their bills point downward in flying. 

The Andromeda calyculata is out in water, in the little swamp east of Beck Stow’s, some perhaps yesterday; and C. says he saw many bluets yesterday, and also that he saw two F. hyemalis yesterday. 

I have noticed three or four upper jaws of muskrats on the meadow lately, which, added to the dead bodies floating, make more than half a dozen perhaps drowned out last winter.

After sunset paddle up to the Hubbard Bath. The bushes ringing with the evening song of song sparrows and robins, and the evening sky reflected from the surface of the rippled water like the lake grass on pools. 

A spearers’ fire seems three times as far off as it is.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, April 25, 1855

The common wild rose to-morrow. See   June 13, 1853 (""The smooth wild rose yesterday.);  July 11, 1855 ("What a splendid show of wild roses, whose sweetness is mingled with the aroma of the bayberry!") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The Wild Rose

Hear a faint cheep and at length detect the white throated sparrow, the handsome and well-marked bird. See April 25, 1854 ("[Saw] on the low bushes, — shrub oaks, etc., — by path, a large sparrow with ferruginous- brown and white-barred wings, — the white-throated sparrow, — uttered a faint ringing chirp.")  see also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau,  the White-throated Sparrow

Hear the peculiar squeaking notes of a pigeon woodpecker. See April 23, 1852 (" Heard the pigeon woodpecker today, that long-continued unmusical note, somewhat like a robin's, heard afar, yet pleasant to hear because associated with a more advanced stage of the season"); April 23, 1855 ("Saw two pigeon woodpeckers approach and, I think, put their bills together and utter that o-week, o-week.") See also A Book of the Seasons,   by Henry Thoreau, The Pigeon Woodpecker (flicker)

The bushes ringing with the evening song of song sparrows and robins See April  9, 1855 ("At sunset after the rain, the robins and song sparrows fill the air along the river with their song.") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Song Sparrow (Fringilla melodia)

A spearers’ fire seems three times as far off as it is. See April 25, 1856 ("At evening see a spearer’s light.")

April 25.  See A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, April 25

Bushes ring with song –

evening sky reflected from

the rippled water.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The evening song of song sparrows and robins

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-550425

That fine slaty-blue butterfly – bigger than the small red – in wood-paths.

April 24

P. M. — To Flint’s Pond. 

Warm and quite a thick haze. Cannot see distant  hills, nor use my glass to advantage. 

The Equisetum arvense on the causeway sheds its green pollen, which looks like lint on the hand abundantly, and may have done so when I first saw it upon the 21st. 

Young caterpillars’ nests are just hatched on the wild cherry. Some are an inch in diameter, others just come out. The little creatures have crawled at once to the extremity of the twigs and commenced at once on the green buds just about to burst, eating holes into them. They do not come forth till the buds are about to burst. 

I see on the pitch pines at Thrush Alley that golden crested wren or the other, ashy-olive above and whitish beneath, with a white bar on wings, restlessly darting at insects like a flycatcher, —into the air after them. It is quite tame. A very neat bird, but does not sing now. 

I see a bee like a small bumble-bee go into a little hole under a leaf in the road, which apparently it has made, and come out again back foremost. 

That fine slaty-blue butterfly, bigger than the small red, in wood-paths. 

I see a cone-bearing willow in dry woods, which will begin to leaf to-morrow, and apparently to show cones. 

Pyrus arbutifolia will begin to leaf to-morrow. Its buds are red while those of the shad-bush are green.

I can find no red cedar in bloom, but it will undoubtedly shed pollen to-morrow. It is on the point of it. I am not sure that the white cedar is any earlier. 

The sprigs of red cedar, now full of the buff-colored staminate flowers, like fruit, are very rich. The next day they shed an abundance of pollen in the house. It is a clear buff color, while that of the white cedar is very different, being a faint salmon. 

It would be very pleasant to make a collection of these powders,—like dry ground paints. They would be the right kind of chemicals to have. 

I see the black birch stumps, where they have cut by Flint’s Pond the past winter, completely covered with a greasy-looking pinkish-colored cream, yet without any particular taste or smell,—what the sap has turned to. 

The Salix alba begins to leaf. 

Have not seen the F. hyemalis for a week.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, April 24, 1855

Young caterpillars’ nests are just hatched on the wild cherry. See April 24, 1856 ("old caterpillar-nests which now lie on the ground under wild cherry trees ”)

I see on the pitch pines at Thrush Alley that golden crested wren or the other, See April 26, 1855 (“Going over Ponkawtasset, hear a golden-crested wren, — the robin’s note, etc., —in the tops of the high wood”); April 27, 1855 (“Few birds are heard this cold and windy morning. Hear a partridge drum before 6 A. M., also a golden-crested wren.”); May 6, 1855 ("Hear at a distance a ruby(?)-crowned wren,. . . I think this the only Regulus I have ever seen.”).  See also May 7, 1854 ("A ruby-crested wren. . .Saw its ruby crest and heard its harsh note. (This was the same I have called golden-crowned ; and so described by W[ilson], I should say, except that I saw its ruby crest. . . ..Have I seen the two?)”);  May 11, 1854 (“I am in a little doubt about the wrens (I do not refer to the snuff -colored one), whether I have seen more than one. All that makes me doubt is that I saw a ruby, or perhaps it might be called fiery, crest on the last — not golden.”); December 25, 1859 ("I can see a brilliant crown, evidently the golden-crested wren, which I have not made out before.") and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau: the Ruby-crowned or crested wren. [Thoreau first misidentified the ruby-cowned as a warbler and also misidentified the ruby-crowned as the golden-crowned.  He was put in doubt when  he saw a red crest on what he had been calling the golden-crested wren, and did not truly identify a golden-crested wren until  Christmas 1859.]

That fine slaty-blue butterfly, bigger than the small red, in wood-paths. See April 19, 1860 ("See the small blue butterfly hovering over the dry leaves."); April 28, 1856 (“A fine little blue-slate butterfly fluttered over the chain. Even its feeble strength was required to fetch the year about. How daring, even rash, Nature appears, who sends out butterflies so early!”); April 30, 1859 ("That interesting small blue butterfly (size of small red) is apparently just out, fluttering over the warm dry oak leaves within the wood in the sun"); May 4, 1858 (“See a little blue butterfly (or moth) — saw one yesterday — fluttering about over the dry brown leaves in a warm place by the swamp-side, making a pleasant contrast. ”); See also  A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The  Blue Butterfly in Spring; A Book of the Seasons,   by Henry Thoreau, The Small Red Butterfly

I can find no red cedar in bloom, but it will undoubtedly shed pollen to-morrow. See April 25, 1854 ("The red cedar has fairly begun to-day; maybe the first yesterday. Put the red yesterday and the white to-day. As I approach the red cedars now, I perceive a delicious strawberry-like fragrance in the air, like that from the arbor-vita.")    See also  A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Cedar Swamps

Black birch stumps . . . cut by Flint’s Pond the past winter . . . covered with a greasy-looking pinkish-colored cream.  See June 29, 1854 ("All the large black birches on Hubbard's Hill have just been cut down, — half a dozen or more. The two largest measure two feet seven inches in diameter on the stump at a foot from the ground; the others, five or six inches less. The inner bark there about five eighths of an inch."). . See also  April 23, 1856 ("The white birch sap flows yet from a stump cut last fall, and a few small bees, flies, etc., are attracted by it.")

The Salix alba begins to leaf. See April 27, 1854 ("The Salix alba begins to leaf, and the catkins are three quarters of an inch long.");   April 29, 1855 ("For two or three days the Salix alba, with its catkins (not yet open) and its young leaves, or bracts (?), has made quite a show, before any other tree, —a pyramid of tender yellowish green in the russet landscape."):  April 30, 1859 ("Salix alba leafing, or stipules a quarter of an inch wide; probably began a day or two.") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Leaf-Out

Have not seen the F. hyemalis for a week.  See March 14 1858 ("I see a Fringilla hyemalis, the first bird, perchance . . .which is an evidence of spring . . . They are now getting back earlier than our permanent summer residents."); April 17, 1854 ("There are but few F. hyemalis about now; they appear to have gone north mostly on the advent of warmer weather about the 5th of April. "); April 17, 1855 ("I believe I see a tree sparrow still, but I do not remember an F. hyemalis for two days. ");  April 23, 1859 ("I have not noticed a hyemalis of late.");  May 4, 1855 ("See no gulls, nor F. hyemalis nor tree sparrows now."; )May 6, 1854 ("Is not that the true spring when the F. hyemalis and tree sparrows are with us singing in the cold mornings with the song sparrows, and ducks and gulls are about?") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau: Signs of the Spring, the note of the dark-eyed junco going northward and  A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Dark-eyed Junco (Fringilla hyemalis)

That fine slaty-blue 

butterfly – bigger than the 

small red – in wood-paths. 

A Book of the Seasons,   by Henry Thoreau, That fine slaty-blue butterfly in wood-paths.

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-550424

Confusing spring hawks: frog hawk, broad-winged hawk, partridge hawk, hen hawk, marsh hawk, hen harrier, Falco fuscus (or sharp-shinned hawk)?? The books are very unsatisfactory.

April 23

River higher than before since winter. Whole of Lee Meadow covered. 

Saw two pigeon woodpeckers approach and, I think, put their bills together and utter that o-week, o-week. 

The currant and second gooseberry are bursting into leaf. 

April 23, 2015

P.M. — To Cedar Swamp via Assabet. 

Warm and pretty still. Even the riversides are quiet at this hour (3 P.M.) as in summer; the birds are neither seen nor heard. 

The anthers of the larch are conspicuous, but I see no pollen. White cedar to-morrow.

See a frog hawk beating the bushes regularly. What a peculiarly formed wing! It should be called the kite. Its wings are very narrow and pointed, and its form in front is a remarkable curve, and its body is not heavy and buzzard-like. It occasionally hovers over some parts of the meadow or hedge and circles back over it, only rising enough from time to time to clear the trees and fences. 

Soon after I see hovering over Sam Barrett’s, high sailing, a more buzzard-like brown hawk, black-barred beneath and on tail, with short, broad, ragged wings and perhaps a white mark on under side of wings. The chickens utter a note of alarm. Is it the broad-winged hawk (Falco Pennsylvanicus)? (Probably not.)

But why should the other be called F. fuscus? I think this is called the partridge hawk. The books are very unsatisfactory on these two hawks. 

Apparently barn swallows over the river. And do I see bank swallows also? 

C. says he has seen a yellow-legs. 

I have seen also for some weeks occasionally a brown hawk with white rump, flying low, which I have thought the frog hawk in a different stage of plumage; but can it be at this season? and is it not the marsh hawk? Yet it is not so heavy nearly as the hen-hawk -- probably female hen-harrier [i. e. marsh hawk].

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, April 23, 1855


Saw two pigeon woodpeckers approach and, I think, put their bills together and utter that o-week, o-week. See  April 8, 1855 (" Hear and see a pigeon woodpecker, something like week-up week-up. April 15, 1858 (" See a pair of woodpeckers on a rail and on the ground a-courting. One keeps hopping near the other, and the latter hops away a few feet, and so they accompany one another a long distance, uttering sometimes a faint or short a-week"); April 22, 1856 ("Going through Hubbard’s root-fence field, see a pigeon woodpecker on a fence post. He shows his lighter back between his wings cassock-like and like the smaller woodpeckers. Joins his mate on a tree and utters the wooing note o-week o-week,");  October 5, 1857 ("The pigeon woodpecker utters his whimsical ah-week ah-week, etc., as in spring."). See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Pigeon Woodpecker (flicker).

Is it the broad-winged hawk (Falco Pennsylvanicus)? (Probably not.) See October 11, 1856 (“Farrar gave me a wing and foot of a hawk which he shot about three weeks ago . . . This foot has a sharp shin and stout claws, but the wing is much larger than that of the Falco fuscus (or sharp-shinned hawk), being . . . the size of the F. Pennsylvanicus. This wing corresponds in its markings very exactly with the description of that, and I must so consider it . . . Nuttall describes it as very rare, — apparently he has not seen one, — and says that Wilson had seen only two ”)

The books are very unsatisfactory on these two hawks. See May 4, 1855 ("I think that what I have called the sparrow hawk falsely, and latterly pigeon hawk, is also the sharp-shinned (vide April 26th and May 8th, 1854, and April 16th, 1855), for the pigeon hawk’s tail is white-barred. “); July 2, 1856 (“Looked at the birds in the Natural History Rooms in Boston. Observed no white spots on the sparrow hawk’s wing, or on the pigeon or sharp-shinned hawk’s. Indeed they were so closed that I could not have seen them. Am uncertain to which my wing belongs.”) See also  A Book of the Seasons by Henry Thoreau, The Pigeon Hawk (Merlin); and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the sharp-shinned hawk. 

A brown hawk with white rump, flying low, which I have thought the frog hawk in a different stage of plumage. . . probably female hen-harrier.  See May 1, 1855 (" What I have called the frog hawk is probably the male hen-harrier, . . .MacGillivray . . .says . . . the large brown bird with white rump is the female"); March 21, 1859 ("I see a female marsh hawk. . I not only see the white rump but the very peculiar crescent-shaped curve of its wings. ") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Marsh Hawk (Northern Harrier)

April 23. See A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, April 23

Buzzard-like brown hawk

black-barred beneath and on tail –

Is it the broad-winged?

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The books are very unsatisfactory

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-550423

The grass is now become rapidly green by the sides of the road, promising dandelions and buttercups

April 22

5.30 A. M. — To Assabet stone bridge. 

Tree sparrows still. See a song sparrow getting its breakfast in the water on the meadow like a wader. 

Red maple yesterday, — an early one by further stone bridge. Balm-of-Gilead probably to-morrow.

The black currant is just begun to expand leaf — probably yesterday elsewhere -a little earlier than the red. 

Though my hands are cold this morning I have not worn gloves for a few mornings past, — a week or . ten days. 

April 22, 2015

The grass is now become rapidly green by the sides of the road, promising dandelions and buttercups. 

P. M. — To Lee’s Cliff. 

Fair, but windy. 

Tree sparrows about with their buntingish head and faint chirp. 

The leaves of the skunk-cabbage, unfolding in the meadows, make more show than any green yet. 

The yellow willow catkins pushing out begin to give the trees a misty, downy appearance, dimming them. 

The bluish band on the breast of the kingfisher leaves the pure white beneath in the form of a heart. 

The blossoms of the sweet-gale are now on fire over the brooks, contorted like caterpillars. The female flowers also out like the hazel, with more stigmas,—out at same time with the male. 

I first noticed my little mud turtles in the cellar out of their [sic], one of them, some eight days ago. I suspect those in the river begin to stir about that time? 

Antennaria probably yesterday, Skull-cap Meadow Ditch. 

Many yellow redpolls on the willows now. They jerk their tails constantly like phoebes, but I hear only a faint chip. Could that have been a female with them, with an ash head and merely a yellow spot on each side of body, white beneath, and forked tail?

Red stemmed moss now. 

Goosanders, male and female. They rise and fly, the female leading. They afterward show that they can get out of sight about as well by diving as by flying. At a distance you see only the male, alternately diving and sailing, when the female may be all the while by his side. 

Getting over the wall under the middle Conantum Cliff, I hear a loud and piercing sharp whistle of two notes, — phe phe, like a peep somewhat. Could it  be a wood-chuck? Hear afterward under Lee’s Cliff a similar fainter one, which at one time appears to come from a pigeon woodpecker. 

Cowbirds on an apple tree. 

Crowfoot on Cliff. Johnswort radical leaves have grown several inches and angelica shows. Elder leaves have grown one and a half inches, and thimble-berry is forward under rocks. Meadow sweet in some places begins to open to-day; also barberry under Cliffs and a moss rose to-morrow. 

Say earliest gooseberry, then elder, raspberry, thimble berry, and low blackberry (the last two under rocks), then wild red cherry, then black currant (yesterday), then meadow sweet, and barberry under Cliff, to-day. A moss rose to-morrow and hazel under Cliffs to-morrow.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, April 22, 1855

The female flowers also out like the hazel, with more stigmas,—out at same time with the male.. . .Hazel under Cliffs to morrow. See March 27, 1853 ("The hazel is fully out. The 23d was perhaps full early to date them. It is in some respects the most interesting flower yet, so minute that only an observer of nature, or one who looked for them, would notice it."); March 31, 1853 ("The catkins of the hazel are now trembling in the wind and much lengthened, showing yellowish and beginning to shed pollen.”); and April 7, 1854 ("The hazel stigmas are well out and the catkins loose, but no pollen shed yet. “); April 9, 1854 (" The beaked hazel stigmas out; put it just after the common."'); April 11, 1856 ("The hazel sheds pollen to-day; some elsewhere possibly yesterday.”);April 13, 1855 ("The common hazel just out. It is perhaps the prettiest flower of the shrubs that have opened. . . .half a dozen catkins, one and three quarters inches long, trembling in the wind, shedding golden pollen . . . . They know when to trust themselves to the weather.");  April 18, 1857 ("The beaked hazel, if that is one just below the little pine at Blackberry Steep, is considerably later than the common, for I cannot get a whole twig fully out, though the common is too far gone to gather there. The catkins, too, are shorter.”) See also A Book of the Seasons: the Hazel.

Though my hands are cold this morning I have not worn gloves for a few mornings past, — a week or . ten days. See April 10, 1855 ("The morning of the 6th, when I found the skunk cabbage out, it was so cold I suffered from numbed fingers, having left my gloves behind. Since April came in, however, you have needed gloves only in the morning. Under some high bare bank sloping to the south on the edge of a meadow, where many springs, issuing from the bank, melt the snow early, — there you find the first skunk-cabbage in bloom.")

The leaves of the skunk-cabbage, unfolding in the meadows, make more show than any green yet. See April 22, 1857 ("At the Cliff Brook I see the skunk-cabbage leaves not yet unrolled, with their points gnawed off. ") See also April 7, 1855  ("At six this morn to Clamshell. The skunk-cabbage open yesterday, — the earliest flower this season") and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Skunk Cabbage

Goosanders, male and female. At a distance you see only the male, alternately diving and sailing, when the female may be all the while by his side.  See March 16, 1855 (“Returning, scare 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. They alight more than a hundred rods south of the bridge, and I view them with glass. The larger sails about on the watch, while the smaller, dark one dives repeatedly. I think it the goosander or sheldrake”); March 27, 1858 ("They are now pairing. . . .At first we see only a male and female quite on the alert, some way out on the pond, tacking back and forth and looking every way. They keep close together, headed one way, and when one turns the other also turns quickly. The male appears to take the lead."); March 30, 1859 ("See on Walden two sheldrakes, male and female, as is common. So they have for some time paired. They are a hundred rods off. The male the larger, with his black head and white breast, the female with a red head.")  See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Sheldrake (Merganser, Goosander)

A warm sunny walk

through acres and acres of

fragrant spring beauties.

~ Zphx April 22, 2025

It affects us as a part of our unfallen selves.

April 21

5 A. M. — To Cliffs. 

Fair and still. There is a fog over the river, which shows at a distance more than near by. Not much.

The frost conceals the green of the gooseberry leaves just expanding. 

The shallow puddles left by yesterday’s rain in the fields are skimmed over.

At Cliffs, I hear at a distance a wood thrush. It affects us as a part of our unfallen selves.

The Populus grandidentata there may open to-morrow. 

The frost saves my feet a wetting probably. 

As I sit on the Cliffs, the sound of the frost and frozen drops melting and falling on the leaves in the woods below sounds like a gentle but steady rain all the country over, while the sun shines clear above all. 

P. M. — Sail to meadow near Carlisle Bridge. 

A fine, clear, and pleasant day with a little west wind.

Saw a painted turtle not two inches in diameter. This must be more than one year old. 

A female red wing. 

I see yellow redpolls on the bushes near the water, — handsome birds, -— but hear no note. 

Watch for some time a dozen black ducks on the meadow’s edge in a retired place, some on land and some sailing. Fifty rods off and without the glass, they look like crows feeding on the meadow’s edge, with a scarcely perceptible tinge of brown.

Examining the ground afterward, find that the whitish lichen thallus (which formed a crust, a sort of scurfy bald place, here and there in the meadow where the water had just risen) was loosened up and floating over the bare spaces mixed with a few downy feathers. I thought the flat meadow islets showed traces of having been probed by them. 

All the button-bushes, etc., etc., in and about the water are now swarming with those minute fuzzy gnats about an eighth of an inch long. The insect youth are on the wing. The whole shore resounds with their hum wherever we approach it, and they cover our boat and persons. They are in countless myriads the whole length of the river. 

A peep, peetweet, on the shore. 

There is some gossamer on the willows. 

The river has risen considerably, owing to yesterday’s rain, and new drift is brought down. The greater fullness of the Assabet is perceptible at the junction. 

The New York Tribune said on the 19th, “The caterpillar-blossoms, and the slightest peeping of green leaves among the poplars and willows, and a tolerable springing of grass, are the only vegetable proofs yet to be seen.” I should think they were just with our gooseberry.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, April 21, 1855

The frost conceals the green of the gooseberry leaves just expanding. See April 13, 1856 ("The early gooseberry leaf-buds in garden have burst,"); April 17, 1855("The earliest gooseberry leaves are fairly unfolding now, and show some green at a little distance"); April 23, 1855 ("The currant and second gooseberry are bursting into leaf"); April 24, 1856 ("The earliest gooseberry leaf has spread a third of an inch or more.") April 28, 1854 ("The leafing of the gooseberry, or earliest native shrub.") See alsoA Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Leaf-Out

At Cliffs, I hear at a distance a wood thrush. .See April 21, 1858 ("Ed. Hoar says he heard a wood thrush the 18th.");  April 21, 1861 ("H. Mann brings me the hermit thrush."); see also April 20, 1860 ("C. sees bluets and some kind of thrush to-day, size of wood thrush, — he thought probably hermit thrush.") and note to April 24, 1856 ("Returning, in the low wood just this side the first Second Division Brook, near the meadow, see a brown bird flit, and behold my hermit thrush, with one companion, flitting silently through the birches") See also  A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Signs of Spring: The Arrival of the Hermit Thrush  and I hear the Hermit Thrush for the first time. Have I heard it before and not noticed? 

The Populus grandidentata may open to-morrow. See April 21, 1858 ("Populus grandidentata some days at least. ") ;see also. April 19, 1854 ("The Populus grandidentata will not open for a day or two"); April 22, 1859 (" Go by a Populus grandidentata. . . just begun to shed their pollen, not hanging loose and straight yet, but curved, are a very rich crimson,. . . much the handsomest now before the crimson anthers have burst, and are all the more remarkable for the very open and bare habit of the tree.") and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Big-toothed Aspen (Populus grandidentata)

Saw a painted turtle not two inches in diameter. This must be more than one year old. See  April 24, 1856 ("I find, on the southeast side of Lupine Hill, nearly four rods from the water and a dozen feet above its level, a young Emys picta, one and five eighths inches long and one and a half wide. I think it must have been hatched year before last. ") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Painted Turtle (Emys picta)

A female red wing. See April 13, 1854 ("Think I see a female red wing flying with some males"); April 30, 1855 ("Red-wing blackbirds now fly in large flocks, covering the tops of trees like a black fruit, and keep up an incessant gurgling and whistling.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Red-wing in Spring

I see yellow redpolls on the bushes near the water, — handsome birds, -— but hear no note. See April 30, 1855 (".Hear a short, rasping note, somewhat tweezer-bird like, I think from a yellow redpoll.") See also A Book of the Seasons, y Henry Thoreau, The Yellow Redpoll ( Palm) Warbler

Watch for some time a dozen black ducks on the meadow’s edge. See April 27, 1860 ("The hurry of the duck migration is, methinks, over"); May 13, 1854 ("The black ducks are probably all gone.") See also  A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the American Black Duck

The insect youth are on the wing in countless myriads the whole length of the river. See April 30, 1855 (Those myriads of little fuzzy gnats mentioned on the 21st and 28th must afford an abundance of food to insectivorous birds. Many new birds should have arrived about the 21st. There were plenty of myrtle-birds and yellow redpolls where the gnats were"") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Fuzzy Gnats (tipulidæ)

A peep, peetweet, on the shore.  SeeApril 30, 1856 (“As I go along the Assabet, a peetweet skims away from the shore.”)May 2, 1859 ("The river seems really inhabited when the peetweet is back . . . This bird does not return to our stream until the weather is decidedly pleasant and warm. . . .Its note peoples the river, like the prattle of children once more in the yard of a house that has stood empty."); May 4, 1856 (“As soon as the rocks begin to be bare the peetweet comes and is seen teetering on them and skimming away from me.”) [Thoreau's Peetweet  is the Spotted Sandpiper  (Actitis macularia)]

Heard at a distance

the hermit thrush affects us 

as part of ourselves.

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, a part of our unfallen selves

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-550421

Confined by the rain.

April 20

Rains all day, taking out the frost and imprisoning me. You cannot set a post yet on account of frost.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, April 20, 1855


Rains all day, . . . imprisoning me. See April 20, 1856 (“ Rain, rain, rain, a northeast storm.") See also  April 17, 1857 ("Rain. It rains about every other day now for a fortnight past.”);April 22, 1856 (“These rain-storms -- this is the third day of one -- characterize 'the season, and belong rather to winter than to summer.”)

See also  A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, April 20

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 ©  2009-2023

A little duck in the middle of the Pond.

April 19

5 A. M. — Up Assabet. 

Warm and still and somewhat cloudy. Am without greatcoat. 

The guns are firing and bells ringing. 

I hear a faint honk and, looking up, see going over the river, within fifty rods, thirty-two geese in the form of a hay-hook, only two in the hook, and they are at least six feet apart. Probably the whole line is twelve rods long. 

At least three hundred have passed over Concord, or rather within the breadth of a mile, this spring (perhaps twice as many); for I have seen or heard of a dozen flocks, and the two I counted had about thirty each. 

Many tortoises have their heads out. The river has fallen a little. Going up the Assabet, two or three tortoises roll down the steep bank with a rustle. One tumbles on its edge and rolls swiftly like a disk cast by a boy, with its back to me, from eight or ten feet into the water. 

I hear no concert of tree sparrows. Hear the tull-lull of the white-throated sparrow in street, and the jingle of the chip-bird. 

This forenoon, sit with open window. Now plowing and planting will begin generally. 

P. M. — To Walden.

Some golden willows will now just peel fairly, though on this one the buds have not started.  (Another sudden change in the wind to northeast and a freshness with some mist from the sea at 3.30 P. M.) These osiers to my eye have only a little more liquid green than a month ago. 

A shad frog on the dry grass. The wild red cherry will begin to leaf to-morrow. 

From Heywood’s Peak I think I see the head of a loon in the pond, thirty-five or forty rods distant. Bringing my glass to bear, it seems sunk very low in the water, — all the neck concealed, — but I can not tell which end was the bill. 

At length I discover that it is the whole body of a little duck, asleep with its head in its back, exactly in the middle of the pond. 

It has a moderate-sized black head and neck, a white breast, and seems dark-brown above, with a white spot on the side of the head, not reaching to the out side, from base of mandibles, and another, perhaps, on the end of the wing, with some black there. 

It sits drifting round a little, but with ever its breast toward the wind, and from time to time it raises its head and looks round to see if it is safe. 

I think it is the smallest duck I ever saw. Floating buoyantly asleep on the middle of Walden Pond. 

Is it not a female of the buffle-headed or spirit duck?

I believed the wings looked blacker when it flew, with some white beneath. It floated like a little casket, and at first I doubted a good while if it possessed life, until I saw it raise its head and look around. It chose a place for its nap exactly equidistant between the two shores there, and, with its breast to the wind, swung round only as much as a vessel held by its anchors in the stream. At length the cars scared it. 

Goodwin caught twenty-five pouts and one shiner at the Walden meadow, but no perch. 

Slippery elm in tumbler to-day; probably to-morrow at Cliffs.

A partridge drums.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, April 19, 1855

The guns are firing and bells ringing. See April 19, 1852 ("The guns were fired and the bells rung to commemorate the anniversary of the birth of a nation's liberty. ")

At least three hundred have passed over Concord this spring. See April 19, 1852 ("How many there must be, that one or more flocks are seen to go over almost every farm in New England in the spring.”) See also April 8, 1855 (“This evening, about 9 P.M., I hear geese go over, now there in the south, now southeast, now east, now northeast, low over the village, but not seen. The first I have heard.”); April 9, 1855 ("Several flocks of geese went over this morning also. Now, then, the main body are moving. Now first are they generally seen and heard.”); April 17, 1855 ("Geese go over at noon, when warm and sunny. “); Also see A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau: Signs of Spring, Geese Overhead

A little duck, asleep with its head in its back, exactly in the middle of the pond.  See March 21, 1854 ("Look with glass and find more than thirty black ducks asleep with their heads in their backs, motionless, and thin ice formed about them."); March 31, 1858 ("I see about a dozen black ducks on Flint's Pond, asleep with their heads in their backs and drifting across the pond before the wind.")

Buffle headed or spirit duck. See January 7, 1853 ("He shows me the spirit duck of the Indians, of which Peabody says the Indians call it by a word meaning spirit, "because of the wonderful quickness with which it disappears at the twang of a bow." "); April 22, 1861 (" [Mann]obtained to-day the buffle-headed duck, diving in the river near the Nine-Acre Corner bridge. I identify it at sight as my bird seen on Walden. ") See also J J Audubon (The bufflehead, being known in different districts by the names of Spirit Duck, Butter-box, Marrionette, Dipper, and Die-dipper,") Compare December 14, 1854 ("At our old bathing-place on the Assabet, saw two ducks, which at length took to wing. They had large dark heads, dark wings, and clear white breasts. I think they were buffle-headed or spirit ducks. ") December 26, 1853 ("Saw in [Walden] a small diver, probably a grebe or dobchick, dipper, or what-not, ... It had a black head, a white ring about its neck, a white breast, black back, and apparently no tail.”); September 27, 1860 ("[The little dipper] has a dark bill and considerable white on the sides of the head or neck, with black between it, no tufts, and no observable white on back or tail.") See alsoA Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Little Dipper

Some golden willows will now just peel fairly. See April 19, 1853 ("Willow and bass strip freely."); see also April 9, 1855 ("The golden willow is, methinks, a little livelier green and begins to peel a little"); April 18, 1860 ("The Salix discolor peels well; also the aspen (early) has begun to peel.")

These osiers to my eye have only a little more liquid green than a month ago.  See February 24, 1855 ("You will often fancy that they look brighter before the spring has come, and when there has been no change in them"); March 24, 1855 (" I am not sure that the osiers are decidedly brighter yet"); See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Osier in Winter and early Spring

Another sudden change in the wind to northeast and a freshness with some mist from the sea at 3.30 P. M. See April 18, 1855 ("I see suddenly all the southern horizon . . full of a mist, like a dust, already concealing the Lincoln hills and producing distinct wreaths of vapor, the rest of the horizon being clear. Evidently a sea-turn, — a wind from over the sea, condensing the moisture in our warm atmosphere and putting another aspect on the face of things."); April 29, 1856 (" about 3 P. M. I felt a fresh easterly wind, and saw quite a mist in the distance produced by it, a sea-turn. . . .. Your first warning of it may be the seeing a thick mist on all the hills and in the horizon. "); April 30, 1856 ("at one o’clock there was the usual fresh easterly wind and sea-turn . . .and a fresh cool wind from the sea produces a mist in the air.")

A partridge drums. See April 19, 1860 ('"You will hear at first a single beat or two far apart and have time to say, "There is a partridge," so distinct and deliberate is it often, before it becomes a rapid roll."); See also April 25, 1854 ("The first partridge drums in one or two places, as if the earth's pulse now beat audibly with the increased flow of life.”). and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau  The Partridge.

April 19, 2015

Little duck asleep

in the middle of the pond –

its head in its back 

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, A little duck in the middle of the Pond

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-550419