Purple finch on schedule

April 10.

Purple finch.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, April 10, 1861

See  April 18, 1852 ("Observe all kinds of coincidences, as what kinds of birds come with what flowers."); April 7, 1859 ("The Cheney elm looks as if it would shed pollen to-morrow."); April 7, 1860 ("The purple finch, — if not before"); April 10, 1860 ("Cheney elm, many anthers shed pollen, probably 7th."); April 11, 1853 ("I hear the clear, loud whistle of a purple finch, somewhat like and nearly as loud as the robin, from the elm by Whiting's."); April 12, 1855 ("I hear a purple finch . . . on an elm, steadily warbling and uttering a sharp chip from time to time"); April 12, 1856 ("There suddenly flits before me . . . a splendid purple finch. Its glowing redness is revealed when it lifts its wings.");  April 13, 1852 ("The elm buds begin to show their blossoms."); April 15, 1856 ("The purple finch is singing on the elms about the house, together with the robins, whose strain its resembles, ending with a loud, shrill, ringing chili chilt chilt chilt."); April 15, 1854 ("The arrival of the purple finches appears to be coincident with the blossoming of the elm, on whose blossom it feeds"); See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Elms and the Purple Finch

More or less rainy.

 April 9.

April 8 and 9. More or less rainy.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal,  April 9, 1860

More or less rainy.

April 8.

April 8 and 9. More or less rainy.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal,  April 8, 1860

The river fallen some nine inches notwithstanding the melted snow.

 

April 6.

April 6, 2021

Am surprised to find the river fallen some nine inches notwithstanding the melted snow.

But I read in Blodget that the equivalent in water is about one tenth. Say one ninth in this case, and you have one and one third inches, and this falling on an unfrozen surface, the river at the same time falling from a height, shows why it was no more retarded (far from being absolutely raised).

There is now scarcely a button-ball to be seen on Moore's tree, where there were many a month ago. The balls have not fallen entire, but been decomposed and the seed dispersed gradually, leaving long, stringy stems and their cores dangling still.  It is the storms of February and March that disperse them.

The (are they cinnamon?) sparrows are the finest singers I have heard yet, especially in Monroe's garden, where I see no tree sparrows. Similar but more prolonged and remarkable and loud.

 

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, April 6, 1861

Am surprised to find the river fallen some nine inches notwithstanding the melted snow. See April 6, 1858 ("They with whom I talk do not remember when the river was so low at this season.");April 7, 1858 ("The ground about the outmost willow at my boat's place is high and dry. . . . There is no water anywhere on these meadows now — except the one or two permanent pools — which I cannot walk through in my boots. ") Compare  April 8, 1856 ("River had risen so since yesterday I could not get under the bridge, but was obliged to find a round stick and roll my boat over the road.”) and  April 12, 1856 ("The river . . . was at its height when the snow generally was quite melted here, i. e. yesterday.")

But I read in Blodget that the equivalent in water is about one tenth. See L Blodgett, Climatology of the United States 320 (1857) ("one-tenth of the recorded depth of snow has been taken as its equivalent in water. This rule is sufficiently near to accuracy for any general purpose,")

There is now scarcely a button-ball to be seen on Moore's tree, where there were many a month ago. See February 28. 1861 ("The buttonwood seed has apparently scarcely begun to fall yet — only two balls under one tree, but they loose and broken. [Almost entirely fallen March 7th, leaving the dangling stems and bare receptacles.]") Note, per Wikipedia ("The Buttonball Tree is an exceptionally large American sycamore (Platanus occidentalis) located in Sunderland, Massachusetts. The nickname "buttonball" has been used for all like trees")

All the farmers have pretty much the same stories of this kind .

April 4.

All day surveying a wood-lot in Acton for Abel Hosmer. He says that he has seen the small slate colored hawk pursue and catch doves, i.e. the sharp shinned.

Has found some trouble in driving off a large slate-colored hawk from a hen in his yard, at which he pounced again close by him, — undoubtedly a goshawk.

Has also noticed the butcher-bird catching other birds. Calls him the "mock-bird.”

I observe that all the farmers have pretty much the same stories of this kind to tell. They will describe a large, bold slate-colored hawk ( the goshawk ) about here some two years ago, which caught some of their hens, and the like.

The afternoon very pleasant.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, April 4, 1854

Abel Hosmer says that he has seen the small slate colored hawk pursue and catch doves, i.e. the sharp shinned. See May 14, 1853("What is that small slate-colored hawk with black tips to wings?"); March 28, 1854 (“See a small slate-colored hawk, with wings transversely mottled beneath, — probably the sharp-shinned hawk.”)

A large slate-colored hawk — undoubtedly a goshawk.  See April 29, 1853 ("At Natural History Rooms in Boston . . . . The American goshawk is slate above, gray beneath; the young spotted dark and white beneath, and brown above."); April 24, 1854 ("Saw a very large hawk, slaty above and white beneath, low over river. Was it not a goshawk? ")

The butcher-bird catching other birds. See A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The  Northern Shrike

All the farmers have pretty much the same stories of this kind. See June 13, 1853 ("I would rather save one of these hawks than have a hundred hens and chickens.")

Walking in the Rain.

April 4.

Last night, a sugaring of snow, which goes off in an hour or two in the rain. Rains all day.

The steam-cloud from the engine rises but slowly in such an atmosphere, and makes a small angle with the earth. It is low, perhaps, for the same reason that the clouds are.

The robins sang this morning, nevertheless, and now more than ever hop about boldly in the garden in the rain, with full, broad, light cow-colored breasts.

P. M. -- Rain, rain.

To Clematis Brook via Lee's Bridge.

Again I notice that early reddish or purplish grass that lies flat on the pools, like a warm blush suffusing the youthful face of the year.

A warm, dripping rain, heard on one's umbrella as on a snug roof, and on the leaves without, suggests comfort.

We go abroad with a slow but sure contentment, like turtles under their shells. We never feel so comfortable as when we are abroad in a storm with satisfaction. Our comfort is positive then. We are all compact, and our thoughts collected. We walk under the clouds and mists as under a roof. Now we seem to hear the ground a-soaking up the rain, and not falling ineffectually on a frozen surface. We, too, are penetrated and revived by it.

Robins still sing, and song sparrows more or less, and blackbirds, and the unfailing jay screams.

How the thirsty grass rejoices! It has pushed up so visibly since morning, and fields that were completely russet yesterday are already tinged with green. We rejoice with the grass.

I hear the hollow sound of drops falling into the water under Hubbard's Bridge, and each one makes a conspicuous bubble which is floated down-stream. Instead of ripples there are a myriad dimples on the stream.

The lichens remember the sea to-day. The usually dry cladonias, which are so crisp under the feet, are full of moist vigor.

The rocks speak and tell the tales inscribed on them.Their inscriptions are brought out. I pause to study their geography.

At Conantum End I saw a red-tailed hawk launch, a heavy flier, flapping even like the great bittern at first,-heavy forward.

After turning Lee's Cliff I heard, methinks, more birds singing even than in fair weather, --

• tree sparrows, whose song has the character of the canary's,
• F. hyemalis's, chill-lill,
• the sweet strain of the fox-colored sparrow,
• song sparrows,
• a nuthatch,
• jays,
• crows,
• bluebirds,
• robins, and
• a large congregation of blackbirds. 

They suddenly alight with great din in a stubble-field just over the wall, not perceiving me and my umbrella behind the pitch pines, and there feed silently; then, getting uneasy or anxious, they fly up on to an apple tree, where being reassured, commences a rich but deafening concert, o-gurgle-ee-e, o-gurgle-ee-e, some of the most liquid notes ever heard, as if produced by some of the water of the Pierian spring, flowing through some kind of musical water-pipe and at the same time setting in motion a multitude of fine vibrating metallic springs. Like a shepherd merely meditating most enrapturing glees on such a water-pipe. A more liquid bagpipe or clarionet, immersed like bubbles in a thousand sprayey notes, the bubbles half lost in the spray.

When I show myself, away they go with a loud harsh charr-r, charr-r. At first I had heard an inundation of blackbirds approaching, some beating time with a loud chuck, chuck, while the rest played a hurried, gurgling fugue.

Saw a sucker washed to the shore at Lee's Bridge, its tail gone, large fins standing out, purplish on top of head and snout. Reminds me of spring, spearing, and gulls.

A rainy day is to the walker in solitude and retirement like the night.
Few travellers are about, and they half hidden under umbrellas and confined to the highways. One's thoughts run in a different channel from usual. It is somewhat like the dark day; it is a light night. How cheerful the roar of a brook swollen by the rain, especially if there is no sound of a mill in it! 

A woodcock went off from the shore of Clematis or Nightshade Pond with a few slight rapid sounds like a watchman's rattle half revolved.

A clustering of small narrow leaves somewhat cone-like on the shrub oak.

Some late, low, remarkably upright alders (serrulata), short thick catkins, at Clematis Brook.

The hazel bloom is about one tenth of an inch long (the stigmas) now.

A little willow (Salix Muhlenbergiana?) nearly ready to bloom, not larger than a sage willow. All our early willows with catkins appearing before the leaves must belong to the group of “The Sallows. Cinereæ. Borrer," and that of the "Two-colored Willows. Discolores. Borrer," as adopted by Barratt; or, in other words, to the first § of Carey in Gray.

The other day, when I had been standing perfectly still some ten minutes, looking at a willow which had just blossomed, some rods in the rear of Martial Miles's house, I felt eyes on my back and, turning round suddenly, saw the heads of two men who had stolen out of the house and were watching me over a rising ground as fixedly as I the willow. They were study the cheapest of the two.

I hear the twitter of tree sparrows from fences and shrubs in the yard and from alders by meadows and the riverside every day.


H. D. Thoreau, Journal, April 4, 1853

The steam-cloud from the engine rises but slowly. . . and makes a small angle with the earth. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Steam of the Engine

We never feel so comfortable as when we are abroad in a storm with satisfaction. We are all compact, and our thoughts collected. We walk under the clouds and mists as under a roof. One's thoughts run in a different channel from usual. See April 2, 1852 (" The rain was soothing, so still and sober, gently beating against and amusing our thoughts, swelling the brooks. . . . The hour is favorable to thought"); April 19, 1852 (" To see wild life you must go forth at a wild season. When it rains and blows, keeping men indoors, then the lover of Nature must forth."); May 13, 1852("They who do not walk in the woods in the rain never behold them in their freshest, most radiant and blooming beauty."); August 4, 1852("The singular thought-inducing stillness after a gentle rain like this"); . August 7, 1853 (" It is worth the while to walk in wet weather;. . .The stillness and the shade enable you to collect and concentrate your thoughts"); November 7, 1855 ("I find it good to be out this still, dark, mizzling afternoon . . . The view is contracted by the misty rain, the water is perfectly smooth, and the stillness is favorable to reflection. I am more open to impressions, . . . My thoughts are concentrated; I am all compact. . . . This mist is like a roof and walls over and around, and I walk with a domestic feeling."); See also January 27, 1858("It is so mild and moist as I saunter along by the wall east of the Hill that I remember, or anticipate, one of those warm rain-storms in the spring,")

A warm, dripping rain, heard on one's umbrella as on a snug roof, and on the leaves without, suggests comfort.  See  March 21, 1858 ("This first spring rain is very agreeable. I love to hear the pattering of the drops on my umbrella, and I love also the wet scent of the umbrella. ")

I hear the hollow sound of drops falling into the water under Hubbard's Bridge, and each one makes a conspicuous bubble which is floated down-stream. See June 14, 1855 ("  It is very pleasant to  . . .see and hear the great drops patter on the river, each making a great bubble; the rain seemed much heavier for it")

I heard, methinks, more birds singing even than in fair weather. See April 4, 1855 ("A fine morning, still and bright, with smooth water and singing of song and tree sparrows and some blackbirds. "). and note to April 4, 1860("The birds sing quite numerously at sunrise about the villages")

A woodcock went off from the shore of Clematis or Nightshade Pond with a few slight rapid sounds like a watchman's rattle half revolved. See June 15, 1851 ("A solitary woodcock in the shade goes off with a startled, rattling, hurried note.")

The hazel bloom is about one tenth of an inch long (the stigmas) now.  See   March 27, 1853 ("It is in some respects the most interesting flower yet, though so minute that only an observer of nature, or one who looked for them, would notice it.. . .The high color of this minute, unobserved flower, at this cold, leafless, and almost flowerless season! It is a beautiful greeting of the spring,"):.  March 31, 1853 ("The catkins of the hazel are now trembling in the wind and much lengthened, showing yellowish and beginning to shed pollen"):  April 1, 1853 ("The hazel stigmas now more fully out , curving over and a third of an inch long , that the catkins begin to shed pollen.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau: the Hazel

I hear the twitter of tree sparrows from fences and shrubs in the yard and from alders by meadows and the riverside every day. See April 8, 1854 ("Methinks I do not see such great and lively flocks of hyemalis and tree sparrows in the morning. . .Perchance after the warmer days, which bring out the frogs and butterflies, the alders and maples, the greater part of them leave for the north and give place to newcomers.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Tree Sparrow

There always appears to be something phosphorescent in moonlight reflected from water.

April 3.

April 3, 2021

They call that northernmost sea, thought to be free from ice, “Polina," — whither the musk oxen migrate. The coldest natures, persevere with them, go far enough, are found to have open sea in the highest latitudes.

It is a clear day with a cold westerly wind, the snow of yesterday being melted.

When the sun shines unobstructedly the landscape is full of light, for it is reflected from the withered fawn-colored grass, as it can not be from the green grass of summer. (On the back of the hill behind Gourgas'.)

The bluebird carries the sky on his back.

I am going over the hills in the rear of the windmill site and along Peter's path. This path through the rolling stubble-fields, with the woods rather distant and the horizon distant in front on account of the intervention of the river and meadow, reminds me a little of the downs of Cape Cod, of the Plains of Nauset. This is the only walk of the kind that we have in Concord. Perhaps it should be called Cæsar's Path.

The maple at the brook by this path has not expanded its buds, though that by the Red Bridge had so long ago. What the cause? Are they different species? 

I have observed much snow lately on the north slopes where shrub oaks grow; where probably the ground is frozen, more snow, I think, than lies in the woods in such positions. It is even two or three feet deep in many such places, though few villagers would believe it.

One side of the village street, which runs east and west, appears a month in advance of the other. I go down the street on the wintry side; I return through summer.

How agreeable the contrasts of light and shade, especially when the successive swells of a hill side produce the shade!

The clouds are important to-day for their shadows. If it were not for them, the landscape would be one glare of light without variety. By their motion they still more vary the scene.

Man's eye is so placed as to look straight forward on a level best, or rather down than up. His eye demands the sober colors of the earth for its daily diet. He does not look up at a great angle but with an effort.

Many clouds go over without our noticing them, for it would not profit us much to notice it, but few cattle pass by in the street or the field without our knowing it.

The moon appears to be full to-night.

About 8.30 P. M. I walked to the Clamshell Hill. It is very cold and windy, and I miss my gloves, left at home. Colder than the last moon.

The sky is two-thirds covered with great four or more sided downy clouds, drifting from the north or northwest, with dark-blue partitions between them. The moon, with a small brassy halo, seems travelling ever through them toward the north.

The water is dull and dark, except close to the windward shore, where there is a smooth strip a rod or more in width protected from the wind, which reflects a faint light. When the moon reaches a clear space, the water is suddenly lit up quite across the meadows, for half a mile in length and several rods in width, while the woods beyond are thrown more into the shade, or seen more in a mass and indistinctly, than before.

The ripples on the river, seen in the moonlight, those between the sunken willow lines, have the arc of a circle, as if their extremities were retarded by the friction of the banks.

I noticed this afternoon that bank below Cæsar's, now partially flooded, higher than the neighboring meadow, so that sometimes you can walk down on it a mile dry shod with water on both sides of you. Like the banks of the Mississippi.

There always appears to be something phosphorescent in moonlight reflected from water.

Venus is very bright now in the west, and Orion is there, too, now.

I came out mainly to see the light of the moon reflected from the meadowy flood. It is a pathway of light, of sheeny ripples, extending across the meadow toward the moon, consisting of a myriad little bent and broken moons.

I hear one faint peep bird on its roost.

The clouds are travelling very fast into the south. I would not have believed the heavens could be cleared so soon. They consist of irregularly margined, wide whitish bars, apparently converging, rendezvousing, toward one point far in the south horizon. Like the columns of a host in the sky, each being conducted by its own leader to one rendezvous in the southern heavens.

Such is the illusion, for we are deceived when we look up at this concave sphere, as when we look on a plane map representing the convex globe, --not by Mercator's projection.

But what a grand incident of the night — though hardly a night passes without many such — that, between the hours of nine and ten, a battalion of downy clouds many miles in length and several in width were observed sailing noiselessly like a fleet from north to south over land and water, town and cottage, at the height of half a dozen miles above the earth! Over woods and over villages they swept along, intercepting the light of the moon, and yet perchance no man observed them.

Now they are all gone.

The sky is left clear and cold and but thinly peopled at this season. It is of a very light blue in all the horizon, but darker in the zenith, darkest of all in the crevice between two downy clouds. It is particularly light in the western horizon. Who knows but light is reflected from snow lying on the ground further inland? 

The water, as I look at it in the north or northeast, is a very dark blue, the moon being on my right; afterwards, crossing the railroad bridge, is a deep sea-green.

The evenings are now much shortened, suggesting that ours is to be henceforth a daylight life.


H. D. Thoreau, Journal, April 3, 1852

There always appears to be something phosphorescent in moonlight reflected from water. See June 13, 2011 ("I am startled to see midway in the dark water a bright flame-like, more than phosphorescent light crowning the crests of the wavelets. Though one would have said they were of an intenser light than the moon herself, . . . I see this is so many broken reflections of the moon's disk.")

A pathway of light, of sheeny ripples, extending across the meadow toward the moon, consisting of a myriad little bent and broken moons. See June 13, 1851 ("I see the moon's inverted pyramid of light shimmering on its surface.. . . which, in fact, is made up of a myriad little mirrors reflecting the disk of the moon.")  See also  Dogen:

~  Enlightenment is like the moon reflected on the water. The moon does not get wet, nor is the water broken Although its light is wide and great, the moon is reflected even in a puddle an inch wide. The whole moon and the entire sky are reflected in dewdrops on the grass, or even in one drop of water. Enlightenment does not divide you, just as the moon does not break the water. You cannot hinder enlightenment, just as a drop of water does not hinder the moon in the sky. The depth of the drop is the height of the moon. Each reflection, however long or short its duration, manifests the vastness of the dewdrop, and realizes the limitlessness of the moonlight in the sky . ~

What a grand incident of the night — a battalion of downy clouds sailing noiselessly like a fleet from north to south over land and water, intercepting the light of the moon. See August 12, 1851 ("He rejoices when the moon comes forth from the squadrons of the clouds unscathed and there are no more any obstructions in her path,"); June 1, 1852 ("The moving clouds are the drama of the moonlight nights"); July 27, 1852 ("Just before the earliest star I turn round, and there shines the moon, silvering the small clouds which have gathered.”); November 12, 1853 ("The moon is wading slowly through broad squadrons of clouds, with a small coppery halo.")

The sky is of a very light blue in all the horizon, but darker in the zenith, See February 4, 1852 ("Coming home through the village by this full moonlight, . . . the sky is the most glorious blue I ever beheld, even a light blue on some sides, as if I actually saw into day.")

The water, as I look at it in the north or northeast, is a very dark blue, afterwards, crossing the railroad bridge, is a deep sea-green. See April 3, 1853 ("Looking up the river yesterday, in a direction opposite to the sun, not long before it set, the water was of a rich, dark blue — while looking at it in a direction diagonal to this, i. e. northeast, it was nearly slate-colored.")

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

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 © 2009-2022