Friday, June 23, 2023

A Book of the Seasons: The Swamp-pink (Azalea viscosa)

For the first time I perceive this spring the the year is a circle.
I would make a chart of our life,
know why just this circle of creatures completes the world.
Henry Thoreau, April 18, 1852

 I every year, as to-day, 
observe the sweet, refreshing fragrance 
of the swamp-pink . . . Now in its prime. 
June 23, 1853


Swamp Azalea, June 26, 2014 New York City
HorsePunchKid, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The sweet fragrance
of swamp pinks
fills all the swamps.
June 23, 1852

Is not this period more than any 
distinguished for flowers –
when roses, swamp-pinks,
morning-glories, arethusas, pogonias,
orchises, blue flags, epilobiums,
mountain laurel, and white lilies
are all in blossom at once?
June 30, 1852


January 31. In the winter, when there are no flowers and leaves are rare , even large buds are interesting and somewhat exciting. I go a-budding like a partridge. I am always attracted at this season by the buds of the swamp-pink, the poplar, and the sweet- gale.  January 31, 1854

February 13.  Cafferty's Swamp . . . How often vegetation is either yellow or red! as the buds of the swamp-pink, the leaves of the pitcher-plant, etc., etc., and to-day I notice yellow-green recent shoots of high blueberry. February 13, 1858

February 17. In these swamps, then, you have three kinds of andromeda. The main swamp is crowded with high blueberry, panicled andromeda, prinos, swamp-pink, etc.. . . and then in the middle or deepest part will be an open space not yet quite given up to water, where the Andromeda calyculata and a few A. Polifolia reign almost alone. These are pleasing gardens. February 17, 1854

May 15. Swamp -pink leafing, say yesterday.  May 15, 1854

May 17. I see the pincushion or crimson- tinged galls now on shrub oaks around the bases of the young shoots, some green-shell ones on oak leaves, like large peas, and small now greenish-white fungus-like ones on swamp- pink. Thus early, before the leaves are a quarter expanded, the gall begins.  May 17, 1854

May 19. The common swamp-pink is earlier to leaf but later to blossom than the nudiflora.  May 19, 1854

May 26. Swamp-pink leaf before lambkill.  May 26, 1855

May 31. Azalea nudiflora, -purple azalea, pinxter-flower . . . It is a conspicuously beautiful flowering shrub, with the sweet fragrance of the common swamp-pink, but the flowers are larger and, in this case, a fine lively rosy pink . . . With a broader, somewhat downy pale-green leaf.  May 31, 1853

June 10.  A catbird’s nest of usual construction, one egg, two feet high on a swamp-pink; an old nest of same near by on same.  June 10, 1855

June 14. The swamp-pink by to-morrow . . . Then there are the huckleberry-apples, and the large green puffs on the panicled andromeda, and also I see now the very light or whitish solid and juicy apples on the swamp-pink, with a fungus-like smell when broken.  June 14, 1853

June 14. Catbird's nest with four eggs in a swamp-pink, three and a half feet up.   June 14, 1859

June 15.. The swamp-pink apparently two or even three days in one place.  June 15, 1854

June 18. I believe the 14th was the first day I began to wear my single thin sack in my walk and at night sleep with both windows open; say, when the swamp-pink opens.  June 18, 1853

June 19. So we dashed down the west side of this toward Heather Meadow Brook where we found the swamp pink in blossom a most cool refreshing fragrance to travellers in hot weather. I should place this with if not before the mayflower. Its flowers just opened have caught but few insects . . . In these meadows. I forgot to say we saw the beautiful wild rose of a deep red color in blossom a rich sight islands of rose bushes with a profusion of flowers and buds. How suddenly they have expanded! They are first seen in abundance in meadows. Is not this the carnival of the year when the swamp rose and wild pink are in bloom the last stage before blueberries come? June 19, 1852

June 19. To Bateman’s Pond. The swamp-pink, apparently not long, and the maple leaved viburnum, a little longer, but quite early.  June 19, 1858

June 20.  Those great greenish-white puffs on the panicled andromeda are now decaying. On the swamp-pink they are solid.  June 20, 1853

June 20. Swamp-pink out apparently two or three days at Clamshell Ditch.   June 20, 1856

June 21. The swamp-pink bushes have many whitish spongy excrescences. June 21, 1852

June 23. The sweet fragrance of swamp pinks fills all the swamps. June 23, 1852

June 23. I every year, as to-day, observe the sweet, refreshing fragrance of the swamp-pink, when threading the woods and swamps in hot weather. It is positively cool. Now in its prime. June 23, 1853

June 24. The brown thrasher’s nest (vide 21st) has been robbed, probably by some other bird. It rested on a branch of a swamp-pink and some grape-vines, effectually concealed and protected by grape-vines and green briar in a matted bower above it . . . The swamp-pink still blooms and the morning-glory is quite fresh; it is a pure white, like a lady's morning gown.  June 24, 1853

June 29. Swamp-pink I see for the first time this season. June 29, 1851

June 30. Is not this period more than any distinguished for flowers, when roses, swamp-pinks, morning-glories, arethusas, pogonias, orchises, blue flags, epilobiums, mountain laurel, and white lilies are all in blossom at once? June 30, 1852

July 17.  Swamp-pink lingers still. Roses are not so numerous as they were. July 17, 1852

July 19.  The swamp-pink still fills the air with its perfume in swamps and by the cause ways, though it is far gone. The wild rose still scatters its petals over the leaves of neighboring plants. July 19, 1851

July 30. The swamp pink shows its last white petals. July 30, 1852

August 19. I see white buds on swamp-pink, just formed, also green checkerberries about grown. August 19, 1856

August 31. The swamp-pink (Azalea viscosa), its now withered pistils standing out. August 31, 1850

October 7. Swamp - pink [leaves] a dark reddish purple where exposed. October 7, 1857

October 12. The swamp-pink buds begin to show. October 12, 1851

October 22. Swamp-pink and waxwork were bare October 23d; how long? October 22, 1859

October 30.  Now, now is the time to look at the buds [of ] the swamp-pink, some yellowish, some, mixed with their oblong seed- vessels, red, etc. October 30, 1853

November 5.  Swamp-pink buds now begin to show. November 5, 1855

November 8.  The swamp-pink's large yellowish buds, too, are conspicuous now. November 8, 1857

November 15. Break my way into the midst of Holden Swamp to get a specimen of Kalmia glauca leaf. The surface is composed of great porous tussocks, or hummocks, of sphagnum, fifteen or twenty inches high or more, about the stems of blueberry bushes, choke-berry, water andromeda, swamp-pink, spruce etc., etc.  November 25, 1857

November 16.. The swamp-pink and blueberry buds attract. November 16, 1852

November 23. Walked through Gowing's Swamp from west to east. You may say it is divided into three parts . . . Second: The coarse bushy part, or blueberry thicket, consists of high blueberry, panicled andromeda, Amelanchier Canadensis var. oblongifolia, swamp-pink, choke-berry, Viburnum nudum, rhodora, (and probably prinos, holly, etc., etc.)  November 23, 1857

December 1. At this season I observe the form of the buds which are prepared for spring - 
  • the large bright yellowish and reddish buds of the swamp-pink,
  • the already downy ones of the Populus tremuloides and the willows,
  • the red ones of the blueberry,
  • the long, sharp ones of the amelanchier,
  • the spear-shaped ones of the viburnum;
  • also the catkins of the alders and birches.
December 1, 1852

December 11. I thread the tangle of the spruce swamp, admiring . . . the great yellow buds of the swamp-pink, the round red buds of the high blueberry, and the fine sharp red ones of the panicled andromeda.  December 11, 1855

December 16. 14? On those unfrequented islands, too, I noticed the red osier or willow, that common hard-berried plant with small red buds, apparently two kinds of swamp-pink buds, some yellow, some reddish, a brittle, rough yellowish bush with handsome pinkish shoots; in one place in the meadow the greatest quantity of wild rose hips of various forms that I ever saw, now slightly withered; they were as thick as winterberries. December 1, 1850

January 10. The great buds of the swamp-pink, on the central twig, clustered together, are more or less imbrowned and reddened. January 10, 1855

January 25. What a rich book might be made about buds, including, perhaps, sprouts! — 
  • the impregnable, vivacious willow catkins, but half asleep under the armor of their black scales, sleeping along the twigs;
  • the birch and oak sprouts, and
  • the rank and lusty dogwood sprouts;
  • the round red buds of the blueberries;
  • the small pointed red buds, close to the twig, of the panicled andromeda;
  • the large yellowish buds of the swamp pink, etc.
January 25, 1858

January 29. I go through the northerly part of Beck Stow's, north of the new road. For a great distance it is an exceedingly dense thicket of blueberry bushes. . . The small red and yellow buds, the maze of gray twigs, the green and red sphagnum, the conspicuous yellowish buds of the swamp-pink with the diverging valves of its seed-vessels, the dried choke-berries still common, these and the like are the attractions. January 29, 1858




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


Rhododendron viscosum, the swamp azalea, clammy azalea or swamp honeysuckle, is a species of flowering plant in the heath family Ericaceae. This deciduous shrub, growing to 2.5 m tall and broad, is native to the eastern United States. It has rounded matt green leaves. In early summer it produces funnel-shaped white flowers flushed pink. The flowers have prominent stamens and are strongly fragrant. Wikipedia



Azalea nudiflora. See The Hunter's Azalea

Wild rose. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Wild Rose

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Wednesday, June 21, 2023

The summer culminates.

June 21. 

It is so hot I 
have to lift my hat to let 
the air cool my head.  

the summer culminates
June 21, 2023


4.30 A.M.––Up river for lilies

No dew even where I keep my boat. The driest night yet, threatening the sultriest day. Yet I see big crystalline drops at the tips or the bases of the pontederia leaves. 

The few lilies begin to open about 5.

The nest of a brown thrasher with three eggs, on some green-briar, perfectly concealed by a grape vine running over it; eggs greenish brown; nest of dry sticks, lined with fibres of grape bark and with roots. Bird  scolded me much.

Carpet weed out. 

I have got a pan full of lilies open.

We have not had rain, except a mere sprinkling in the night of the 17th, since the 26th of May. 

P.M. To Conantum. 

The warmest day yet. For the last two days I have worn nothing about my neck. This change or putting off of clothing is, methinks, as good an evidence of the increasing warmth of the weather as meteorological instruments. 

I thought it was hot weather perchance when a month ago, I slept with a window wide open and laid aside a comfortable, but by and by I found that I had got two windows open, and to-night two windows and the door are far from enough. 

Hypericum perforatum just out.

This year the time when the locust was first heard was the time to put on summer clothes.

Early on the morning of the 18th the river felt lukewarm to my fingers when my paddle dipped deeper than usual. 

The galium with three small white petals (G. trifidum) has been out some time, and I find that erectish, broad-leaved, three-nerved, green-flowered one, perhaps G. circazans at Corner Spring.  

Peltandra Virginica, perhaps a week, for many of its flowers are effete and curved downward .

The Hypericum ellipticum by the riverside.

The only violets I notice nowadays are a few white lanceolate ones in the meadows.

The river has got down quite low, and the muddy shores are covered here and there with a sort of dark brown paper, the dried filaments of confervæ which filled the water. Now is their fall.

The bright little flowers of the Ranunculus reptans var filiformis are seen peeping forth between its interstices. 

Calopogon out. I think it surpasses the pogonia, though the latter is sometimes high colored and is of a handsome form;  but it is inclined to be pale ,is sometimes even white. 

Now see many bright red amelanchier berries and some purple or dark-blue ones amid them. They are mostly injured by insects or apparently pecked and deformed by birds, but, from the few perfectly sound and ripe I have eaten to-day, I should pronounce them superior to either blueberries or huckleberries. Those of the Botryapium have a soft skin; of the shorter bush with a stiffer leaf, a tough skin.  This is a little before blueberries.  

The panicled cornel is the only one of the cornels or viburnums that now is noticed in flower , generally speaking.  The last of our cornels – the C. sericea I think it must be – is just beginning.

The farmers have commenced haying. With this the summer culminates. The most extended crop of all is ready for the harvesting.

Lint still comes off the leaves and shoots.

It is so hot I have to lift my hat to let the air cool my head. 

I notice that that low, rather rigid fern, about two feet high, on the Great Hubbard Meadow, which a month ago was yellow, but now is green and in fruit, and with a harsh-feeling fruit atop, is decidedly inclined to grow in hollow circles from one foot to six or eight feet in diameter.– often, it is true, imperfect on one side, or, if large, filled up in the middle. How to account for it? Can it have anything to do with the hummocks deposited on the meadow? Many small stems near together in circles i. e. not a single line. Is it the Osmunda spectabilis?

Now I hear the spotted (?) flies about my head,–- flies that settle and make themselves felt on the hand sometimes. 

The morning-glory still fresh at 3 P.M.  A fine, large, delicate bell with waved border, some pure white ,some reddened. The buds open perfectly in a vase I find them open when I wake at 4 A .M. Is not this one of the eras or culminating places in the flower season? Not this till the sultry mornings come.

Angelica,  perhaps a day or more. Elder just opening. 

The four leaved asclepias, probably some days, rather handsome flower, with the peculiar fragrance of the milkweeds. 

Observed three or four sweet-briar bushes with white flowers of the usual size, by the wall under Conantum Cliff,– very slightly tinted with red or rose. In the paucity and form of prickles at least I make them answer to the micrantha, but not else  Is it intermediate? Opened at home in a vase in the shade. They are more distinctly rose-tinted. Leaves and all together in the water, they have a strong spirituous or rummy scent. 

There are no flowers nor flower-buds on the bass this year, though it was so full last year.

Where the other day I saw a pigeon woodpecker tapping and enlarging a hole in the dead limb of an apple tree ,when as yet probably no egg was laid, to-day I see two well grown young woodpeckers about as big as the old looking out at the hole, showing their handsome spotted breasts and calling lustily for something to eat, or, it may be, suffering from the heat. Young birds in some situations must suffer greatly from heat these days, so closely packed in their nests and perhaps insufficiently shaded. It is a wonder they remain so long there patiently.

I saw a yellowbird's nest in the willows on the causeway this afternoon and three young birds nearly ready to fly, overflowing the nest ,all holding up their open bills and keeping them steadily open for a minute or more, on noise of my approach. 

Still see cherry-birds in flocks.

Dogsbane and Prinos verticillatus. 

My white lilies in the pan are mostly withering the first day, the weather is so warm.

At sunset to Island. 

The white anemone is withering with drought; else would probably have opened.  

Return while the sun is setting behind thunder clouds, which now shadow us.  Between the heavy masses of clouds, mouse colored, with dark blue bases, the patches of clear sky are a glorious cobalt blue, as Sophia calls it.  

How happens it that the sky never appears so intensely, brightly, memorably blue as when seen between clouds and, it may be, as now in the south at sunset?  This, too, is like the blue in snow. 

For the last two or three days it has taken me all the forenoon to wake up. 

H. D. Thoreau,  Journal, June 21, 1853

4.30 A.M.––Up river for lilies . . .The few lilies begin to open about 5. See July 26, 1856 ("At five [A.M.] the lilies had not opened, but began about 5.15 and were abundantly out at six") and note to July 17, 1854 ("I go to observe the lilies. ")

The summer culminates.  See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Haymaking

Calopogon . . . surpasses the pogonia, See.June 23, 1853 ("Pogonias are now very abundant in the meadow-grass, and now and then a calopogon is mixed with them .The last is broader and of more singular form,  commonly with an unopened bud above on one side."); June 24, 1852 (""The calopogon is a more bluish purple than the pogonia.); July 5, 1852 (The calopogon, or grass-pink, now fully open, . . — its four or five open purple flowers — . . . makes a much greater show than the pogonia. It is of the same character with that and the arethusa. "); July 7, 1852 ("The Arethusa bulbosa, " crystalline purple;" Pogonia ophioglossoides, snake-mouthed arethusa, "pale purple;" and the Calopogon pulchellus, grass pink, "pink purple," make one family in my mind, — next to the purple orchis, or with it, — being flowers par excellence, all flower, all color, with inconspicuous leaves, naked flowers,")

Now see many bright red amelanchier berries and some purple or dark-blue ones amid them.  See June 25, 1853 (" An unusual quantity of amelanchier berries . . . I never saw nearly so many before. It is a very agreeable surprise") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Shad-bush,Juneberry, or Service-berry (Amelanchier canadensis)

How happens it that the sky never appears so intensely, brightly, memorably blue as when seen between clouds and, it may be, as now in the south at sunset? See December 14. 1851 ("There is a beautifully pure greenish-blue sky under the clouds now in the southwest just before sunset."); January 11, 1852 ("The glory of these afternoons, . . . is in the ineffably clear blue, or else pale greenish-yellow, patches of sky in the west just before sunset "); January 17, 1852 ("Those western vistas through clouds to the sky show the clearest heavens, clearer and more elysian than if the whole sky is comparatively free from clouds.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Western Sky
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Sunday, June 18, 2023

A Book of the Seasons: June 18 (longest days, bird nests, eggs and young; rose bugs and strawberries, pine pollen, meditating rain)

 



The window open
a burst of melody pours
into my slumber.


\
The longest days in the year have now come. June 18, 1852

The tumultuous singing of birds, a burst of melody, wakes me up (the window being open) these mornings at dawn. What a matinade to have poured into your slumber! June 18, 1860

Almost all birds appear to join the early morning chorus before sunrise on the roost, the matin hymn. I hear now the robin, the chip-bird, the blackbird, the martin, etc., etc., but I see none flying, or, at last, only one wing in the air, not yet illustrated by the sun. June 18, 1853

Every year men talk about the dry weather which has now begun as if it were something new and not to be expected. June 18, 1854

Small grasshoppers very abundant in some dry grass. June 18, 1854

The hornet's nest is built with many thin layers of his paper, with an interval of about an eighth of an inch between them, so that his wall is one or two inches thick. June 18, 1852

Methinks I saw and heard goldfinches. June 18, 1852

A yellowbird feigns broken wings.  June 18, 1855

Observe in two places golden-crowned thrushes, near whose nests I must have been, hopping on the lower branches and in the underwood, — a somewhat sparrow-like bird, with its golden-brown crest and white circle about eye, carrying the tail somewhat like a wren, and inclined to run along the branches. June 18, 1854

Each had a worm in its bill, no doubt intended for its young. That is the chief employment of the birds now, gathering food for their young. June 18, 1854

I think I heard the anxious peep of a robin whose young have just left the nest. June 18, 1854

E. Bartlett has found three bobolinks’ nests. One or more of them he thinks has been covered by the recent flood. June 18, 1858

A boy climbs to the cat owl's nest and casts down what is left of it, — a few short sticks and some earthy almost turfy foundation, as if it were the accumulation of years. June 18, 1858

 A little boy brings me an egg of Wilson's thrush, which he found in a nest in a low bush about a foot from the ground. June 18, 1858

They brought me an Attacus Cecropia which a boy had found in a swamp near by on the 17th. Its body was large like the one I have preserved, while the two I found to have come out in my chamber meanwhile, and to have laid their eggs, had comparatively small bodies. June 18, 1857

To Walden to see a bird's nest, a red-eye's, in a small white pine; nest not so high as my head; still laying. June 18, 1858

I have scarcely seen a warbler for a fortnight, or since the leaves have been developed, though I hear plenty of them in the tree-tops.  June 18, 1860

Pyrolas are beginning to blossom. June 18, 1852

The four-leaved loosestrife. June 18, 1852

St. John's-wort is beginning to blossom; looks yellow. June 18, 1852

And yellow lady’s-slipper near the Quarry. June 18, 1856

The Rosa lucida is pale and low on dry sunny banks like that by Hosmer's pines. June 18, 1854

With roses rose bugs have come. June 18, 1852

There are many strawberries this season, in meadows now, just fairly begun there. June 18, 1854

The meadows, like this Nut Meadow, are now full of the taller grasses, just beginning to flower. June 18, 1854

As I was going up the hill, I was surprised to see rising above the June-grass, near a walnut, a whitish object, like a stone with a white top, or a skunk erect, for it was black below. It was an enormous toadstool, or fungus, a sharply conical parasol in the form of a sugar loaf. June 18, 1853

Standing on Emerson's Cliff, I see very distinctly the redness of a luxuriant field of clover on the top of Fair Haven Hill, some two thirds of a mile off, the day being cloudy and misty, the sun just ready to break out. June 18, 1860

On this Emerson hill the sedge P. Pennsylvanica has shot up into large and luxuriant and densely set tufts, giving quite a grassy appearance to the spaces between the little oak sprouts. June 18, 1860

I notice huckleberry and blueberry, and those remarkable galls on a shrub oak, two or three together, each with a grub in it. June 18, 1860

The swamp white oaks and red maples and willows, etc., now first begin to show a slight silveriness on the under edges of their flakes, where the under sides of the new leaves are shown. June 18, 1859

I see in the southerly bays of Walden the pine pollen now washed up thickly; only at the bottom of the bays, especially the deep long bay, where it is a couple of rods long by six to twenty-four inches wide and one inch deep; pure sulphur-yellow, and now has no smell. June 18, 1860

It has come quite across the pond from where the pines stand, full half a mile, probably washed across most of the way. June 18, 1860

I find a young Emys insculpta, apparently going to lay, though she had not dug a hole. It was four and a quarter inches long by three and a half wide, and altogether the handsomest turtle of this species, if not of any, that I have ever seen. June 18, 1858

 [another insculpta ] all the claws but one of one hind foot were gone! Had not a bird pecked them off  So liable are they to injury in their long lives. Then they are so well-behaved; can be taken up and brought home in your pocket , and make no unseemly efforts to escape.  June 18, 1858

 At 3 P. M., as I walk up the bank by the Hemlocks, I see a painted tortoise just beginning its hole; then another a dozen rods from the river on the bare barren field near some pitch pines, where the earth was covered with cladonias, cinquefoil, sorrel, etc. June 18, 1855

I stoop down over it, and, to my surprise, after a slight pause it proceeds in its work, directly under and within eighteen inches of my face. June 18, 1854

I retain a constrained position for three quarters of an hour or more for fear of alarming it. June 18, 1854

When it has done, it immediately starts for the river at a pretty rapid rate, pausing from time to time . . . It is not easy to detect that the ground had been disturbed there. June 18, 1854

From Traveller's Home to Small's in Truro. A mizzling and rainy day with thick driving fog; a drizzling rain, or "drisk," as one called it. June 18, 1857

As I walked on the top of the bank for a mile or two before I came to a hollow by which to descend, though it rained but little, the strong wind there drove that and the mist against my unprotected legs so as to wet me through and plaster over the legs of my pants with sand. June 18, 1857

It is remarkable how wet the grass will be there in a misty day alone; more so than after a rain with us. June 18, 1857

The waves ran pretty well on account of the easterly wind. June 18, 1857

I observed how merely undulatory was the motion of the waves. June 18, 1857

Rain again, and we take shelter under a bridge, and again under our boat, and again under a pine tree. June 18, 1859

It is worth the while to sit or lie through a shower thus under a bridge or under a boat on the bank, because the rain is a much more interesting and remarkable phenomenon under these circumstances.

I saw swarms of little gnats, light-winged, dancing over the water in the midst of the rain, though you would say any drop would end one's days. June 18, 1859

The surface of the stream betrays every drop from the first to the last, and all the variations of the storm, so much more expressive is the water than the comparatively brutish face of earth. June 18, 1859

We no doubt often walk between drops of rain falling thinly, without knowing it, though if on the water we should have been advertised of it. June 18, 1859

At last the whole surface is nicked with the rebounding drops as if the surface rose in little cones to accompany or meet the drops, till it looks like the back of some spiny fruit or animal, and yet the different-colored currents, light and dark, are seen through it all. June 18, 1859 

And then, when it clears up, how gradually the surface of the water becomes more placid and bright, the dimples growing fewer and finer till the prolonged reflections of trees are seen in it, and the water is lit up with a joy which is in sympathy with our own, while the earth is comparatively dead. June 18, 1859

Another round red sun of dry and dusty weather to-night, — a red or red-purple helianthus. June 18, 1854

I hear a man playing a clarionet far off. June 18, 1852 

No moon. June 18, 1852

Moon not quite full . . .  The western sky is now a crescent of saffron inclining to salmon, a little dunnish, perhaps. The grass is wet with dew. The evening star has come out, but no other. There is no wind. I see a nighthawk in the twilight, flitting near the ground. June 18, 1853

Of what consequence whether I stand on London bridge for the next century, or look into the depths of this bubbling spring which I have laid open with my hoe? June 18, 1840



June 18, 2013 




The tumultuous singing of birds, a burst of melody poured into my slumber . See June 4, 1852 (“What sounds to be awakened by! If only our sleep, our dreams, are such as to harmonize with the song, the warbling of the birds, ushering in the day!”)

I see very distinctly the redness of a luxuriant field of clover on the top of Fair Haven Hill. See June 15, 1853 (“What more luxuriant than a clover-field? . . . This is perhaps the most characteristic feature of June, resounding with the hum of insects. It is so massive, such a blush on the fields. The rude health of the sorrel cheek has given place to the blush of clover.”)

Observe in two places golden-crowned thrushes, near whose nests I must have been . . . See June 10, 1855 ("Oven-bird’s nest with four eggs two thirds hatched, under dry leaves, composed of pine-needles and dry leaves and a hair or two for lining,”); June 19, 1858 ("See an oven-bird's nest with two eggs and one young one just hatched. The bird flits out low, and is, I think, the same kind that I saw flit along the ground and trail her wings to lead me off day before yesterday.")

I think I heard the anxious peep of a robin whose young have just left the nest. See June 10, 1853 ("We  hear the cool peep of the robin calling to its young, now learning to fly.")  See also  May 13, 1853 ("A robin's nest, with young, on the causeway."): May 24, 1855 ("Young robins some time hatched");June 9, 1856 ("A young robin abroad. "); June 15, 1855 ("Robin’s nest in apple tree, twelve feet high — young nearly grown."): June 15, 1852 ("Young robins,speck dark-led,"); June 20, 1855 (" A robin’s nest with young, which was lately, in the great wind, blown down and somehow lodged on the lower part of an evergreen by arbor,—without spilling the young!")  

A boy climbs to the cat owl's nest and casts down what is left of it, — a few short sticks and some earthy almost turfy foundation, as if it were the accumulation of years. Beside much black and white skunk-hair, there are many fishes scales (!) intimately mixed with its substance, and some skunk’s bones. See May 20, 1858 ("Saw in the street a young cat owl, one of two which Skinner killed in Walden Woods yesterday. . . .So I visited the nest. It was in a large white pine close . . . the nest is some thirty-five feet high on two limbs close to the main stem, and, according to Skinner, was not much more than a foot across, made of small sticks, nearly flat, “without fine stuff!” There were but two young. ")

E. Bartlett has found three bobolinks’ nests. See June 22, 1858 (“I have one of the nests. There is but little of it ...”);  see also  June 26, 1857 ("I must be near bobolinks' nests many times these days, — in E. Hosmer's meadow by the garlic and here in Charles Hubbard's, — but the birds are so overanxious, though you may be pretty far off, and so shy about visiting their nests while you are there, that you watch them in vain."); July 2, 1855 ("Young bobolinks are now fluttering over the meadow, but I have not been able to find a nest ..")

A little boy brings me an egg of Wilson's thrush. See June 2, 1852 ("Nest of Wilson's thrush with bluish-green eggs.")

A red-eye's, in a small white pine; nest not so high as my head; still laying. See June 12, 1855 ("In the thick swamp behind the hill I look at the vireo’s nest which C. found on the 10th, within reach on a red maple forked twig, eight feet from ground. He took one cowbird’s egg from it, and I now take the other, which he left. There is no vireo’s egg"); July 21, 1855 ("A red-eyed vireo nest on a red maple on Island Neck, on meadow-edge, ten feet from ground; one egg half hatched and one cowbird’s egg, nearly fresh, a trifle larger"); January 13, 1856 ("What a wonderful genius it is that leads the vireo to select the tough fibres of the inner bark, instead of the more brittle grasses, for its basket, the elastic pine-needles and the twigs, curved as they dried to give it form, and, as I suppose, the silk of cocoons, etc., etc., to bind it together with!")

all the claws but one of one hind foot were gone! See May 14, 1857 ("I see one with a large dent three eighths of an inch deep and nearly two inches long in the middle of its back, where it was once partially crushed. Hardly one has a perfect shell.") 

Every year men talk about the dry weather which has now begun as if it were something new and not to be expected. See July 7, 1853 ("Now is that annual drought which is always spoken of as something unprecedented and out of the common course.")

A painted tortoise lays her eggs near the Leaning Hemlocks. . . .See June 16, 1855 ("A painted tortoise just burying three flesh-colored eggs in the dry, sandy plain near the thrasher’s nest. It leaves no trace on the surface. Find near by four more about this business. When seen they stop stock still in whatever position, and stir not nor make any noise, just as their shells may happen to be tilted up.”); June 10, 1856  ("A painted tortoise laying her eggs ten feet from the wheel-track on the Marlborough road.”); June 10, 1858 ("See a painted turtle digging her nest in the road at 5.45 P. M.”) 
A mizzling and rainy day with thick driving fog; a drizzling rain, or "drisk," as one called it. See July 29, 1851 (“In the afternoon I sail to Plymouth, three miles, notwithstanding the drizzling rain, or “drisk” as Uncle Ned calls it.”)

The different-colored currents, light and dark, are seen through it all. See July 31, 1860 ("The differently shaded or lit currents of the river through it all; but anon it begins to rain very hard, and a myriad white globules dance or rebound an inch or two from the surface, where the big drops fall, and I hear a sound as if it rains pebbles or shot.")

I hear a man playing a clarionet far off. See June 16, 1852 ("A flute from some villager. How rare among men so fit a thing as the sound of a flute at evening!"); June 25, 1852 (“Now his day's work is done, the laborer plays his flute, — only possible at this hour.");  August 3, 1852  (" I hear the sound of a distant piano.  . . .  By some fortunate coincidence of thought or circumstance I am attuned to the universe"); August 5, 1851 ("I never see the man by day who plays that clarionet.")

June 18, 2013
If you make the least correct 
observation of nature this year,
 you will have occasion to repeat it
 with illustrations the next, 
and the season and life itself is prolonged.

 June 17  <<<<<  June 18  >>>>>  June 19

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, June 18
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

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Friday, June 16, 2023

A Book of the Seasons: June 16 (sunset sunrise merging, heat and thundershowers, the blackberry blossom, turtles and bullfrogs, fireflies and northern lights)

 



The year is but a succession of days,
and I see that I could assign some office to each day
which, summed up, would be the history of the year.
Henry Thoreau, August 24, 1852


The distant river
reflects the light at this hour
like molten silver.

June 16, 2019


There seems to have intervened no night. The heat of the day is unabated. You perspire before sunrise. June 16, 1852

The melting heat begins again as soon as the sun gets up. June 16, 1852

Before 4 A.M., or sunrise, the sound of chip-birds and robins and bluebirds, etc., fills the air and is incessant. June 16, 1853. 

4.30 a. m. — A low fog on the meadows, but not so much as last night, — a low incense frosting them. June 16, 1852

My shoes are covered with the reddish seeds of the grass, for I have been walking in the dew. June 16, 1852

The clouds scattered wisps in the sky, like a squadron thrown into disorder at the approach of the sun. June 16, 1852

The sun now gilds an eastern cloud a broad, bright, coppery-golden edge, fiery bright. June 16, 1852

Protuberances of the cloud cast dark shadows ray-like up into the day. June 16, 1852

A new season. The earth looks like a debauchee after the sultry night. June 16, 1852

There is music in every sound in the morning atmosphere. June 16, 1852

The river appears covered with an almost imperceptible blue film. What wealth in a stagnant river! June 16, 1852

The sun is not yet over the bank. June 16, 1852

At sunrise a slight mist curls along the surface of the water. When the sun falls on it, it looks like a red dust. June 16, 1853

From top of the hill, the sun, just above the horizon, red and shorn of beams, is somewhat pear-shaped; and then it becomes a broad ellipse, the lower half a dun red. June 16, 1853

It appears as if it rose in the northeast, - over Ball's Hill at any rate. June 16, 1853

The distant river is like molten silver at this hour; it merely reflects the light, not the blue. June 16, 1853

As the sun went down last night, round and red in a damp misty atmosphere, so now it rises in the same manner, though there is no dense fog. June 16, 1854

Once or twice the sun has gone down red, shorn of his beams. June 16, 1854

Three days in succession, — the 13th, 14th, and 15th, — thunder-clouds, with thunder and lightning, have risen high in the east, threatening instant rain, and yet each time it has failed to reach us. June 16, 1854

Thus it is almost invariably, methinks, with thunder-clouds which rise in the east; they do not reach us. June 16, 1854

Thunder-showers show themselves about 2 P.M. in the west, but split at sight of Concord and go east on each side, we getting only a slight shower. June 16, 1860

There have been showers all around us, but nothing to mention here yet. June 16, 1854

The warmer, or at least drier, weather has now prevailed about a fortnight. June 16, 1854

Paddle from the ash tree to the swimming-place. June 16, 1852

The further shore is crowded with polygonums (leaves) and pontederia leaves. June 16, 1852

It is pleasant to paddle over the meadows now, at this time of flood, and look down on the various meadow plants, for you can see more distinctly quite to the bottom than ever. June 16, 1858

A few sedges are very common and prominent, one, the tallest and earliest, now gone and going to seed, which I do not make out, also the Carex scoparia and the C. stellulata. June 16, 1858

Paddle to Great Meadows. June 16, 1859 

What is the devil's-needle about? He hovers about a foot above the pads on humming wings thus early, from time to time darting one side as if in pursuit of some invisible prey. June 16, 1852. See 

I hear a stake-driver, like a man at his pump, which sucks, — fit sound for our sluggish river. June 16, 1852. 

Most would suppose the stake-driver the sound of a farmer at a distance at his pump, watering his cattle. June 16, 1852

It oftener sounds like this than like a stake, but some times exactly like a man driving a stake in the meadow. June 16, 1852

Mistook a crow blackbird, on a dark-brown rock rising out of the water, for a crow or a bittern, referring it to a greater distance than the actual, by some mirage. June 16, 1852

Small snapdragon, how long? June 16, 1859

Examined a kingfisher's nest, . . . located just like a swallow's, in a sand-bank, some twenty inches below the surface. Could feel nothing in it, but it may have been removed. Have an egg from this. June 16, 1859

Walked into the Great Meadows from the angle on the west side of the Holt, in order to see what were the prevailing sedges, etc. June 16, 1859

On the dry and hard bank by the river, grows June-grass, etc., Carex scoparia, stellulata, stricta, and Buxbaumii; in the wet parts, pipes two and a half feet high, C. lanuginosa, C. bullata(?), [C] monile, Eleocharis palustris, Panicum virgatum (a little just begins to show itself), and Glyceria fluitans here and there and out. June 16, 1859

There was a noble sea of pipes, — you may say pipes exclusively, — a rich dark green, quite distinct from the rest of the meadow and visible afar, a broad stream of this valuable grass growing densely, two and a half feet high in water. June 16, 1859

Next to this, south, where it was quite as wet, or wetter, grew the tall and slender C. lanuginosa, the prevailing sedge in the wetter parts where I walked. June 16, 1859

This was a sheeny glaucous green, bounding the pipes on each side, of a dry look. June 16, 1859

Next in abundance in the wet parts were the inflated sedges above named. June 16, 1859

Those pipes, in such a mass, are, me-thinks, the richest mass of uniform dark liquid green now to be seen on the surface of the town [?]. June 16, 1859

You might call this meadow the "Green Sea.” June 16, 1859

Phalaris Americana, Canary grass, just out. The island by Hunt's Bridge is densely covered with . June 16, 1859

Saw, in the midst of the Great Meadows, the trails or canals of the musquash running an indefinite distance, now open canals full of water. June 16, 1859.  

The head of every sedge that now rises above the surface is swarming with insects which have taken refuge from the flood on it, — beetles, grasshoppers, spiders, caterpillars, etc. How many must have been destroyed! June 16, 1858

No doubt thousands of birds' nests have been destroyed by the flood, – blackbirds', bobolinks', song sparrows', etc. June 16, 1858

I see a robin's nest high above the water with the young just dead and the old bird in the water, apparently killed by the abundance of rain, and afterward I see a fresh song sparrow's nest which has been flooded and destroyed. June 16, 1858

Carrion-flower, how long? Not long. June 16, 1858

How agreeable and wholesome the fragrance of the low blackberry blossom, reminding me of all the rosaceous fruit bearing plants, so near and dear to our humanity. June 16, 1858

June 16, 2013

It is one of the most deliciously fragrant flowers, reminding of wholesome fruits. June 16, 1858

Two sternothaerus which I smell of have no scent to-day. June 16, 1858.  

I see a yellow-spotted turtle digging its hole at midafternoon, but, like the last of this species I saw, it changed its place after I saw it, and I did not get an egg; it is so wary. June 16, 1858. 

Some turtles must lay in pretty low fields, or else make a much longer excursion than I think they do, the water in which they dwell is so far from high land. June 16, 1858

A painted tortoise just burying three flesh-colored eggs in the dry, sandy plain near the thrasher’s nest. It leaves no trace on the surface. June 16, 1855. 

Find near by four more about this business. When seen they stop stock still in whatever position, and stir not nor make any noise, just as their shells may happen to be tilted up. June 16, 1855

Among the geraniums which now spot the wood or sprout-land paths, I see some with very broad, short, rounded petals, making a smaller but full round flower. June 16, 1858

The Salix nigra appears to be quite done. June 16, 1858.  

Edward Emerson, Edward Bartlett, and Storrow Higginson come to ask me the names of some eggs to-night. . . .They tell of a hen-hawk's nest seen the 6th, with two eggs. June 16, 1858. 

Edward Bartlett brings me a crow's nest, one of several which he found in maple trees, twenty or thirty feet from ground, in a swamp near Copan, and in this he found an addled egg. June 16, 1858. .

The mass of twigs which was its foundation were too loose and bulky to be brought away, — half a wheelbarrow-load, at least, chiefly maple, eighteen inches long and a quarter of an inch wide. June 16, 1858 

From time to time, summer and winter and far inland, I call to mind that peculiar prolonged cry of the upland plover on the bare heaths of Truro in July, heard from sea to sea, though you cannot guess how far the bird may be, as if it were a characteristic sound of the Cape. June 16, 1855

The piping plover, as it runs half invisible on the sand before you, utters a shrill peep on an elevated key (different birds on different keys), as if to indicate its locality from time to time to its kind, or it utters a succession of short notes as it flies low over the sand or water. June 16, 1855

Ever and anon stands still tremblingly, or teeter-ingly, wagtail-like, turning this way and that. June 16, 1855

The cherry-bird’s egg was a satin color, or very pale slate, with an internal or what would be called black-and-blue ring about large end. June 16, 1855. 
A sparrow’s nest with four gray eggs in bank beyond ivy tree. June 16, 1855

Catbird’s nest in an alder, three feet from ground, three fresh eggs. June 16, 1855 

Four catbirds half fledged in the green-briar near bathing-place, hung three feet from ground. June 16, 1855 

Examined a kingbird’s nest found before (13th) in a black willow over edge of river, four feet from ground. Two eggs. West of oak in Hubbard’s meadow. June 16, 1855. 
Channing found a marsh hawk's nest on the Great Meadows this afternoon, with three eggs considerably developed. June 16, 1860.  

See young and weak striped squirrels nowadays, with slender tails, asleep on horizontal boughs above their holes, or moving feebly about; might catch them. June 16, 1855

Redstarts in the swamp there. June 16, 1855. 

Also see there a blue yellow-green-backed warbler, with an orange breast and throat, white belly and vent, and forked tail— indigo-blue head, etc. June 16, 1855.

Thrasher and catbird sing still; summer yellowbird and Maryland yellow-throat sing still; and oven-bird and veery. June 16, 1854. 

Heard around, from within the Purgatory, not only Wilson’s thrush, but evergreen forest note and tanager. June 16, 1856 

Found at the very bottom of this Purgatory, where it was dark and damp, on the steep moss and fern covered side of a rock which had fallen into it, a wood thrush’s nest. Scarcely a doubt of the bird, though I saw not its breast fairly. Heard the note around, and the eggs (one of which I have) correspond. Nest of fine moss from the rock (hypnum ?), and lined with pine-needles; three eggs, fresh. June 16, 1856

Panicled cornel well out on Heywood Peak. June 16, 1854 

Ground-nut, how long? June 16, 1855

It is eight days since I plucked the great orchis; one is perfectly fresh still in my pitcher. June 16, 1854. 

It may be plucked when the spike is only half opened, and will open completely and keep perfectly fresh in a pitcher more than a week. June 16, 1854

Do I not live in a garden, — in paradise? I can go out each morning before breakfast — I do — and gather these flowers with which to perfume my chamber where I read and write, all day. June 16, 1854. 

The curled dock (Rumex crispus) and the Malva, the cheese mallows. June 16, 1852

The white lily is budded. June 16, 1852

I have heard no hylodes since the 12th, and no purring frogs (Rana palusiris). June 16, 1860. 

Think they ceased about the same time, or with the 85° heat. June 16, 1860

It is Bigelow's spotted geranium (G. maculatum), or crane's-bill, that we have. June 16, 1852

The fisherman offers you mackerel this sultry weather. June 16, 1852

By and by the bidens (marigold) will stand in the river, as now the ranunculus. The summer's fervor will have sunk into it. June 16, 1852

The spring yellows are faint, cool, innocent as the saffron of the morning compared with the blaze of noon. June 16, 1852

The autumnal, methinks, are the fruit of the dog-days, heats of manhood or age, not of youth. June 16, 1852

The former are pure, transparent, crystalline, viz. [sic] the willow catkins and the early cinque-foils. June 16, 1852

This ranunculus, too, standing two or three inches above the water, is of a light yellow, especially at a distance. June 16, 1852

The yellow water ranunculus still yellows the river in the middle, where shallow, in beds many rods long. It is one of the capillary-leaved plants. June 16, 1852

The Lysimachia thyrsiflora, tufted loose strife, by the Depot Field Brook. June 16, 1852

The floating pondweed (Potamogeton natans), with the oblong oval leaf floating on the surface, now in bloom. June 16, 1852

The Viola pedata and the columbines last into June, but now they are scarce. June 16, 1852. 

Already leaves are eaten by insects. June 16, 1852

I see their excrement in the path; even the pads on the river have many holes in them. June 16, 1852

It has been quite breezy, even windy, this month. June 16, 1852

The new foliage has rustled. June 16, 1852

There is a cool east wind, — and has been afternoons for several days, — which has produced a very thick haze or a fog. June 16, 1854

There is a fine ripple and sparkle on the pond, seen through the mist. June 16, 1854

Birds sing at this hour as in the spring. June 16, 1852

No toads now. June 16, 1852

You hear that spitting, dumping frog and the bullfrogs occasionally still, for the heat is scarcely less than the last night. June 16, 1852

The bullfrogs boom still. June 16, 1852

The bullfrogs lie on the very surface of the pads, showing their great yellow throats, color of the yellow breeches of the old school, and protuberant eyes. June 16, 1852

His whole back out, revealing a vast expanse of belly. June 16, 1852

His eyes like ranunculus or yellow lily buds, winking from time to time and showing his large dark-bordered tympanum. June 16, 1852

Imperturbable-looking. His yellow throat swells up like a small moon at a distance over the pads when he croaks. June 16, 1852


At 2 P.M. 85°, and about same for several days past. June 16, 1860

It appears to me that these phenomena occur simultaneously, say June 12th, viz.: -

• Heat about. 85° at 2 P.M.
• Hylodes cease to peep.
• Purring frogs (Rana palustris) cease.
• Lightning-bugs first seen.
• Bullfrogs trump generally.
• Mosquitoes begin to be really troublesome.
• Afternoon thunder-showers almost regular.
• Sleep with open window.
• Turtles fairly and generally begun to lay.

June 16, 1860


The sonorous note of bullfrogs is heard a mile off in the river, the loudest sound this evening. June 16, 1852

Ever and anon the sound of his trombone comes over the meadows and fields, a-lulling all Concord to sleep. June 16, 1852

The distant river is like molten silver at this hour; it merely reflects the light, not the blue. June 16, 1853

As I look up over the bay, I see the reflections of the meadow woods and the Hosmer hill at a distance, the tops of the trees cut off by a slight ripple. June 16, 1852

Even the fine grasses on the near bank are distinctly reflected. June 16, 1852

Owing to the reflections of the distant woods and hills, you seem to be paddling into a vast hollow country, doubly novel and interesting. June 16, 1852

Thus the voyageur is lured onward to fresh pastures. June 16, 1852

We walk to lakes to see our serenity reflected in them. When we are not serene, we go not to them. June 16, 1854

A flute from some villager. How rare among men so fit a thing as the sound of a flute at evening! June 16, 1852

9 P.. M. — Down railroad. Heat lightning in the horizon. June 16, 1852

The meadows full of lightning-bugs to-night; first seen the 14th. June 16, 1860

Have not the fireflies in the meadow relation to the stars above etincelant? June 16, 1852

When the darkness comes, we see stars beneath also. June 16, 1852

Do not the stars, too, show their light for love, like the fireflies? June 16, 1852

There are northern lights, shooting high up withal. June 16, 1852

*****
June 16, 2021



The world can never be more beautiful than now
 

June 15, 1852 ("The oven-bird, chewink, pine warbler (?), thrasher, swallows on the wire, cuckoo, phoebe, red eye, robin, veery. ")
June 15, 1852  ("Here also, at Well Meadow Head, I see the fringed purple orchis, unexpectedly beautiful, though a pale lilac purple, — a large spike of purple flowers. . . . The most striking and handsome large wild-flower of the year thus far that I have seen ")
June 15, 1852 ("The meadows sparkle with the coppery light of fireflies .")
June 15, 1854 ("5.30 a. m. — A young painted tortoise on the surface of the water, as big as a quarter of a dollar, with a reddish or orange sternum . . . Saw a wood tortoise, about two inches and a half, with a black sternum and the skin, which becomes orange, now ochreous merely, or brown. The little painted tortoise of the morning was red beneath. Both these young tortoises have a distinct dorsal ridge")
June 15, 1855  ("In the swamp a catbird’s nest in the darkest and thickest part, in a high blueberry, five feet from ground, two eggs; bird comes within three feet while I am looking.")
June 15, 1857 ("From time to time passed a yellow-spot or a painted turtle in the path, for now is their laying-season  . . . Now the tortoises are met with in sandy woods and, delaying, are run over in the ruts.")
June 15, 1860 ("The bullfrogs now commonly trump at night, and the mosquitoes are now really troublesome. For some time I have not heard toads by day, and the hylodes appear to have done. . . . A new season begun")

When the darkness comes
do not the stars like fireflies
show their light for love?

June 17, 1852 ("In the damp, warm evening after the rain, the fireflies appear to be more numerous than ever.")
June 17, 1852("The birds sing well this morning, well as ever. The brown thrasher drowns the rest. Lark first, and, in the woods, the red-eye, veery, chewink, oven-bird, wood thrush")
June 17, 1858 (" See a painted turtle digging at mid-afternoon. I have only to look at dry fields or banks near water to find the turtles laying there afternoons.")
June 18, 1852 ("I hear a man playing a clarionet far off. . . . What a contrast this evening melody with the occupations of the day! It is perhaps the most admirable accomplishment of man")
*****


June 16, 2020
If you make the least correct 
observation of nature this year,
 you will have occasion to repeat it
 with illustrations the next, 
and the season and life itself is prolonged.


A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, June 16
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

https://tinyurl.com/HDT16June
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