A Book of the Seasons, The Cherry-Bird (cedar waxwing)

 

I would make a chart of our life,

know why just this circle of creatures completes the world.

Observe all kinds of coincidences,

as what kinds of birds come with what flowers.

Henry Thoreau

April 18, 1852

The mountain-ash tree

 and note of the cherry-birds 

coming and going. 

September 22, 1859

The Cherry-Bird 

See how artfully the seed of a cherry is placed 

in order that a bird may be compelled to transport it. 

It is placed in the very midst of a tempting pericarp, 

so that the creature that would devour a cherry

 must take a stone into its mouth.

The bird is bribed with the pericarp 

to take the stone with it and do this little service for Nature. 

Thus a bird's wing is added to the cherry-stone which was wingless, 

and it does not wait for winds to transport it.

September 1, 1860

March 14.  I hear that many cherry-birds have been seen.  March 14, 1858

March 20.  On that same tree by Conant's orchard, I see a flock of cherry-birds with that alert, chieftain-like look, and hear their seringo note, as if made by their swift flight through the air. They have been seen a week or two.  March 20, 1858 

May 14. Flood tells me he saw cherry-birds on the 12th of April in Monroe's garden. May 14, 1856

May 18.   In the yellow birch and ash swamp west of big yellow birch, I hear the fine note of cherry-birds, much like that of young partridges, and see them on the ash trees.   May 18, 1857

May 26.   Cherry-birds.  May 26, 1859

May 26.   Cherry-birds.  May 26, 1860

May 29.   Cherry-birds on the apple trees. May 29, 1856

May 30.   Cherry-bird on a cherry; also pecking at the apple blossoms.  May 30, 1855   

June 2.  Cherry-birds are the only ones I see in flocks now. I can tell them afar by their peculiar fine springy note. June 2, 1853

June 6.  Still see cherry-birds in flocks of five or six.  June 6, 1856 

June 9.  For a day or two I have heard the fine seringo note of the cherry-birds, and seen them flying past, the only (?) birds, methinks, that I see in small flocks now, except swallows . . . It is twilight . . . Chimney and bank swallows are still hovering over the river, and cherry-birds fly past. June 9, 1854

June 14.  Mr. Bacon thinks that cherry-birds are abundant where cankerworms are. June 14, 1854

June 14.   A cherry-bird’s nest and two eggs in an apple tree fourteen feet from ground. One egg, round black spots and a few oblong, about equally but thinly dispersed over the whole, and a dim, internal, purplish tinge about the large end. It is difficult to see anything of the bird, for she steals away early, and you may neither see nor hear anything of her while examining the nest, and so think it deserted. June 14, 1855

June 16. Cherry-birds numerous, the bold, combative-looking fellows, - etc., etc . . .The note of the cherry-bird is fine and ringing, but peculiar and very noticeable. With its crest it is a resolute and combative-looking bird. June 16, 1854

June 16.  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

June 21.  Cherry-birds. I have not seen, though I think I have heard them before, — their fine seringo note, like a vibrating spring in the air. They are a handsome bird, with their crest and chestnut breasts. There is no keeping the run of their goings and comings, but they will be ready for the cherries when they shall be ripe. June 21, 1852

June 21.  Still see cherry-birds in flock. June 21, 1853

June 25.  An unusual quantity of amelanchier berries . . . I never saw nearly so many before. It is a very agreeable surprise. I hear the cherry-birds and others about me, no doubt attracted by this fruit. June 25, 1853

June 29. The cherry-bird's note is like the fine peep of young partridges or woodcocks. June 29, 1854

July 5.  It is growing warm again, but the warmth is different from that we have had. We lie in the shade of locust trees. Haymakers go by in a hay-rigging. I am reminded of berrying. I scent the sweet-fern and the dead or dry pine leaves. Cherry-birds alight on a neighboring tree. The warmth is something more normal and steady, ripening fruits . . . It begins to be such weather as when people go a-huckle-berrying. Nature offers fruits now as well as flowers. We have become accustomed to the summer. It has acquired a certain eternity. July 5, 1852

July 10.  Cherry-bird commonly heard . . . The singing birds at present are: —Rural: Song sparrow, seringos, flicker, kingbird, goldfinch, link of bobolink, cherry-bird.  July 10, 1854

July 19. The cherry-birds are making their seringo sound as they flit past.  July 19,1851

July 28.  Cherry-bird common.  July 28, 1854

August 12.  Cherry-bird heard.  August 12, 1854

August 14.   The fine note of the cherry-bird, pretty often.  August 14, 1858 

August 19. Saw cherry-birds flying lower over Heywood meadow like swallows, apparently for flies, and heard them, cricket-like.  August 19, 1854

August 29. Many birds nowadays resort to the wild black cherry tree, as here front of Tarbell's. I see them continually coming and going directly from and to a great distance, — cherry birds, robins, and kingbirds. August 29, 1854 

August 26.   I saw a cherry-bird peck from the middle of its upright (vertical) web on a bush one of those large (I think yellow-marked) spiders within a rod of me. It dropped to the ground, and then the bird picked it up. It left a hole or rent in the middle of the web. The spider cunningly spreads his net for feebler insects, and then takes up his post in the centre, but perchance a passing bird picks him from his conspicuous station.  August 26, 1859 

September 1. In the sprout-land behind Britton's Camp, I came to a small black cherry full of fruit, and then, for the first time for a long while, I see and hear cherry-birds — their shrill and fine seringo — and the note of robins, which of late are scarce. We sit near the tree and listen to the now unusual sounds of these birds, and from time to time one or two come dashing from out the sky toward this tree, till, seeing us, they whirl, disappointed, and perhaps alight on some neighboring twigs and wait till we are gone. The cherry-birds and robins seem to know the locality of every wild cherry in the town. You are as sure to find them on them now, as bees and butterflies on the thistles. If we stay long, they go off with a fling, to some other cherry tree, which they know of but we do not.  September 1, 1859

 

September 10. Cherry-birds common. September 10, 1854

September 22.  The mountain-ash trees are alive with robins and cherry-birds nowadays, stripping them of their fruit (in drooping clusters). It is exceedingly bitter and austere to my taste. Such a tree fills the air with the watch-spring-like note of the cherry-birds coming and going. September 22, 1859

October  5.  See a cherry-bird.  October 5, 1857

 

December 22. In a (apparently kingbird's?) nest on this island I saw three cherry-stones, as if it had carried home this fruit to its young. It was, outside, of gnaphalium and saddled on a low limb. Could it have been a cherry-bird? December 22, 1859

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The Cherry-Bird (cedar waxwing)

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau

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

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

 ~edited, assembled and rewritten by zphx ©  2009-2026

A Book of Seasons, the Cowslip in Early Spring

 

I would make a chart of our life,

know why just this circle of creatures

 completes the world.

Henry Thoreau, April 18, 1852

It takes several years' faithful search

to learn where to look

for the earliest flowers. 

February 28, 1857

An arctic voyage 

was this in which I find two 

cowslips in full blooom.

April 8, 1856

March 5.  The cowslip there [Well Meadow] is very prominently flower-budded, lifting its yellow flower-buds above water in one place. The leaves are quite inconspicuous when they first come up, being rolled up tightly. March 5, 1859

March 14.  The cowslip in pitcher has fairly blossomed to-day. March 14, 1859 

March 24.  It is too cold to think of those signs of spring which I find recorded under this date last year. The earliest signs of spring in vegetation noticed thus far are the maple sap, the willow catkins, grass on south banks, and perhaps cowslip in sheltered places. March 24, 1855 

March 26.  The buds of the cowslip are very yellow, and the plant is not observed a rod off, it lies so low and close to the surface of the water in the meadow. It may bloom and wither there several times before villagers discover or suspect it. March 26, 1857 

March 27.  Am surprised to see the cowslip so forward, showing so much green, in E. Hubbard’s Swamp, in the brook, where it is sheltered from the winds. The already expanded leaves rise above the water. If this is a spring growth, it is the most forward herb I have seen.  March 27, 1855 

April 2.  In the warm recess at the head of Well Meadow, which makes up on the northeast side of Fair Haven, I find many evidences of spring . . . The cowslip appears to be coming next to it [the skunk cabbage]. Its buds are quite yellowish and half an inch, almost, in diameter. April 2, 1856

April 3.  The white maple buds on the south side of some trees have slightly opened, so that I can peep into their cavities and detect the stamens. They will probably come next to the skunk-cabbage this year, if the cowslip does not. April 3, 1856

April 8.  There, in that slow, muddy brook near the head of Well Meadow, within a few rods of its source, where it winds amid the alders, which shelter the plants some what, while they are open enough now to admit the sun, I find two cowslips in full bloom, shedding pollen; and they may have opened two or three days ago; for I saw many conspicuous buds here on the 2d which now I do not see. Have they not been eaten off? Do we not often lose the earliest flowers thus? A little more, or if the river had risen as high as frequently, they would have been submerged. What an arctic voyage was this in which I find cowslips, the pond and river still frozen over for the most part as far down as Cardinal Shore! April 8, 1856

April 9.  The cowslips are well out, – the first conspicuous herbaceous flower, for the cabbage is concealed in its spathe. April 9, 1853

April 11.  I might have said on the 8th: Behold that little  hemisphere of green in the black and sluggish brook, amid the open alders, sheltered under a russet tussock. It is the cowslips’ forward green. Look narrowly, explore the warmest nooks; here are buds larger yet, showing more yellow, and yonder see two full-blown yellow disks, close to the water’s edge. Methinks they dip into it when the frosty nights come. April 11, 1856

April 12.   Cowslip will apparently open in two days at Hubbard’s Close. April 12, 1855

April 13.  Many cowslip buds show a little yellow, but they will not open there [Second Division] for two or three days. The road is paved with solid ice there.  April 13, 1855

April 13.  Still no cowslips nor saxifrage. April 13, 1856 

April 29.  At the Second Division Brook the cowslip is in blossom. April 29, 1852

May 4. The cowslip's is a vigorous growth and makes at present the most show of any flower. Leaf, stem, bud, and flower are all very handsome in their place and season. It has no scent, but speaks wholly to the eye. The petals are covered at base with a transparent, dewy (dew-like), apparently golden nectar. Better for yellows than for greens. May 4, 1852

See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Earliest Flower 

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Cowslip in Early Spring

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau

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

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

 ~edited, assembled and rewritten by zphx ©  2009-2026

A Book of the Seasons: March Moonlight

 

Beyond the lone graveyard, 

his footsteps shining like silver 

between me and the moon. 

I see a promise 

or sign of spring 

in the way the moon 

is reflected from the snow.

Henry Thoreau, March 7, 1852

March 6.   A still and mild moonlight night and people walking about the streets.  March 6, 1860

March 7.  At 9 o'clock P.M to the woods by the full moon. It is rather mild to-night. I can walk without gloves. There is no snow on the trees. The ground is thinly covered with a crusted snow, through which the dead grass and weeds appear, telling the nearness of spring.

Though the snow-crust between me and the moon reflects the moon at a distance, westward it is but a dusky white; only where it is heaped up into a drift, or a steep bank occurs, is the moonlight reflected to me as from a phosphorescent place.

 

I distinguish thus large tracts an eighth of a mile distant in the west, where a steep bank sloping toward the moon occurs, that glow with a white, phosphorescent light, while all the surrounding snow is comparatively dark, as if shaded by the woods. I look to see if these white tracts in the distant fields correspond to openings in the woods, and find that they are places where the crystal mirrors are so disposed as to reflect the moon's light to me. 

Going through the high field beyond the lone graveyard, I see the track of a boy's sled before me, and his footsteps shining like silver between me and the moon. I forget that the sun shone on them as if I had reached the region of perpetual twilight, and their sport appears more significant. For what a man does abroad by night is more spiritual, less animal or vegetable.

As I look down the railroad, standing on the west brink of the Deep Cut, I see a promise or sign of spring in the way the moon is reflected from the snow covered west slope – a sort of misty light as if a fine vapor were rising from it. 

The stillness is more impressive than any sound – the moon, the stars, the trees, the snow – a monumental stillness, whose void must be supplied by thought. 

The moon appears to have waned a little, yet, with this snow on the ground, I can plainly see the words I write. What a contrast there may be between this moon and the next ! March 7, 1852

March 26. It was like the light reflected from the mountain ridges within the shaded portion of the moon, forerunner and herald of the spring. March 26, 1857

See also:

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, April Moonlight

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, May Moonlight

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

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, July Moonlight

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, August Moonlight

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, September Moonlight

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, October Moonlight

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, November Moonlight

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, December  Moonlight

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, January  Moonlight

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, February Moonlight

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, March Moonlight

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau

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

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

 ~edited, assembled and rewritten by zphx ©  2009-2026

https://tinyurl.com/hdt-marchmoon

A Book of the Seasons: The Robin in Spring

 For the first time

I perceive this spring

that 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

You are always surprised by

the sight of the first spring bird or insect;

they seem premature,

[yet] there is no such evidence 

of spring as themselves,

so that they literally fetch the year about.

It is thus when I hear the first robin 

or bluebird or, looking along the brooks, 

see the first water-bugs out circling. But you think, 

They have come, and Nature cannot recede.

March 10, 1855

Something reminds me

of the song of the robin –

rainy days, past springs.

April 2, 1854

The robin is the only 

bird as yet that makes a 

business of singing.

April 13, 1852

February 25. I hear that robins were seen a week or more ago. February 25, 1859

February 25. Goodwin says he saw a robin this morning. February 25, 1857 

February 28. C. saw a dozen robins to-day on the ground on Ebby Hubbard's hill by the Yellow Birch Swamp. February 28, 1860

March 10. A wood-chopper tells me he heard a robin this morning. Maarch 10, 1852

 

March 14. Count over forty robins with my glass in the meadow north of Sleepy Hollow, in the grass and on the snow. March 14, 1854 

April 13. As I go down the railroad causeway, I see a flock of eight or ten bay-wing sparrows flitting along the fence and alighting on an apple tree. There are many robins about also. Do they not incline more to fly in flocks a cold and windy day like this? April 13, 1856

The peep.

February 27.   Before I opened the window this cold morning, I heard the peep of a robin, that sound so often heard in cheerless or else rainy weather, so often heard first borne on the cutting March wind or through sleet or rain, as if its coming were premature. February 27, 1857 

February 27. Mother hears a robin to-day. February 27, 1861

March 7. The birds which [the shrike] imitated — if it imitated any this morning — were the catbird and the robin, neither of which probably would it catch.  . . Hearing a peep, I looked up and saw three or four birds passing . . . They were robins, but the shrike instantly hid himself behind a bough and in half a minute flew off to a walnut and alighted, as usual, on its very topmost twig, apparently afraid of its visitors. The robins kept their ground, one alighting on the very point which the shrike vacated . . . The first note which I heard from the robins, far under the hill, was sveet sveet, suggesting a certain haste and alarm, and then a rich, hollow, somewhat plaintive peep or peep-eep-eep, as when in distress with young just flown. When you first see them alighted, they have a haggard, an anxious and hurried, look.  March 7, 1859

March 8.  I hear the hasty, shuffling, as if frightened, note of a robin from a dense birch wood. . . This sound reminds me of rainy, misty April days in past years.  March 8, 1855

March 12.   I hear my first robin peep distinctly at a distance. No singing yet. March 12, 1854

March 16. Saw a large flock of geese go over Cambridge and heard the robins in the College Yard. March 16, 1852

March 17.   Sitting under the handsome scarlet oak beyond the hill, 

I hear a faint note 

far in the wood which reminds 

me of the robin. 

Again I hear it; it is he, — an occasional peep. These notes of the earliest birds seem to invite forth vegetation. No doubt the plants concealed in the earth hear them and rejoice. They wait for this assurance.  March 17, 1858

March 18.   I stand still now to listen if I may hear the note of any new bird, for the sound of my steps hinders, and there are so few sounds at this season in a still afternoon like this that you are pretty sure to detect one within a considerable distance. Hark ! Did I not hear the note of some bird then? Methinks it could not have been my own breathing through my nose. No, there it is again, — a robin; and we have put the winter so much further behind us. What mate does he call to in these deserted fields? It is as it were, a scared note as he whisks by, followed by the familiar but still anxious toot, toot, toot. He does not sing as yet . . . The bluebird and song sparrow sing immediately on their arrival. . .But the robin and blackbird only peep and chuck at first. March 18, 1853

March 18. I now again hear the song sparrow’s tinkle along the riverside, probably to be heard for a day or two, and a robin, which also has been heard a day or two. March 18, 1857 

March 18. The robin does not come singing, but utters a somewhat anxious or inquisitive peep at first. March 18, 1858

March 18. Three days ago, the 15th, we had steady rain with a southerly wind, with a clear interval and a brilliant double rainbow at sunset, — a day when all the russet banks were dripping, saturated with wet, and the peep of the robin was heard through the drizzle and the rain. March 18, 1859

March 21.  The robin is heard further off, and seen flying rapidly, hurriedly through the orchard . . . How suddenly the newly arrived birds are dispersed over the whole town! How numerous they must be! Robins are now quite abundant, flying in flocks. One after another flits away before you from the trees, somewhat like grasshoppers in the grass, uttering their notes faintly, ― ventriloquizing, in fact. I hear [one] meditating a bar to be sung anon, which sounds a quarter of a mile off, though he is within two rods  However, they do not yet get to melody.  March 21, 1853

March 22. Overcast and cold. Yet there is quite a concert of birds along the river; the song sparrows are very lively and musical . . . I also hear a short, regular robin song, though many are flitting about with hurried note. March 22, 1855

March 24.   The chip of the [song sparrow] resembles that of a robin, i.e., its expression is the same, only fainter, and reminds me that the robin's peep, which sounds like a note of distress, is also a chip, or call-note to its kind.  March 24, 1858

March 25. Hear the hurried and seemingly frightened notes of a robin and see it flying over the railroad lengthwise, and afterwards its tut tut at a distance. This and the birds of yesterday have come, though the ground generally is covered deep with snow. They will not only stay with us through a storm, but come when there are but resting-places for them. It must be hard for them to get their living now. March 25, 1856 

April 2.  The robin now peeps with scared note in the heavy overcast air, among the apple trees. The hour is favorable to thought. April 2, 1852 

April 2. Sitting on the rail over the brook, I hear something which reminds me of the song of the robin in rainy days in past springs. April 2, 1854 

April 2.   Robins are peeping and flitting about. Am surprised to hear one sing regularly their morning strain, seven or eight rods off, yet so low and smothered with its ventriloquism that you would say it was half a mile off. It seems to be wooing its mate, that sits within a foot of it. April 2, 1856

The song.

March 17.  I hear a robin fairly singing. March 17,1859

March 18. I now again hear the song sparrow’s tinkle along the riverside, probably to be heard for a day or two, and a robin, which also has been heard a day or two. March 18, 1857

March 20.  Now first I hear a very short robin's song. March 20, 1858

March 22. To Cliffs. 6 A. M.- There is a white frost on the ground. One robin really sings on the elms. March 22, 1853

March 31. The robins sing at the very earliest dawn. I wake with their note ringing in my ear.  March 31, 1852

March 31. At even I hear the first real robin's song.  March 31, 1860

April 1.   I hear a robin singing in the woods south of Hosmer's, just before sunset. It is a sound associated with New England village life. It brings to my thoughts summer evenings when the children are playing in the yards before the doors and their parents conversing at the open windows. It foretells all this now, before those summer hours are come.  April 1, 1852 

April 1. The robin now begins to sing sweet powerfully.   April 1, 1854

April 1. It is a true April evening, feeling and looking as if it would rain, and 

already I hear 

a robin or two singing 

their evening song.  

April 1, 1857

April 2.   The air is full of the notes of birds, - song sparrows, red-wings, robins (singing a strain), bluebirds, - and I hear also a lark, - as if all the earth had burst forth into song. April 2, 1852

April 3.   I see small flocks of robins running on the bared portions of the meadow . . . Coming home along the causeway, a robin sings (though faintly) as in May. April 3, 1856

April 4. The robins sang this morning . . .  and now more than ever hop about boldly in the garden in the rain, with full, broad, light cow-colored breasts. April 4, 1853

April 4. The birds sing quite numerously at sunrise about the villages, - robins, tree sparrows, and methinks I heard the purple finch. The birds are eager to sing, as the flowers to bloom, after raw weather has held them in check. April 4, 1860

April 6. Now see considerable flocks of robins hopping and running in the meadows.  April 6, 1856

April 8. The robins now sing in full blast  April 8, 1855 

April 9. At sunset after the rain, the robins and song sparrows fill the air along the river with their song. April 9, 1855

April 9.  A robin peeping at a distance is mistaken for a hyla. April 9, 1856

April 13. Heard the robin singing as usual last night, though it was raining. April 13, 1852

April 13.  The robin is the only bird as yet that makes a business of singing, steadily singing, — sings continuously out of pure joy and melody of soul . . . [T]he song of the robin on the elms or oaks, loud and clear and heard afar through the streets of a village, makes a fit conclusion to a spring day . . . The robin is the prime singer as yet. April 13, 1852

April 14.   It being completely overcast, having rained a little, the robins, etc., sing at 4.30 as at sundown usually. The waters, too, are smooth and full of reflections. April 14, 1855

April 15.  Robins sing now at 10 A. M. as in the morning. April 15, 1855 

April 15. The purple finch is singing on the elms about the house , together with the robins  April 15, 1856

April 16. The robins, etc., blackbirds, song sparrows sing now on all hands just before sunrise, perhaps quite as generally as at any season. April 16, 1855 

April 16.   The robins sing with a will now. What a burst of melody! It gurgles out of all conduits now; they are choked with it. There is such a tide and rush of song as when a river is straightened between two rocky walls. It seems as if the morning’s throat were not large enough to emit all this sound. The robin sings most before 6 o’clock now. I note where some suddenly cease their song, making a quite remarkable vacuum . . . A moist, misty, rain-threatening April day. About noon it does mizzle a little. The robin sings throughout it.  April 16, 1856

April 19.  6 a. m. — Rain still, a fine rain. The robin sang early this morning over the bare ground, an hour ago, nevertheless, ushering in the day . . .  In the midst of this storm I see and hear the robin still and the song sparrow, and see the bluebird also. April 19, 1852

April 21.  The robins sing through the ceaseless rain . . . On the east side of Ponkawtasset I hear a robin singing cheerily from some perch in the wood, in the midst of the rain . . . It sings with power, like a bird of great faith that sees the bright future through the dark present . . . It is a pure, immortal melody . . . I have not this season heard more robins sing than this rainy day. April 21, 1852

April 26.  We see and hear more birds than usual this mizzling and still day, and the robin sings with more vigor and promise than later in the season. April 26, 1855

May 4. A robin sings when I, in the house, cannot distinguish the earliest dawning from the full moon light. His song first advertises me of the daybreak, when I think it night, as I lie looking out into the full moonlight. I hear a robin begin his strain, and yield the point to him, believing he is better acquainted with the springs of the day than I, — with the signs of day.  May 4, 1855 

May 6.  The song of the robin heard at 4:30 P. M., this still and hazy day, sounds already vespertinal. May 6, 1860

May 9. The robin's strain is less remarkable. May 9, 1853

May 14.   Most birds are silent in the storm. Hear the robin, oven-bird, night warbler, and, at length, the towhee's towee, chickadee's phoebe, and a preluding thrasher and a jay. May 14, 1852

May 14.  The robin sings this louring day . . . The song of the robin is most suggestive in cloudy weather. May 14, 1852 

May 28. Methinks the bluebird and the robin are not heard so often (the former certainly not ). Those tumultuous morning concerts of sparrows, tree and song, hyemalis, and grackles, like leaves on the trees, are past, and the woodland quire will rather be diminished than increased henceforth. May 28, 1854

Nests and eggs.

May 6.  Four large robin's eggs in an apple tree. May 6, 1853

May 6.  A robin’s nest with two eggs, betrayed by peeping.  May 6. 1855 

May 13.  A robin's nest, with young, on the causeway. May 13, 1853 

May 19.  The robin's nest and eggs are the earliest I see.  May 19, 1854 

May 21. A robin's nest and eggs in the crotch of a maple. May 21, 1852

May 21. A robin’s nest without mud, on a young white oak in woods, with three eggs. May 21, 1856 

Young Robins.

May 24. Young robins some time hatched. May 24, 1855

June 9. A young robin abroad. June 9, 1856 

June 10. We  hear 

the cool peep of the 

robin calling to its young, 

now learning to fly. 

June 10, 1853  

June 15. Young robins, dark-speckled.  June 15, 1852 

June 15. Robin’s nest in apple tree, twelve feet high — young nearly grown.  June 15, 1855

June 18. I think 

I heard the anxious 

peep of a robin whose young 

have just left the nest.  

June 18, 1854

June 20.  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! June 20, 1855

Reminiscence

October 10. The faint suppressed warbling of the robins sounds like a reminiscence of the spring. October 10, 1853

See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Reminiscence and Prompting

I heard a robin in the distance, 

the first I had heard for many a thousand years, methought, 

whose note I shall not forget for many a thousand more,—

the same sweet and powerful song as of yore. 

O the evening robin, 

at the end of a New England summer day!

 If I could ever 

find the twig he sits upon! 

I mean he; 

I mean the twig. 

~ Walden

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Robin in Spring

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau

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

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

~edited, assembled and rewritten by zphx ©  2009-2026