P. M. – To Walden and Goose Pond.
Thermometer 56; wind south, gentle; somewhat overcast.
There is still perhaps a half-acre of ice at the bottom of the deep south bay of Walden. Also a little at the southeast end of Goose Pond. Ripple Lake is mostly covered yet.
I see a large flock of sheldrakes, which have probably risen from the pond, go over my head in the woods. A dozen large and compact birds flying with great force and rapidity, spying out the land, eyeing every traveller, fast and far they “steam it” on clipping wings, over field and forest, meadow and flood; now here, and you hear the whistling of their wings, and in a moment they are lost in the horizon. Like swift propellers of the air.
Whichever way they are headed, that way their wings propel them. What health and vigor they suggest!
The life of man seems slow and puny in comparison, — reptilian.
The cowslip leaves are now expanded.
The rabbit and partridge can eat wood; therefore they abound and can stay here all the year.
The leaves on the woodland floor are already getting to be dry.
How handsome a flock of red-wings, ever changing its oval form as it advances, by the rear birds passing the others!
Was not that a marsh hawk, a slate-colored one which I saw flying over Walden Wood with long , slender, curving wings, with a diving, zigzag flight? [No doubt it was, for I see another, a brown one, the 19th.]
H. D. Thoreau, Journal, March 17, 1860
There is still perhaps a half-acre of ice at the bottom of the deep south bay of Walden. See note to March 14, 1860 ("I am surprised to find Walden open. There is only about an acre of ice at the southeast end . . . and a little old and firm and snowy in the bottom of the deep south bay.")
A little ice at the southeast end of Goose Pond. See March 11, 1861 ("Goose Pond is to-day all ice."); March 21, 1855 ("Crossed Goose Pond on ice."); March 24, 1854 (" Goose Pond half open.")
I see a large flock of sheldrakes . . .See March 16, 1854 "I see ducks afar. . . bright white breasts, etc., and black heads about same size or larger . . .Probably both sheldrakes.”); March 16, 1855 ("scare up two large ducks . . .. One very large; white beneath, breast and neck; black head and wings and aft. . . . I think it the goosander or sheldrake."); March 23, 1859 ("As we sit there, we see coming, swift and straight, northeast along the river valley, not seeing us and therefore not changing his course, a male goosander, . . .. He looks like a paddle-wheel steamer, so oddly painted up, black and white and green, and moves along swift and straight like one."); See also Henry Thoreau, A Book of the Seasons, The Sheldrake (Merganser, Goosander)
How handsome a flock of red-wings, ever changing its oval form as it advances. See March 13, 1859 (" I see a small flock of blackbirds flying over, some rising, others falling, yet all advancing together, one flock but many birds, some silent, others tchucking, — incessant alternation. This harmonious movement as in a dance, this agreeing to differ, makes the charm of the spectacle to me. One bird looks fractional, naked, like a single thread or ravelling from the web to which it belongs. Alternation! Alternation! Heaven and hell ! Here again in the flight of a bird, its ricochet motion, is that undulation observed in so many materials, as in the mackerel sky."): March 16, 1860 ("Here is a flock of red-wings. . . . How handsome as they go by in a checker, each with a bright-scarlet shoulder!."); May 5, 1859 ("Red-wings fly in flocks yet.").
I see another, a brown one. See April 23, 1855 ("I have seen also for some weeks occasionally a brown hawk with white rump, flying low, which I have thought the frog hawk in a different stage of plumage; but can it be at this season? and is it not the marsh hawk? . . . -- probably female hen-harrier."); October 18, 1855 ("A large brown marsh hawk comes beating the bush along the river, and ere long a slate-colored one (male), with black tips, is seen circling against a distant wood-side");
May 14, 1857 ("See a pair of marsh hawks, the smaller and lighter-colored male, with black tips to wings, and the large brown female, sailing low . . .apparently looking for frogs or the like.");. March 21, 1859 ("I see a female marsh hawk sailing and hunting over Potter's Swamp. I not only see the white rump but the very peculiar crescent-shaped curve of its wings"). See also April 5, 1854 ("These days, when a soft west or southwest wind blows and it is truly warm, and an outside coat is oppressive, — these bring out the butterflies and the frogs, and the marsh hawks which prey on the last. Just so simple is every year.")
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