Under Lee's Cliff

April 27.

River five eighths of an inch below summer level.

P. M. – Row to Conantum.

At the stone bridge the lower side outer end of the stone is about a quarter of an inch above summer level.

I saw yesterday, and see to-day, a small hawk which I take to be a pigeon hawk. This one skims low along over Grindstone Meadow, close to the edge of the water, and I see the blackbirds rise hurriedly from the button bushes and willows before him. I am decided by his size (as well as color) and his low, level skimming. [Methinks I saw a yet smaller hawk, perhaps sparrow hawk, fly or skim over the village about the 12th.]

The river meadows are now so dry that E. Wood is burning the Mantatuket one.

Fishes are rising to the shad-flies, probably because the river is so low. 

Luzula a day or two at Clamshell.

Strawberry well out; how long?

Viola ovata common.

One dandelion white, as if going to seed!

Thalictrum anemonoides are abundant, maybe two or three days, at Blackberry Steep.

I see where a robin has been destroyed, probably by a hawk. I think that I see these traces chiefly in the spring and fall. Why so?

Columbine, but perhaps' earlier, for I hear that it has been plucked here.

I see, close under the rocks at Lee's, some new polypody flatted out.

I stand under Lee's Cliff. 

There is a certain summeriness in the air now, especially under a warm cliff like this, where you smell the very dry leaves, and hear the pine warbler and the hum of a few insects, — small gnats, etc., — and see considerable growth and greenness.

Though it is still windy, there is, nevertheless, a certain serenity and long-lifeness in the air, as if it were a habitable place and not merely to be hurried through.

The noon of the year is approaching. Nature seems meditating a siesta.

The hurry of the duck migration is, methinks, over. But the woods generally, and at a distance, show no growth yet.

There is a large fire in the woods northwest of Concord, just before night. A column of smoke is blown away from it far southeast, and as the twilight approaches, it becomes more and more dun. At first some doubted if it was this side the North River or not, but I saw that Annursnack was this side of it, but I expected our bells would ring presently.

One who had just come down in the cars thought it must be in Groton, for he had left a fire there. And the passengers in the evening train from Boston said that they began to see the smoke of it as soon as they left the city! So hard is it to tell how far off a great fire is.

H.D. Thoreau, Journal, April 27, 1860

I stand under Lee's Cliff. See April 27, 1852 (“This is a place to look for early blossoms of the saxifrage, columbine, and plantain-leaved everlasting . . . The crevices of the rock (cliff) make natural hothouses for them, affording dryness, warmth, and shelter.”)

I saw yesterday, and see to-day, a small hawk which I take to be a pigeon hawk. See April 26, 1854 ("Saw probably a pigeon hawk skim straight and low over field and wood, and another the next day apparently dark slate-color.") See also  A Book of the Seasons by Henry Thoreau, The Pigeon Hawk (Merlin)