November sunrise.

November 7. 

A clear, cold, as well as frosty, morning. The sun now rises far southward. I have to walk with my hands in my pockets. I see westward the earliest sunlight on the reddish oak leaves and the pines. 

The notes of one or two small birds, this cold morning, in the now comparatively leafless woods, sound like a nail dropped on an anvil.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, November 7, 1853

The notes of one or two small birds, this cold morning, in the now comparatively leafless woods, sound like a nail dropped on an anvil. See March 13, 1853 (“Listening for early birds, I hear a faint tinkling sound in the leafless woods, as if a piece of glass rattled against a stone”); March 18, 1858 (“Almost every bush has its song sparrow this morning, and their tinkling strains are heard on all sides.”);  December 5, 1853 (“”See and hear a downy woodpecker on an apple tree. Have not many winter birds, like this and the chickadee, a sharp note like tinkling glass or icicles? ); December 17, 1856 ("That feeble cheep of the tree sparrow, like the tinkling of an icicle. . ., is probably a call to their mates, by which they keep together.")