Black ducks rise at once and often circle about to reconnoitre.

April 13.

April 13, 2024

A clear and pleasant morning.

Walked down as far as Moore's at 8 A. M. and returned along the hill.

Heard the first chip-bird, sitting on an apple, with its head up and bill open, jingling tche tche-tche-tche-tche, etc., very fast. Hear them in various parts of the town.

On the hill near Moore's hear the F. juncorum, -- phẽ- phẽ- phẽ- phẽ- phẽ-, pher-phẽ-ē-ē-ē-ē-ē-ē-ē-ē. How sweet it sounds in a clear warm morning in a wood-side pasture amid the old corn-hills, or in sprout-lands,  clear and distinct, “like a spoon in a cup,” the last part very fast and ringing.

Hear the pine warbler also, and think I see a female red wing flying with some males.

Did I see a bay-wing?

Heard a purple finch on an elm, like a faint robin.

P. M. — Sail to Bittern Cliff. 

The surface of the water, toward the sun, reflecting the light with different degrees of brilliancy, is very exhilarating to look at.

The red maple in a day or two. I begin to see the anthers in some buds. So much more of the scales of the buds is now uncovered that the tops of the swamps at a distance are reddened.

A couple of large ducks, which, because they flew low over the water and appeared black with a little white, I thought not black ducks, — possibly velvet or a merganser.

The black ducks rise at once to a considerable height and often circle about to reconnoitre.

The golden-brown tassels of the alder are very rich now.

The poplar (tremuloides) by Miles's Swamp has been out - the earliest catkins maybe two or three days.

On the evening of the 5th the body of a man was found in the river between Fair Haven Pond and Lee's, much wasted. How these events disturb our associations and tarnish the landscape! It is a serious injury done to a stream.

One or two crowfoots Lee's Cliff, fully out, surprise me like a flame bursting from the russet ground.

The saxifrage is pretty common, ahead of the crowfoot now, and its peduncles have shot up.

The slippery elm is behind the common, which is fully out beside it. It will open apparently in about two days of pleasant weather. I can see the anthers plainly in its great rusty, fusty globular buds.

A small brown hawk with white on rump I think too small for a marsh hawk sailed low over the meadow. [May it have been a young male harrier?]

Heard now, at 5.30 P.M., that faint bullfrog like note from the meadows, er- er-er.

Many of the button-bushes have been broken off about eighteen inches above the present level of the water (which is rather low), apparently by the ice.

Saw a piece of meadow, twelve feet in diameter, which had been dropped on the northwest side of Willow Bay on a bare shore, thickly set with button-bushes five feet high, perfectly erect, which will no doubt flourish there this summer. Thus the transplanting of fluviatile plants is carried on on a very large and effective scale. Even in one year a considerable plantation will thus be made on what had been a bare shore, and its character changed. The meadow cannot be kept smooth.

The winter-rye fields quite green, contrasting with the russet.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, April 13, 1854

Heard the first chip-bird, sitting on an apple, with its head up and bill open, jingling tche tche-tche-tche-tche, etc. See April 9, 1853 ("The chipping sparrow, with its ashy-white breast and white streak over eye and undivided chestnut crown, holds up its head and pours forth its che che che che che che."); April 12, 1858 ("Hear the huckleberry-bird and, I think, the Fringilla socialis.") See alsoo A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau The Chipping Sparrow (Fringilla socialis).)

On the hill near Moore's hear the F. juncorum. See April 15, 1856; ("Not till I gain the hilltop do I hear the note of the Fringilla juncorum (huckleberry-bird) from the plains beyond."); April 16, 1856 ("The F. juncorum says, phe phe phe phe ph-ph-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p, faster and faster.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Field Sparrow (Fringilla juncorum aka Spizella pusilla)

Hear the pine warbler also. See April 12, 1858 ("The woods are all alive with pine warblers now. Their note is the music to which I survey."); April 15, 1859 ("The warm pine woods are all alive this afternoon with the jingle of the pine warbler, the for the most part invisible minstrel. . . . Its jingle rings through the wood at short intervals, as if, like an electric shock, it imparted a fresh spring life to them.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Pine Warbler

Did I see a bay-wing? See April 13, 1855 ("See a sparrow without marks on throat or breast, running peculiarly in the dry grass in the open field beyond, and hear its song, and then see its white feathers in tail; the bay-wing. "); April 13, 1856 ("I hear a bay-wing on the railroad fence sing . . .Two on different posts are steadily singing the same, as if contending with each other, notwithstanding the cold wind.") See also April 7, 1856 ("See . . . a bay wing sparrow. It has no dark splash on throat and has a light or gray head."); April 8, 1859 ("See the first bay-wing hopping and flitting along the railroad bank, but hear no note as yet."); April 12, 1857 ("I think I hear the bay-wing here. "); April 15, 1859 ("The bay-wing now sings — the first I have been able to hear — . . .just before noon, when the sun began to come out, and at 3 p. m., singing loud and clear and incessantly") and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Bay-Wing Sparrow

Heard a purple finch on an elm, like a faint robin. See April 13, 1859 ("The streets are strewn with the bud-scales of the elm, which they, opening, have lost off, and their tops present a rich brown already. I hear a purple finch on one,") See also April 11, 1853 ("I hear the clear, loud whistle of a purple finch, somewhat like and nearly as loud as the robin, from the elm by Whiting's") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Elms and the Purple Finch

The golden-brown tassels of the alder are very rich now. See April 21, 1854 ("These are those early times when the rich golden-brown tassels of the alders tremble over the brooks — and not a leaf on their twigs.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Alders

The poplar (tremuloides) by Miles's Swamp has been out – the earliest catkins maybe two or three days. See April 6, 1858 ("The very earliest aspens, such as grow in warm exposures on the south sides of hills or woods, have begun to be effete. Others are not yet out."); April 8, 1853 ("The male Populus grandidentata appears to open very gradually, beginning sooner than I supposed. It shows some of its red anthers long before it opens. There is a female on the left, on Warren's Path at Deep Cut. Is not the pollen of the P. tremuliformis like rye meal ? Are not female flowers of more sober and modest colors, as the willows for instance?"); April 9, 1853 ("The Populus tremuliformis, just beyond, resound with the hum of honey-bees, flies, etc. These male trees are frequently at a great distance from the females. Do not the bees and flies alone carry the pollen to the latter? "); April 9, 1856 ("Early aspen catkins have curved downward an inch, and began to shed pollen apparently yesterday."); April 14, 1855 ("The Populus tremuloides by the Island shed pollen — a very few catkins — yesterday at least; for some anthers are effete and black this morning, though it is hardly curved down yet an is but an inch and a half long at most.");April 15, 1852 ("The aspen on the railroad is beginning to blossom, showing the purple or mulberry in the terminal catkins, though it droops like dead cats' tails in the rain. It appears about the same date with the elm"); April 17, 1855 ("The early aspen catkins are now some of them two and a half inches long and white, dangling in the breeze.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Aspens

The black ducks rise at once to a considerable height and often circle about to reconnoitre. See April 14, 1856 (" I scare up two black ducks which make one circle around me, reconnoitring and rising higher and higher, then go down the river. Is it they that so commonly practice this manoeuvre? ") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the American Black Duck

One or two crowfoots on Lee's Cliff, fully out, surprise me like a flame bursting from the russet ground. The saxifrage is pretty common.  See January 9, 1853 ("On the face of the Cliff the crowfoot buds lie unexpanded just beneath the surface. I dig one up with a stick, and, pulling it to pieces, I find deep in the centre of the plant, just beneath the ground, surrounded by all the tender leaves that are to precede it, the blossom-bud, about half is big as the head of a pin, perfectly white. There it patiently sits, or slumbers, how full of faith, informed of a spring which the world has never seen.”); April 11, 1858 ("Crowfoot (Ranunculus fascicularis) at Lee's since the 6th, apparently a day or two before this"); April 18, 1856 ("Common saxifrage and also early sedge I am surprised to find abundantly out. . .Crowfoot, apparently two or three days."); April 30, 1855 ("Crowfoot and saxifrage are now in prime at Lee’s; they yellow and whiten the ground."); See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Crowfoot (Ranunculus fascicularis) and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Saxifrage in Spring (Saxifraga vernalis

Heard now, at 5.30 P.M., that faint bullfrog like note from the meadows, er- er-er.  See April 13, 1856 ("As I go by the Andromeda Ponds, I hear the tut tut of a few croaking frogs, and at Well Meadow I hear once or twice a prolonged stertorous sound, as from river meadows a little later usually, which is undoubtedly made by a different frog from the first."); April 13, 1859  ("I hear the stuttering note of probably the Rana halecina (see one by shore) come up from all the Great Meadow, especially the sedgy parts, or where the grass was not cut last year and now just peeps above the surface. There is something soothing and suggestive of halcyon days in this low but universal breeding-note of the frog. . . . this note marks what you may call April heat (or spring heat).") See also  April 3, 1858 ("We hear the stertorous tut tut tut of frogs from the meadow, with an occasional faint bullfrog-like er er er intermingled . . . Both these sounds, then, are made by one frog [Rana halecina], and what I have formerly thought an early bullfrog note was this. This, I think, is the first frog sound I have heard from the river meadows or anywhere, except the croaking leaf-pool frogs and the hylodes.");   April 15, 1855  ("That general tut tut tut tut, or snoring, of frogs on the shallow meadow heard first slightly the 5th. There is a very faint er er er now and then mixed with it."); May 2, 1858 ("At mouth of the Mill Brook, I hear, I should say, the true R. halecina croak, i. e. with the faint bullfrog-like er-er-er intermixed. Are they still breeding? ") and  A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,  the Leopard Frog (Rana Halecina) in Spring

Thus the transplanting of fluviatile plants is carried on on a very large and effective scale. Even in one year a considerable plantation will thus be made on what had been a bare shore, and its character changed. See April 12, 1859 ("Such revolutions can take place and none but the proprietor of the meadow notice it, for the traveller passing within sight does not begin to suspect that the bushy island which he sees in the meadow has floated from elsewhere"); February 25, 1851 ("The crust of the meadow afloat, . . . another agent employed in the distribution of plants."); February 28, 1855 ("This is a powerful agent at work.”); June 22, 1859 ("One who is not almost daily on the river will not perceive the revolution constantly going on.”); July 9, 1859 ("We are accustomed to refer changes in the shore and the channel to the very gradual influence of the current washing away and depositing matter which was held in suspension, but certainly in many parts of our river the ice which moves these masses of bushes and meadow is a much more important agent. It will alter the map of the river in one year.")

Black ducks rise at once 

and often circle about

to reconnoitre.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Black ducks rise at once

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

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