Trillium berries bright-red.

Trillium berries bright red.

August 21

P. M. — To Conantum via Hubbard Bath. 

The river is warmer than I supposed it would become again, yet not so warm as in July. 

A small, wary dipper, — solitary, dark -colored, diving amid the pads. The same that lingered so late on the Assabet.

Leaves of small hypericums begin to be red. 

Red choke-berries are dried black; ripe some time ago. 

In Hubbard's meadow, between the two woods, I can not find a pitcher-plant with any water in it. 

Some of the Hubbard aster are still left, against the upper Hubbard Wood by the shore, which the mowers omitted.

Have noticed winged grasshoppers or locusts a week or more. 

Spikenard berries are now mahogany-color.  Trillium berries bright-red.  The fever-bush berries are partly turned red, perhaps prematurely.

Now, say, is hazelnut time.  

I see robins in small flocks and pigeon woodpeckers with them.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 21, 1854

The river is warmer than I supposed it would become again.  See August 14, 1854 ("I find by bathing that the river grows steadily cooler, as yet for a fortnight, though we have had no rain here."); September 2, 1854 ("The water is surprisingly cold on account of the cool weather and rain, but especially since the rain of yesterday morning. It is a very important and remarkable autumnal change. It will not be warm again probably."); September 6, 1854 ("The water is again warmer than I should have believed; say an average summer warmth, yet not so warm as it has been. It makes me the more surprised that only that day and a half of rain should have made it so very cold when I last bathed here."); September 24, 1854 ("It is now too cold to bathe with comfort."); September 26 1854 ("Took my last bath the 24th . Probably shall not bathe again this year. It was chilling cold.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Luxury of Bathing

A small, wary dipper, — solitary, dark -colored, diving amid the pads. See September 9, 1858 ("At length the walker who sits meditating on a distant bank sees the little dipper sail out from amid the weeds and busily dive for its food along their edge. Yet ordinary eyes might range up and down the river all day and never detect its small black head above the water."); December 26, 1853 ("A small diver, probably a grebe or dobchick, dipper, or what-not, with the markings, as far as I saw, of the crested grebe, but smaller. It had a black head, a white ring about its neck, a white breast, black back, and apparently no tail. It dove and swam a few rods under water, and, when on the surface, kept turning round and round warily and nodding its head the while.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Little Dipper

Leaves of small hypericums begin to be red. See August 7, 1853 (""I see the leaves of the two smallest johnsworts reddening. The common johnswort is quite abundant this year and still yellows the fields.): August 31, 1853 ("Leaves of Hypericum mutilum red about water.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, St. Johns-wort (Hypericum)

Red choke-berries are dried black; ripe some time ago. See note to July 25, 1853 ("Cerasus Virginiana, — choke-cherry, — just ripe.");  August 15, 1852 ("The red choke-berry is small and green still. I plainly distinguish it, also, by its woolly under side.); August 25, 1854 (Choke-berries are very abundant there, but mostly dried black.")

In Hubbard's meadow, between the two woods, I can not find a pitcher-plant with any water in it. See August 18, 1854 ("We can walk across the Great Meadows now in any direction. They are quite dry. Even the pitcher-plant leaves are empty."); August 19, 1854 ("There is now a remarkable drought, some of whose phenomena I have referred to during several weeks past.") August 22, 1854 ("I find at length a pitcher-plant with a spoonful of water in it. It must be last night's dew."); September 11, 1851("We have had no rain for a week, and yet the pitcher-plants have water in them. Are they ever quite dry? Are they not replenished by the dews always, and, being shaded by the grass, saved from evaporation?") See also November 15, 1857 ("The water is frozen solid in the leaves of the pitcher plants."); November 16, 1852 (" At Holden's Spruce Swamp. The water is frozen in the pitcher-plant leaf"); February 11, 1858 ("The water in the pitcher-plant leaves is frozen,.") and see A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Purple Pitcher Plant

Some of the Hubbard aster are still left, against the upper Hubbard Wood by the shore. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Asters in August

Which the mowers omitted. See August 5, 1854 ("A platoon of haymakers has just attacked the meadow-grass . . . We are now in the midst of the meadow-haying season.");  August 22, 1854 ("There are three or four haymakers still at work in the Great Meadows, though but very few acres are left uncut") See also  A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Haymaking

Have noticed winged grasshoppers or locusts a week or more. See August 21, 1852 ("Young turkeys are straying in the grass which is alive with grasshoppers."); August 21, 1853 ("Saw one of those light-green locusts about three quarters of an inch long on a currant leaf in the garden."); September 4, 1856 ("The crackling flight of grasshoppers. The grass also is all alive with them, and they trouble me by getting into my shoes, which are loose, and obliging me to empty them occasionally")

Spikenard berries are now mahogany-color. See September 4, 1856 ("Aralia racemosa berries just ripe . . . not edible."); September 4, 1859 ("See a very large mass of spikenard berries fairly ripening, eighteen inches long."); September 6, 1852 ("The “doubly compound racemed panicles” of the spikenard berries, varnish-colored berries, or color of varnished mahogany.")

Trillium berries bright red. See August 19, 1852 ("The trillium berries, six-sided, one inch in diameter, like varnished and stained cherry wood, glossy red, crystalline and ingrained, concealed under its green leaves in shady swamps."); August 22, 1852 ("Perhaps fruits are colored like the trillium berry and the scarlet thorn to attract birds to them.”); September 1, 1851("The fruit of the trilliums is very handsome.. . .a dense crowded cluster of many ovoid berries turning from green to scarlet or bright brick color.")

The fever-bush berries are partly turned red, perhaps prematurely. See September 24, 1859 ("Fever-bush berries are scarlet now, and also green. They have a more spicy taste than any of our berries, carrying us in thought to the spice islands. Taste like lemon-peel.")

Now, say, is hazelnut time. See August 8, 1852 ("The squirrels are now devouring the hazelnuts fast."); August 13, 1854 ("Squirrels have begun to eat hazelnuts, and I see their dry husks on the ground turned reddish-brown.);  August 18, 1852 ("Hazelnuts; methinks it is time to gather them if you would anticipate the squirrels."); August 24, 1858 ("Squirrels have eaten hazelnuts and pitch pine cones for some days. Now and of late we remember hazel bushes, —we become aware of such a fruit-bearing bush. They have their turn, and every clump and hedge seems composed of them."); August 29, 1858 ("I fear it is already too late for me . . . They must have been very busy collecting these nuts and husking them for a fortnight past, climbing to the extremities of the slender twigs. Who witnesses the gathering of the hazelnuts, the hazel harvest? Yet what a busy and important season to the striped squirrel! "); September 3, 1858 ("Notwithstanding the abundance of hazelnuts here, very little account is made of them, and I think it is because pains is not taken to collect them before the squirrels have done so."); September 9, 1859 ("Now for hazelnuts, — where the squirrels have not got them." )

 
I see robins in small flocks. See August 15, 1852 ("Birds fly in flocks"); August 19, 1852 ("The small fruits of most plants are now generally ripe or ripening, and this is coincident with the flying in flocks of such young birds now grown as feed on them."); August 27, 1858 ("Robins fly in flocks."); September 18, 1852 ("The robins of late fly in flocks, and I hear them oftener."); September 19, 1854 ("I see large flocks of robins keeping up their familiar peeping and chirping."); October 1, 1853 ("Robins and bluebirds collect and flit about."); October 20, 1857 ("The barberry bushes are now alive with, I should say, thousands of robins feeding on them. They must make a principal part of their food now. ")

And pigeon woodpeckers with them. See September 19, 1854 ("I see large flocks of robins with a few flickers, the former keeping up their familiar peeping and chirping.")

August 21. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, August 21

Small, wary dipper – 

solitary, dark-colored

diving midst the pads.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Trillium berries bright-red.

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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