Late November sail

November 30

Sail down river. No ice, but strong cold wind; river slightly over meadows.  

Was that large diver which was on the edge of the shore and scooted away down-stream as usual, throwing the water about for a quarter of a mile, then diving, some time afterward flying up-stream over our head, the goosander or red-breasted merganser? 

It was large, with, I should say, a white breast, long reddish bill, bright-red or pink on sides or beneath, reddish-brown crest, white speculum, upper part of throat dark, lower white with breast.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, November 30, 1854


Was that large diver the goosander or red-breasted merganser? Compare 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, so near that the green reflections of his head and neck are plainly visible. He looks like a paddle-wheel steamer, so oddly painted up, black and white and green, and moves along swift and straight like one. Ere long the same returns with his mate, the red-throated, the male taking the lead. ”); April 7, 1855 (“I plainly see the vermilion bill of the male and his orange legs when he flies (but he appears all white above), and the reddish brown or sorrel of the neck of the female, and, when she lifts herself in the water, as it were preparatory to flight, her white breast and belly. . . .I suspect that about all the conspicuous white ducks I see are goosanders.”) See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Sheldrake (Merganser, Goosander)

Clear bright comfortable weather: Plover

November 28. 

Paddled to Clamshell. Still very clear and bright as well as comfortable weather. River not so high as on the 16th. 

 "In Massachusetts, and to the eastward of that state, 

this species is best known by the name of 'Upland Plover,'” 

  ~ J. J. Audubon 

Were those plover which just after sunset flew low over the bank above the railroad and alighted in the opposite meadow, with some white in tails like larks?

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, November 28, 1854

I would know when in the year
to expect certain thoughts and moods,
as the sportsman knows 
when to look for plover.
September 24, 1859

Were those plover? SeeSeptember 19, 1854 ("An upland plover goes off from Conantum top (though with a white belly), uttering a sharp white, tu white. "); . September 4, 1860 ("On Conantum an upland plover"); September 9, 1858 ("Heard a short plover-like note from a bird flying high across the river."); June 16, 1855 ("From time to time, summer and winter and far inland, I call to mind that peculiar prolonged cry of the upland plover on the bare heaths of Truro in July, heard from sea to sea, though you cannot guess how far the bird may be, as if it were a characteristic sound of the Cape"); July 12, 1855 ("The upland plover begins with a quivering note somewhat like a tree-toad and ends with a long, clear, somewhat plaintive or melodious hawk-like scream. I never heard this very near to me, and when I asked the inhabitants about it they did not know what I meant.* It hovers on quivering wing, and alights by a steep dive."); June 15, 1860 ("I heard the familiar willet note of the upland plover and , looking up, saw one standing erect — like a large tell tale, or chicken with its head stretched up — on the rail fence. After a while it flew off southwest and lo , then wheeled and went a little higher down the river . Of pigeon size, but quick quivering wings. Finally rose higher and flew more or less zigzag, as if uncertain where it would alight, and at last, when almost out of sight  it pitched down into a field near Cyrus Hubbard's . It was the same note I heard so well on Cape Cod in July, '55. . . I suspect, then  that it breeds here.")

Thoreau's  Upland Plover is the Upland Sandpiper (Bartramia longicauda).His Peetweet  is the Spotted Sandpiper  (Actitis macularia). He also observed the Lesser Golden-Plover (Pluvialis dominica ) and Piping Plover (Charadrius melodus) See Thoreau's Birds

The New York Opera

November 22.

Saw Greeley; Snow, the commercial editor of the Tribune; Solon Robinson; Fry, the musical critic, etc.; and others. Greeley carried me to the new opera house, where I heard Grisi and her troupe. 

First, at Barnum’s Museum, I saw the camelopards, said to be one eighteen the other sixteen feet high. I should say the highest stood about fifteen feet high at most (twelve or thirteen ordinarily). The body was only about five feet long. Why has it horns, but for ornament. 

Greeley appeared to know and be known by everybody; was admitted free to the opera, and we were led by a page to various parts of the house at different times.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, November 22, 1854

Saw Greeley: Horace Greeley

Fry, the musical critic: William Henry Fry

Looked from the cupola of the State House

November 21, 2014

November 21 [Philadelphia]

Looked from the cupola of the State House, where the Declaration of Independence was declared. The best view of the city I got.

Was interested in the squirrels, gray and black, in Independence and Washington Squares. Heard that they have, or have had, deer in Logan Square. The squirrels are fed, and live in boxes in the trees in the winter. 

Fine view from Fairmount water-works. 

Church of the Madeline, Paris

The line of the hypothenuse of the gable end of Girard College was apparently deflected in the middle six inches or more, reminding me of the anecdote of the church of the Madeleine in Paris. 

***

In Philadelphia and also New York an ornamental tree with bunches of seed-vessels supplying the place of leaves now. I suppose it the ailanthus, or Tree of Heaven. What were those trees with long, black sickle-shaped pods? 

. . .  In the narrow market-houses in the middle of the streets, was struck by the neat-looking women marketers with full cheeks . . . There was a mosquito about my head at night. Lodged at the United States Hotel, opposite the Girard (formerly United States) Bank. 

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

To Philadelphia

November 20.

7 A. M., to Boston; 9 A. M., Boston to New York, by express train, land route. Reached Canal Street at 5 P. M., or candle-light. Started for Philadelphia from foot of Liberty Street at 6 P. M., via Newark, etc., etc., Bordentown, etc., etc., Camden Ferry, to Philadelphia, all in the dark.  Arrive at 10 P.M.; time, four hours from New York, thirteen from Boston, fifteen from Concord.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, November 20, 1854

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, November 20

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 ©  2009-2022

Sixty geese go over the Great Fields

November 18.

November 17, 1858

Sixty geese go over the Great Fields, in one waving line, broken from time to time by their crowding on each other and vainly endeavoring to form into a harrow, honking all the while.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, November 18, 1854
    
Sixty geese go over the Great Fields. . . endeavoring to form into a harrow . . . See November 13,  1855 ("seventy or eighty geese, in three harrows . . . gradually formed into one great one . . . shifting their places without slacking their progress.”); November 20, 1853 ("Methinks the geese are wont to go south just before a storm, and, in the spring, to go north just after one, say at the end of a long April storm.");  November 24, 1855 (" Geese went over on the 13th and 14th, on the 17th the first snow fell, and the 19th it began to be cold and blustering. ")

November birding

November 8.

I see a snipe-like bird by riverside this windy afternoon, which goes off with a sound like creaking tackle.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, November 8, 1854

See November 8, 1853 ("Birds generally wear the russet dress of nature at this season. They have their fall no less than the plants; the bright tints depart from their foliage or feathers, and they flit past like withered leaves in rustling flocks.")

It is suddenly cold.

November 6

Surveying on Colburn place. 

November 6, 2023

It is suddenly cold. Pools frozen so as to bear, and ground frozen so that it is difficult, if not impossible, to force down a stake in plowed ground. 

Was that a fish hawk I saw flying over the Assabet, or a goshawk? White beneath, with slender wings.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, November 6, 1854

It is suddenly cold. Pools frozen so as to bear. See November 19, 1855 ("A cold, gray day, once spitting snow. Water froze in tubs enough to bear last night."); November 25, 1857 ("Pools under the north sides of hills are frozen pretty thick"); November 28, 1853 ("Boys skating in Cambridgeport, — the first ice to bear. ")

Was that a fish hawk I saw . . . white beneath, with slender wings. See November 17, 1854 ( I think it must have been a fish hawk which I saw hovering over the meadow and my boat (a raw cloudy afternoon).  . . Its wings were very long, slender, and curved in outline of front edge. I think there was some white on rump.) See also A Book of Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Osprey (Fish Hawk) and April 17, 1852 ("What is that large hawk with a pure white belly and slender long black wings (a goshawk?) [Or fish hawk?] which I see sailing over the Cliffs , – a pair of them looking for prey"); April 29, 1853 ("At Natural History Rooms in Boston . . . . The American goshawk is slate above, gray beneath; the young spotted dark and white beneath, and brown above. Fish hawk, white beneath."); April 24, 1854 ("Saw a very large hawk, slaty above and white beneath, low over river. Was it not a goshawk?")

November 6. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, November 6

It is suddenly 

cold – pools frozen so as to 

bear – and ground frozen

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, It is suddenly cold

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

https://tinyurl.com/hdt-541106

I see in flocks and hear sing now by wood-sides.

November 5

November 5, 2023

I think it is the fox-colored sparrow I see in flocks and hear sing now by wood-sides.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, November 5, 1854

I see in flocks and hear sing now by wood-sides. See October 28, 1857 (“On the causeway I see fox-colored sparrows flitting along in the willows and alders, uttering a faint cheep, and tree sparrows with them.”); November 6, 1853 ("It is surprising how little most of us are contented to know about the sparrows which drift about in the air before us just before the first snows .. . how little we attend to what is passing before us constantly, unless our genius directs our attention that way.") See also A Book of the Seasons,by Henry Thoreau, the Fox-colored Sparrow.

November 5. See A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, November 5

I see in flocks and 

hear sing now by wood-sides the 

fox-colored sparrow.

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, I see in flocks and hear sing now by wood-sides

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

https://tinyurl.com/hdt-54nov05

The shad-bush buds have expanded into small leaflets already.

November 4.

November 4, 2014

Saw a shrike in an apple tree, with apparently a worm in its mouth. 

The shad-bush buds have expanded into small leaflets already. 


This while surveying on the old Colburn farm.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, November 4, 1854

Shad-bush buds have expanded into small leaflets ...  See November 1, 1853 (I notice the shad-bush conspicuously leafing out. Those long, narrow, pointed buds, prepared for next spring, have anticipated their time. I noticed some thing similar when surveying the Hunt wood-lot last winter.)

Double shadow, upside down!

November 2

By boat to Clamshell. 

I suspect the clams are partly gone down. May not this movement contribute to compel the muskrats to erect their cabins nearer the brink or channel, in order still to be near their food? Other things being equal, they would have to swim further than before to get the clams in the middle, but now, in addition, the water is beginning to rise and widen the river. 

August 16, 1854

Sailing past the bank above the railroad, just before a clear sundown, close to the shore on the east side I see a second fainter shadow of the boat, sail, myself, and paddle, etc., directly above and upon the first on the bank. 

What makes the second? At length I discovered that it was the reflected sun which cast a higher shadow like the true one. As I moved to the west side, the upper shadow rose, grew larger and less perceptible; and at last when I was so near the west shore that I could not see the reflected sun, it disappeared; but then there appeared one upside down in its place!

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, November 2, 1854

Now, in addition, the water is beginning to rise and widen the river. See November 2, 1851 ("The muskrat-houses are mostly covered by the rise of the river! — not a very unexpected one either.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Musquash

A second fainter shadow of the boat, sail, myself, and paddle. See August 31, 1852 ("I observe, on the willows on the east shore, the shadow of my boat and self and oars, upside down."); October 18, 1853 ("Returning late, we see a double shadow of ourselves and boat, one, the true, quite black, the other directly above it and very faint, on the willows and high bank.") and August 16, 1854 ("At the steam mill sand-bank is the distinct shadow of our shadows, — first on the water, then the double one on the bank bottom to bottom, one being upside down, — three in all, — one on water, two on land or bushes.");  See also Walden, The Pond in Winter ("Sometimes, also, when the ice was covered with shallow puddles, I saw a double shadow of myself, one standing on the head of the other, one on the ice, the other on the trees or hill-side.")

November arrives

November 1. 

It is a little cooler.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, November 1, 1854