Skater and partridge in a whir

January 31

A clear, cold, beautiful day. Fine skating. An unprecedented expanse of ice. At 10 A. M., skated up the river to explore further than I had been.

I skated up as far as the boundary between Wayland and Sudbury just above Pelham’s Pond, about twelve miles, between 10 A. M. and one, quite leisurely.  As I passed the mouth of Larned Brook, off Wayland meeting-house, I pulled out my glass and saw that it was 12.30 o’clock. 

I skated about twelve miles and walked three quarters of a mile further. It was, all the way that I skated, a chain of meadows, with the muskrat-houses still rising above the ice. I skated past three bridges above Sherman’s —or nine in all—and walked to the fourth. It was quite an adventure getting over the bridge ways or causeways, for on every shore there was either water or thin ice which would not bear.

As I skate near the shore under Lee’s Cliff, I see  what I take to be some scrags or knotty stubs of a dead limb lying on the bank beneath a white oak, close by me. Yet while I look directly at them I can not but admire their close resemblance to partridges. For some time after noting the resemblance to birds, standing only two rods off, I can not be sure of their character on account of their perfect motionlessness, and it is not till I bring my glass to bear on them and see their eyes distinctly, steadily glaring on me, their necks and every muscle tense with anxiety, that I am convinced. 

They sit and stand, three of them, perfectly still with their heads erect, some darker feathers like ears, methinks, increasing their resemblance to scrags, as where a small limb is broken off. I am much surprised at the remarkable stillness they preserve, instinctively relying on the resemblance to the ground for their protection.  

I had come along with a rapid whir and suddenly halted right against them, only two rods distant, and, as my eyes watered a little from skating against the wind, I was not convinced that they were birds till I had pulled out my glass and deliberately examined them. 

At length, on some signal which I did not perceive, they go with a whir, as if shot, off over the bushes.

Returning, I see a large hawk flapping and sailing low over the meadow. There is some dark color to its wings.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, January 31, 1855

A clear, cold, beautiful day. See January 31, 1854 ("It is a beautiful clear and mild winter day"); See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The world can never be more beautiful than now.

Fine skating. An unprecedented expanse of ice . . .skated up the river to explore further than I had been. See February 3, 1855 ("This will deserve to be called the winter of skating."); February 4, 1855 ("This is the sixth day of some kind of skating." ) See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, by Henry Thoreau, The Winter of Skating

I skated up as far as the boundary between Wayland and Sudbury just above Pelham’s Pond, about twelve miles, between 10 A. M. and one, quite leisurely. See October 15, 1851 ("Up the river in a boat to Pelham's Pond . . .Rowed about twenty-four miles, going and coming. In a straight line it would be fifteen and one half "); September 14, 1854 ("To opposite Pelham’s Pond by boat. . . We went up thirteen or fourteen miles at least."); July 31, 1859 ("This sixteen miles up, added to eleven down, makes about twenty-seven that I have boated on this river, to which may be added five or six miles of the Assabet.")

They sit and stand, three of them, perfectly still . . . instinctively relying on the resemblance to the ground for their protection. See February 11, 1856 (" See a partridge by the riverside. . . which at first I mistake for the top of a fence-post above the snow. . . t is as complete a deception as if it had designedly placed itself on the line of the fence and in the proper place for a post.")

They go with a whir, as if shot, off over the bushes. See April 22, 1852 ("Our dog sends off a partridge with a whir, far across the open field and the river, like a winged bullet."); December 14, 1855 ("They shoot off swift and steady, showing their dark-edged tails, . . . as it whirs off like a cannon-ball shot from a gun."); September 18, 1857 ("We started a pack of grouse, which went off with a whir like cannon-balls."). See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Partridge.

A large hawk flapping and sailing low over the meadow . . . some dark color to its wings. See January 24, 1860 ("See a hawk sail over meadow and woods; not a hen-hawk; possibly a marsh hawk"); January 31, 1860 ("Saw a large hawk, probably hen-hawk.") Compare April 8, 1856 ("The marsh hawks flew in their usual irregular low tacking, wheeling, and circling flight, leisurely flapping and beating, now rising, now falling, in conformity with the contour of the ground.")

I look directly

at them yet am not convinced

they are partridges

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Skater and partridge in a whir

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 © 2009-2025

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