The change is mainly in us. (Ice out)

March 31.

I see through the window that it is a very fine day, the first really warm one. I do not know the whole till I come out at 3 P. M. and walk to the Cliffs. 

The slight haze of yesterday has become very thick, with a southwest wind, concealing the mountains. I can see it in the air within two or three rods, as I look against the bushes. 

The fuzzy gnats are in the air, and bluebirds, whose warble is thawed out. I am uncomfortably warm, gradually unbutton both my coats, and wish that I had left the outside one at home. 

I go listening for the croak of the first frog, or peep of a hylodes.

It is suddenly warm, and this amelioration of the weather is incomparably the most important fact in this vicinity. It is incredible what a revolution in our feelings and in the aspect of nature this warmer air alone has produced. 

Yesterday the earth was simple to barrenness, and dead, —bound out. Out-of-doors there was nothing but the wind and the withered grass and the cold though sparkling blue water, and you were driven in upon yourself. 

Now you would think that there was a sudden awakening in the very crust of the earth, as if flowers were expanding and leaves putting forth; but not so.

I listen in vain to hear a frog or a new bird as yet; only the frozen ground is melting a little deeper, and the water is trickling down the hills in some places. 

No, the change is mainly in us. We feel as if we had obtained a new lease of life. 

Some juniper (repens) berries are blue now. 

Looking from the Cliffs I see that Walden is open to-day first.

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

Ice-out on Walden. See March 20, 1853 ("It is glorious to behold the life and joy of this ribbon of water sparkling in the sun. The wind ... raises a myriad brilliant sparkles on the bare face of the pond, an expression of glee, of youth, of spring, as if it spoke the joy of the fishes within it and of the sands on its shore. It is the contrast between life and death. There is the difference between winter and spring. The bared face of the pond sparkles with joy."); March 14, 1860 ("No sooner has the ice of Walden melted than the wind begins to play in dark ripples over the surface of the virgin water. Ice dissolved is the next moment as perfect water as if melted a million years.")

In 1845 Walden was first completely open on the 1st of April;

in '46, the 25th of March; 

in '47, the 8th of April; 

in '51, the 28th of March;

 in '52, the 18th of April; 

in '53, the 23rd of March; 

in '54, about the 7th of April. ~ Walden.

See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Ice-Out

Man comes out of his winter quarters this month

March 30.

Mach 30, 2016

To Island. 

It is a little warmer than of late, though still the shallows are skimmed over. 

The pickerel begin to dart from the shallowest parts not frozen. I hear many phe-be notes from the chickadees, as if they appreciated this slightly warmer and sunny morning. A fine day. 

As I look through the window, I actually see a warmer atmosphere with its fine shimmer against the russet hills and the dry leaves, though the warmth has not got into the house and it is no more bright nor less windy than yesterday, or many days past. I find that the difference to the eye is a slight haze, though it is but very little warmer than yesterday. 

To-day and yesterday have been bright, windy days. —west wind, cool, yet, compared with the previous colder ones, pleasantly, gratefully cool to me on my cheek. 

There is a very perceptible greenness on our south bank now, but I cannot detect the slightest greenness on the south side of Lee’s Hill as I sail by it. It is a perfectly dead russet. 

The river is but about a foot above the lowest summer level. 

I have seen a few F. hyemalis about the house in the morning the last few days. You see a few blackbirds, robins, bluebirds, tree sparrows, larks, etc., but the song sparrow chiefly is heard these days. 

He must have a great deal of life in him to draw upon, who can pick up a subsistence in November and March. Man comes out of his winter quarters this month as lean as a woodchuck. Not till late could the skunk find a place where the ground was thawed on the surface. Except for science, do not travel in such a climate as this in November and March. 

I tried if a fish would take the bait to-day; but in vain; I did not get a nibble. Where are they? I read that a great many bass were taken in the Merrimack last week. Do not the suckers move at the same time?

H, D. Thoreau, Journal, March 30, 1855

I have seen a few F. hyemalis about the house in the morning the last few days. You see a few blackbirds, robins, bluebirds, tree sparrows, larks, etc., but the song sparrow chiefly is heard these days. See  March 30, 1851("Spring is already upon us. . . .  Th,e catkins of the alders have blossomed. The pads are springing at the bottom of the water. The pewee [phoebe] is heard, and the lark. ); March 30, 1854 ("Great flocks of tree sparrows and some F. hyemalis,") See also. March 15, 1854 ("Hear on the alders by the river the lill lill lill lill of the first F. hyemalis, mingled with song sparrows and tree sparrows");  March 23, 1854 ("The birds in yard active now, — hyemalis, tree sparrow, and song sparrow. The hyemalis jingle easily distinguished. Hear all together on apple trees these days."); April 1, 1854 (" The tree sparrows, hyemalis, and song sparrows are particularly lively and musical in the yard this rainy and truly April day. The air rings with them."); April 2, 1852 (“The air is full of the notes of birds, - song sparrows, red-wings, robins (singing a strain), bluebirds, - and I hear also a lark, - as if all the earth had burst forth into song.”)  See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Dark-eyed Junco (Fringilla hyemalis); A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Robins in Spring; A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Tree Sparrow; A Book of Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Song Sparrow (Fringilla melodia); A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Bluebird in Early Spring. A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Red-wing in Spring

Ice-out on Walden

March 29.

Flint’s Pond is entirely open; may have been a day or two. There was only a slight opening about the boat-house on the 21st, and the weather has been very cold ever since. Walden is more than half open, Goose Pond only a little about the shores, and Fair Haven Pond only just open over the channel of the river. 

There is washed up on the shore of Flint’s some pretty little whorls of the radical leaves of the Lobelia Dortmanna, with its white root-fibres. 

As I stand on Heywood’s Peak, looking over Walden, more than half its surface already sparkling blue water, I inhale with pleasure the cold but wholesome air like a draught of cold water, contrasting it in my memory with the wind of summer, which I do not thus eagerly swallow. This, which is a chilling wind to my fellow, is decidedly refreshing to me, and I swallow it with eagerness as a panacea. I feel an impulse, also, already, to jump into the half-melted pond. This cold wind is refreshing to my palate, as the warm air of summer is not, methinks. I love to stand there and be blown on as much as a horse in July. 

A field of ice nearly half as big as the pond has drifted against the eastern shore and crumbled up against it, forming a shining white wall of its fragments.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, March 29, 1855

Walden is more than half open. A field of ice nearly half as big as the pond has drifted against the eastern shore and crumbled up against it, forming a shining white wall of its fragments. See March 29, 1859 ("Walden is first clear after to-day.”) and note to March 29, 1857 ("Walden open, say to-day, though there is still a little ice in the deep southern bay and a very narrow edging along the southern shore.")

A field of ice nearly half as big as the pond . . ., forming a shining white wall of its fragments. See March 29, 1854 ("Thin cakes of ice at a distance now and then blown up on their edges glistening in the sun. ")

The bluebird’s warble comes feeble and frozen to my ear.

March 28.

P. M. —— To Cliffs, along river. 

It is colder than yesterday; wind strong from northwest. The mountains are still covered with snow. They have not once been bare. 

I go looking for meadow mice nests, but the ground is frozen so hard, except in the meadow below the banks, that I cannot come at them. 

That portion of the meadow next the upland, which is now thawed, has already many earth worms in it. I can dig a quantity of them,—I suspect more than in summer. Moles might already get their living there. 

A yellow-spotted tortoise in a still ditch, which has a little ice also. It at first glance reminds me of a bright freckled leaf, skunk-cabbage scape, perhaps. They are generally quite still at this season, or only slowly put their heads out (of their shells). 

I see where a skunk (apparently) has been probing the sod, though it is thawed but a few inches, and all around this spot frozen hard still. I dig up there a frozen and dead white grub, the large potato grub; this I think he was after. The skunk’s nose has made small round holes such as a stick or cane would make. 

The river has not yet quite worn its way through Fair Haven Pond, but probably will to-morrow. 

I run about these cold and blustering days, on the whole perhaps the worst to bear in the year, — partly because they disappoint expectation, — looking almost in vain for some animal or vegetable life stirring. The warmest springs hardly allow me the glimpse of a frog’s heel as he settles himself in the mud, and I think I am lucky if I see one winter-defying hawk or a hardy duck or two at a distance on the water. 

As for the singing of birds, — the few that have come to us, — it is too cold for them to sing and for me to hear. The bluebird’s warble comes feeble and frozen to my ear. 

We still walk on frozen ground, though in the garden I can thrust a spade in about six inches. 

Over a great many acres, the meadows have been cut up into great squares and other figures by the ice of February, as if ready to be removed, sometimes separated by narrow and deep channels like muskrat paths, but oftener the edges have been raised and apparently stretched and, settling, have not fallen into their places exactly but lodged on their neighbors. Even yet you see cakes of ice surmounted by a shell of meadow-crust, which has preserved it, while all around is bare meadow.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, March 28, 1855

 A yellow-spotted tortoise in a still ditch, which has a little ice also. See March 26, 1860 ("The yellow-spotted tortoise may be seen February 23, as in '57, or not till March 28, as in '55, — thirty-three days. "); February 23, 1857 (“See two yellow-spotted tortoises in the ditch south of Trillium Wood.”); March 10, 1853 ("I find a yellow-spotted tortoise (Emys guttata) in the brook.”); March 18, 1854 (" C. has already seen a yellow-spotted tortoise in a ditch.”); March 23, 1858 ("See something stirring amid the dead leaves in the water at the bottom of a ditch, in two or three places, and presently see the back of a yellow-spotted turtle."); March 27, 1853 ("I see but one tortoise (Emys guttata) in Nut Meadow Brook now; the weather is too raw and gusty."); March 28, 1852 (" A yellow-spotted tortoise by the causeway side in the meadow near Hubbard's Bridge. "); March 28, 1857 ("The Emys guttata is found in brooks and ditches. I passed three to-day, lying cunningly quite motionless, with heads and feet drawn in, on the bank of a little grassy ditch, close to a stump, in the sun, on the russet flattened grass, . . .Do I ever see a yellow-spot turtle in the river? "); April 1, 1857 ("Up Assabet. See an Emys guttata sunning on the bank. I had forgotten whether I ever saw it in this river") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Yellow-Spotted Turtle

As for the singing of birds, — the few that have come to us, — it is too cold for them to sing and for me to hear. See March 28, 1853 ("Too cold for the birds to sing much.")

The bluebird’s warble comes feeble and frozen to my ear. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Bluebird in Early Spring.

Snow last evening, about one inch deep

March 27.

6.30 A. M. — To Island. The ducks sleep these nights in the shallowest water which does not freeze, and there may be found early in the morning. I think that they prefer that part of the shore which is permanently covered. 

Snow last evening, about one inch deep, and now it is fair and somewhat warmer. Again I see the tracks of rabbits, squirrels, etc. It would be a good time this forenoon to examine the tracks of wood chucks and see what they are about. 

P. M. — To Hubbard’s Close and down brook. Measure a black oak just sawed down. Twenty three inches in diameter on the ground, and fifty-four rings. It had grown twice as much on the east side as on the west. 

The Fringilla linaria still here. See a wood tortoise in the brook. 

Am surprised to see the cowslip so forward, showing so much green, in E. Hubbard’s Swamp, in the brook, where it is sheltered from the winds. The already expanded leaves rise above the water. If this is a spring growth, it is the most forward herb I have seen, as forward as the celandine. 

See my frog hawk. (C. saw it about a week ago.) It is the hen-barrier, i.e. marsh hawk, male. Slate-colored; beating the bush; black tips to wings and white rump. 

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, March 27, 1855


Am surprised to see the cowslip so forward, showing so much green. See March 24, 1855 (" The earliest signs of spring in vegetation noticed thus far are the maple sap, the willow catkins, grass on south banks, and perhaps cowslip in sheltered places."); March 26, 1857 ("The buds of the cowslip are very yellow, and the plant is not observed a rod off, it lies so low and close to the surface of the water in the meadow. It may bloom and wither there several times before villagers discover or suspect it") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Signs of Spring: the Cowslip

Frog hawk/ hen-harrier/ marsh hawk, See  March 27, 1854 "Saw a hawk - probably marsh hawk by meadow .") See also March 29, 1854 ("See two marsh hawks, white on rump.“); April 23, 1855 (" Have seen also for some weeks occasionally a brown hawk with white rump, flying low, which I have thought the frog hawk in a different stage of plumage; but can it be at this season? and is it not the marsh hawk?”)  See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Marsh Hawk (Northern Harrier)

A strong wind with snow driving from the west and thickening the air.

March 26.

6 A. M.—Still cold and blustering; wind southwest, but clear. 

March 1, 2019

I see a muskrat-house just erected, two feet or more above the water and sharp; and, at the Hubbard Bath, a mink comes teetering along the ice by the side of the river. I am between him and the sun, and he does not notice me. He runs daintily, lifting his feet with a jerk as if his toes were sore. They seem to go a-hunting at night along the edge of the river; perhaps I notice them more at this season, when the shallow water freezes at night and there is no vegetation along the shore to conceal them. 

The lark sings, perched on the top of an apple tree, quite sweet and plaintive, contrasting with the cheerless season and the bleak meadow. 

P. M. — Sail down to the Great Meadows. 

A strong wind with snow driving from the west and thickening the air. The farmers pause to see me scud before it. At last I land and walk further down on the meadow-bank. 

I scare up several flocks of ducks.

There is but little water on the meadow, and that far down and partly frozen, but a great many acres of the meadow-crust have there been lifted and broken up by the ice and now make hundreds of slanting isles amid the shallow water, looking like waves of earth, and amid these the ducks are sailing and feeding.

The nearest are two, apparently middle sized with black heads, white breast and wings and apparently all above but the tail or tips of wings, which are black. A third with them is apparently all dark. I do not know what to call them. Probably sheldrakes.

You are much more sure to see ducks in a stormy afternoon like this than in a bright and pleasant one. 

Returning. I see, near the Island, two ducks which have the marks (one of them) of the wood duck (i. e. one or two longitudinal white stripes down the head and neck), but when they go over I hear distinctly and for a long time the whistling of their wings, fine and sharp. Are they golden-eyes, or whistlers? Probably male and female wood duck.

For several weeks, or since the ice has melted, I notice the paths made by the muskrats when the water was high in the winter, leading from the river up the bank to a bed of grass above or below the surface. When it runs under the surface I frequently slump into it and can trace it to the bed by the hollow sound when I stamp on the frozen ground. They have disfigured the banks very much in some places, only the past winter. Clams have been carried into these galleries a rod or more under the earth. The galleries kept on the surface and terminated perhaps at some stump where the earth was a little raised, where the ice still remained thick over them after the water had gone down. 

I am surprised to find fishworms only four inches beneath the surface in the meadow, close against the frozen portion of the crust. A few may also be found on the bottom of brooks and ditches in the water, where they are probably food for the earliest fishes. 

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, March 26, 1855

At the Hubbard Bath, a mink comes teetering along the ice by the side of the river. See February 4, 1854  ("I go over to the Hemlocks on the Assabet this morning. See the tracks of a mink, in the shallow snow along the edge of the river, looking for a hole in the ice."); March 8, 1853 ("Saw a mink run across the road in Sudbury, a large black weasel, to appearance, worming its supple way over the snow.");  March 13, 1859 ("I commonly saw two or three in a year. ");April 15, 1858 ("Having stood quite still on the edge of the ditch close to the north edge of the maple swamp some time, and heard a slight rustling near me from time to time, I looked round and saw a mink under the bushes within a few feet. It was pure reddish-brown above, with a blackish and somewhat bushy tail, a blunt nose, and somewhat innocent-looking head. It crept along toward me and around me, within two feet, in a semicircle, snuffing the air, and pausing to look at me several times."); April 29, 1860 ("I now actually see one small-looking rusty or brown black mink scramble along the muddy shore and enter a hole in the bank.")

The farmers pause to see me scud before it. See May 19, 1856 (“As I sail up the reach of the Assabet above Dove Rock with a fair wind, a traveller riding along the highway is watching my sail while he hums a tune. . . . As he looked at my sail, I listened to his singing. Perchance they were equally poetic, and we repaid each other. ”)

Still cold and blustering.

March 25.

Still cold and blustering. The ditches where I have seen salamanders last year before this are still frozen up. 

Was it not a sucker I saw dart along the brook beyond Jenny’s? 

I see where the squirrels have fed extensively on the acorns now exposed on the melting of the snow. The ground is strewn with the freshly torn shells and nibbled meat in some places.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, March 25, 1855

Still cold and blustering. See March 24, 1855 ("The last four days, including this, have been very cold and blustering. ");  March 28, 1855 ("I run about these cold and blustering days, on the whole perhaps the worst to bear in the year.");  See also March 25, 1854 ("Too cold and windy almost for ducks. "); March 11, 1860 ("It is cold and blustering walking in the wind, though the thermometer is at 40; i. e., though the temperature is thus high, the strong and blustering northwest winds of March make this notorious March weather, which is worse to bear than severe cold without wind."); April 7, 1858 ("A cold and gusty, blustering day. We put on greatcoats again.")

In the course of ages the rivers wriggle in their beds, till it feels comfortable

March 24.

P. M. — Up Assabet by boat. 

A cold and blustering afternoon after a flurry of snow which has not fairly whitened the ground. 

I see a painted tortoise at the bottom moving slowly over the meadow. They do not yet put their heads out, but merely begin to venture forth into their calmer element. It is almost as stationary, as inert, as the pads as yet. 

Passing up the Assabet, by the Hemlocks, where there has been a slide and some rocks have slid down into the river, I think I see how rocks come to be found in the midst of rivers. 

Rivers are continually changing their channels, -eating into one bank and adding their sediment to the other, - so that frequently where there is a great bend you see a high and steep bank or bill on one side, which the river washes, and a broad meadow on the other. 

As the river eats into the hill, especially in freshets, it undermines the rocks, large and small, and they slide down, alone or with the sand and soil, to the water’s edge. The river continues to eat into the hill, carrying away all the lighter parts of the sand and soil, to add to its meadows or islands somewhere, but leaves the rocks where they rested, and thus in course of time they occupy the middle of the stream and, later still, the middle of the meadow, perchance, though it may be buried under the mud.

But this does not explain how so many rocks lying in streams have been split in the direction of the current. Again, rivers appear to have traveled back and worn into the meadows of their creating, and then they become more meandering than ever. Thus in the course of ages the rivers wriggle in their beds, till it feels comfortable under them. 

Time is cheap and rather insignificant.

It matters not whether it is a river which changes from side to side in a geological period or an eel that wriggles past in an instant. 

The scales of alders which have been broken by the ice and are lying in the water are now visibly loosened, as you look endwise at the catkins, and the catkins are much lengthened and enlarged. The white maple buds, too, show some further expansion methinks.

The last four days, including this, have been very cold and blustering. 

The ice on the ponds, which was rapidly rotting, has somewhat hardened again, so that you make no impression on it as you walk. I crossed Fair Haven Pond yesterday, and could have crossed the channel there again. 

The wind has been for the most part northwesterly, but yesterday was strong southwesterly yet cold. The northwesterly comes from a snow—clad country still, and cannot but be chilling. 

We have had several flurries of snow, when we hoped it would snow in earnest and the weather be warmer for it. 

It is too cold to think of those signs of spring which I find recorded under this date last year. The earliest signs of spring in vegetation noticed thus far are the maple sap, the willow catkins, grass on south banks, and perhaps cowslip in sheltered places. Alder catkins loosened, and also white maple buds loosened. 

I am not sure that the osiers are decidedly brighter yet. 

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, March 24, 1855

The northwesterly comes from a snow—clad country still, and cannot but be chilling. See March 24, 1858 ("A cold north-by-west wind, which must have come over much snow and ice. ")

The earliest signs of spring in vegetation noticed thus far. See note to February 23, 1857 ("I have seen signs of the spring. I have seen a frog swiftly sinking in a pool, or where he dimpled the surface as he leapt in. I have seen the brilliant spotted tortoises stirring at the bottom of ditches. I have seen the clear sap trickling from the red maple.”)

I am not sure that the osiers are decidedly brighter yet. See February 24, 1855 ("You will often fancy that they look brighter before the spring has come, and when there has been no change in them"); March 2, 1860 ("This phenomenon, whether referable to a change in the condition of the twig or to the spring air and light, or even to our imaginations,is not the less a real phenomenon, affecting us annually at this season"); March 14, 1856 ("They certainly look brighter now and from this point than I have noticed them before this year,. . . Yet I think that on a close inspection I should find no change. Nevertheless, it is, on the whole, perhaps the most springlike sight I have seen."); March 16, 1856 ("There is, at any rate, such a phenomenon as the willows shining in the spring sun, however it is to be accounted for."); March 22, 1854 ("C. thinks some willow osiers decidedly more yellow."); March 25, 1854 ("I am almost certain osiers have acquired a fresher color."); See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Osier in Winter and early Spring

March 24. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, March 24

The flight of the flying squirrel

March 23.

Carry my flying squirrel back to the woods in my handkerchief. I place it, about 3.30 P. M., on the very stump I had taken it from. It immediately runs about a rod over the leaves and up a slender maple sapling about ten feet, then after a moment’s pause springs off and skims downward toward a large maple nine feet distant, whose trunk it struck three or four feet from the ground. 

This it rapidly ascends, on the opposite side from me, nearly thirty feet, and there clings to the main stem with its head downward, eyeing me. After two or three minutes’ pause I see that it is preparing for another spring by raising its head and looking off, and away it goes in admirable style, more like a bird than any quadruped I have dreamed of and far surpassing the impression I have received from naturalists’ accounts.

I mark the spot it started from and the place where it struck, and measure the height and distance carefully. 

It sprang off from the maple at the height of twenty-eight and a half feet, and struck the ground at the foot of a tree fifty and a half feet distant, measured horizontally. As the ground rose about two feet, the distance was to the absolute height as fifty and a half to twenty-six and a half, or it advanced about two feet for every one foot of descent.

Its flight was not a regular descent; it varied from a direct line both horizontally and vertically. Indeed it skimmed much like a hawk and part of its flight was nearly horizontal, and it diverged from a right line eight or ten feet to the right, making a curve in that direction. There were six trees from six inches to a foot in diameter, one a hemlock, in a direct line between the two termini, and these it skimmed partly round, and passed through their thinner limbs; did not as I could perceive touch a twig. It skimmed its way like a hawk between and around the trees. 

In order to perform all these flights, —to strike a tree at such a distance, etc., etc., —it is evident it must be able to steer.

H. D.  Thoreau, Journal, March 23, 1855

Carry my flying squirrel back to the woods in my handkerchief. I place it, about 3.30 P. M., on the very stump I had taken it from. See March 22, 1855 ("I observed a rotten and hollow hemlock stump about two feet high and six inches in diameter , and instinctively approached with my right hand ready to cover it . I found a flying squirrel in it , which , as my left hand had covered a small hole at the bottom , ran directly into my right hand ."); see also   June 19, 1859 ("A flying squirrel's nest and young . . . Saw three young run out after the mother and up a slender oak. The young half-grown, very tender-looking and weak-tailed, yet one climbed quite to the top of an oak twenty-five feet high,")

My flying squirrel 

up a slender maple springs 

off and skims downward. 

Overcast and cold – yet quite a concert of birds along the river.

March 22.

6.30 A. M. — To Hill. 

Overcast and cold. Yet there is quite a concert of birds along the river; the song sparrows are very lively and musical, and the blackbirds already sing o-gurgle ee-e-e from time to time on the top of a willow or elm or maple, but oftener a sharp, shrill whistle or a tchuck. 

I also hear a short, regular robin song, though many are flitting about with hurried note. 

The bluebird faintly warbles, with such ventriloquism that I thought him further off. He requires a warmer air.

The jays scream. I hear the downy woodpecker’s rapid tapping and my first distinct spring note (phe-be) of the chickadee. 

The river has skimmed over a rod in breadth along the sides. 

See a heavy-flapping, bittern-like bird flying northeast. It was small for a fish hawk. Can it be the stake-driver ? or a gull? 

A (probably meadow) mouse nest in the low meadow by stone bridge, where it must have been covered with water a month ago; probably made in fall. Low in the grass, a little dome four inches in diameter, with no sign of entrance, it being very low on one side. Made of fine meadow-grass. 


P. M. — Fair Haven Pond via Conantum. 

I have noticed crows in the meadows ever since they were first partially bare, three weeks ago. 

I hear a song sparrow on an alder-top sing ozit ozit oze-e-e | (quick) tchip tchip tchip tchip tchay |  te tchip ter che ter tchay; also the same shortened and very much varied. Hear one sing uninterruptedly, i.e. without a pause, almost a minute. 

I cross Fair Haven Pond, including the river, on the ice, and probably can for three or four days yet.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, March 22, 1855

The blackbirds already sing o-gurgle ee-e-e . . .but oftener a sharp, shrill whistle or a tchuck. See March 18, 1858 ("When the blackbird gets to a conqueree he seems to be dreaming of the sprays that are to be and on which he is to perch.") ; March 19, 1853 ("This morning I hear the blackbird's fine clear whistle and also his sprayey note, as he is swayed back and forth on the twigs of the elm or of the black willow over the river. His first note may be a chuck, but his second is a rich gurgle or warble."); March 19, 1858 ("The red-wing's gurgle-ee is heard when smooth waters begin; they come together."). See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Signs of the Spring The Red-wing Arrives

A short, regular robin song, though many are flitting about with hurried note. See March 12, 1854 ("I hear my first robin peep distinctly at a distance. No singing yet."); March 18, 1858 ("The robin does not come singing, but utters a somewhat anxious or inquisitive peep at first."); March 21, 1853 ("Robins are now quite abundant, flying in flocks.. . . I hear [one] meditating a bar to be sung . . .However, they do not yet get to melody. ")See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Signs of the Spring, the anxious peep of the early robin

The bluebird faintly warbles, with such ventriloquism that I thought him further off. See March 7, 1854 ("Hear the first bluebird, — something like pe-a-wor, — and then other slight warblings, as if farther off. Am surprised to see the bird within seven or eight rods on the top of an oak by the orchard's edge under the hill. But he appears silent, while I hear others faintly warbling and twittering far in the orchard. When he flies I hear no more, and I suspect that he has been ventriloquizing".). See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Signs of the Spring: Listening for the Bluebird

My first distinct spring note (phe-be) of the chickadee. See February 24, 1857 ("A chickadee with its winter lisp flits over, and I think it is time to hear its phebe note, and that instant it pipes it forth."); March 1, 1854 ("I hear the phoebe or spring note of the chickadee, and the scream of the jay is perfectly repeated by the echo from a neighboring wood."); March 1, 1856 ("I hear several times the fine-drawn phe-be note of the chickadee, which I heard only once during the winter. Singular that I should hear this on the first spring day."); March 8, 1853 (" Heard the phebe, or spring note of the chickadee, now, before any spring bird has arrived."); March 10, 1852 (" Hear the phoebe note of the chickadee to-day for the first time. "); March 19, 1858 ("Hear the phebe note of a chickadee."); March 21, 1859 ("It is peculiarly interesting that this, which is one of our winter birds also, should have a note with which to welcome the spring."); March 22, 1860 ("The phenomena of an average March . . . About twenty-nine migratory birds arrive (including hawks and crows), and two or three more utter their spring notes and sounds, as nuthatch and chickadee, turkeys, and woodpecker tapping.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Signs of the Spring: the spring note of the chickadee

Woodpecker’s rapid tapping. See March 22, 1853 ("The tapping of the woodpecker, rat-tat-tat, knocking at the door of some sluggish grub to tell him that the spring has arrived, and his fate, this is one of the season sounds, calling the roll of birds and insects, the reveille. ") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Signs of the Spring, woodpeckers tapping

A (probably meadow) mouse nest . . . made in fall. Low in the grass, a little dome four inches in diameter, with no sign of entrance, it being very low on one side. What Thoreau calls the meadow mouse or "short-tailed meadow mouse" or Arvicola hirsuta is ow known as Microtus pennsylvanicus, meadow vole.  See August 25, 1858 (“The short-tailed meadow mouse, or Arvicola hirsuta.  Generally above,  it is very dark brown, almost blackish, being browner forward. It is also dark beneath. Tail but little more than one inch long . . .Its nose is not sharp.”); January 10, 1853 (" I found thirty-five chestnuts in a little pile under the end of a stick under the leaves, near — within a foot of — what I should call a gallery of a meadow mouse. These galleries were quite common as I raked."); March 15, 1855("Mr. Rice tells me that . . . he heard a squeaking and found that he was digging near the nest of what he called a " field mouse," – by his description probably the meadow mouse. It was made of grass, etc., and, while he stood over it, the mother, not regarding him, came and carried off the young, one by one, in her mouth,"); April 7, 1855 ("mouse-nest of grass, in Stow's meadow east of railroad, on the surface. Just like those seen in the rye-field some weeks ago, but this in lower ground has a distinct gallery running from it, and I think is the nest of the meadow mouse. "), See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Wild Mouse and Thompson , Natural History of Vermont, (Meadow mouse nests are sometimes constructed in their burrows, and are also found at the season of hay harvest, in great numbers, among the vegetation upon the surface of the ground. They are built of coarse straw, lined with fine soft leaves, somewhat in the manner of a bird's nest, with this difference, that they are covered at the top, and the passage into them is from beneath.")

I have noticed crows in the meadows ever since they were first partially bare. See March 22, 1854 ("See crows along the water's edge. What do they eat?").; March 22, 1856 ("Many tracks of crows in snow along the edge of the open water against Merrick’s at Island. They thus visit the edge of water—this and brooks —before any ground is exposed. Is it for small shellfish?”) See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the American Crow

The song sparrows are very lively and musical… I hear a song sparrow on an alder-top sing. See March 21, 1853 ("These song sparrows are now first heard commonly."); March 21, 1855 ("The song sparrows are heard from the willow and alder rows . . . It is the most steady and resolute singer as yet. ")  See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Signs of the Spring: the Song Sparrow Sings

I cross Fair Haven Pond, including the river, on the ice, and probably can for three or four days yet.. . . See March 4, 1855 ("River channel fairly open."); March 19, 1855 ("Launch my boat. Paddle to Fair Haven. . . .I am surprised to find that the river has not yet worn through Fair Haven Pond."); March 24, 1855 (" I crossed Fair Haven Pond yesterday, and could have crossed the channel there again."); March 28, 1855 ("The river has not yet quite worn its way through Fair Haven Pond, but probably will to-morrow."); March 29, 1855 ("Fair Haven Pond only just open over the channel of the river."); March 31, 1855 (" Looking from the Cliffs I see that Fair Haven Pond will open by day after to-morrow."); April 4, 1855 ("I am surprised to find Fair Haven Pond not yet fully open. There is a large mass of ice in the eastern bay, which will hardly melt to morrow.") Compare  March 17, 1854("Fair Haven is open for half a dozen rods about the shores. If this weather holds, it will be entirely open in a day or two."); March 22, 1854 ("Launch boat and paddle to Fair Haven . . . Fair Haven still covered and frozen anew in part."); March 29, 1854 (" Fair Haven half open; channel wholly open."); April 7, 1854 ("Fair Haven is completely open."); April 9, 1854 ("Fair Haven must have opened entirely the 5th or 6th. "); March 26, 1860 ("Fair Haven Pond may be open by the 20th of March, as this year [1860], or not till April 13 as in '56,")

Overcast and cold –

yet quite a concert of birds

along the river.

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Quite a concert of birds.

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-550322

We strap some lumber to a sled and take it out to the fort this is not as easy and I bring the empty sled back and leave it on the trail as we decide to explore the northwest corner of our Land we work our way down the cliff and then further to the north on this flat spot that seems so perfect for walking and find a place where a hemlock has fallen and opens up the view the wind is blowing in the trees but it is a sunny and  sheltered spot and we sit on the pine needles and Jane discovers life of various kinds turning green and starting to grow.

Buda sits and looks over the edge wearing his green jacket the sunshine screens through the hemlock and we both take pictures of him  from our own angles then walk south down the cliff and down the lane with the large trees into the wetland now easy to walk because of the ice to the old yellow birch which is our corner then walk back south and up the little ravine up to the top of the leek ledge clearing and eventually home. 

A cold and blustery day but the snow is perfectly frozen and easy walking.

Cold and blustery

but the snow is frozen

and easy walking.

March 22, 2015

zphx

The most steady and resolute singer.

March 21.

6.30 A. M. — To Swamp Bridge Brook. 

Clear, but a very cold westerly wind this morning. Ground frozen very hard. Yet the song sparrows are heard from the willow and alder rows. 

Hear a lark far off in the meadow. 

P. M. — To Bare Hill by railroad. 

Early willow and aspen catkins are very conspicuous now. The silvery down of the former has in some places crept forth from beneath its scales a third of an inch at least. This increased silveriness was obvious, I think, about the first of March, perhaps earlier. It appears to be a very gradual expansion, which begins in the warm days of winter. It would be well to observe them once a fortnight through the winter. It is the first decided growth I have noticed, and is probably a month old.

The song sparrow is now seen dodging behind the wall, with a quirk of its tail, or flitting along the alders or other bushes by the side of the road, especially in low ground, and its pleasant strain is heard at intervals in spite of the cold and blustering wind. It is the most steady and resolute singer as yet, its strain being heard at intervals throughout the day, more than any as yet peopling the hedgerows. 

There is no opening in Flint’s Pond except a very little around the boat-house. 

The tree sparrow, flitting song-sparrow-like through the alders, utters a sharp metallic tcheep. 

In the hollow behind Britton’s Camp, I see seven mouse-holes — probably Mus leucopus — around an old oak stump, all within a foot of it, and many of their droppings at each hole and where they have gnawed off the grass, and indistinct galleries in the grass, extending three or four feet on every side. 

I see red maple sap oozing out and wetting the young trees where there is no obvious wound.

Cross Goose Pond on ice.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, March 21, 1855

Hear a lark far off in the meadow.  See March 22, 1853 ("Already I hear from the rail road the plaintive strain of a lark or two. They sit now conspicuous on the bare russet ground") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Lark in Early Spring

Early willow and aspen catkins are very conspicuous now. See February 22, 1854 ("My alder catkins in the pitcher have shed their pollen for a day or two, and the willow catkins have pushed out half an inch or more and show red and yellowish.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Signs of the Spring: Alder and Willow Catkins Expanding

The song sparrows are heard from the willow and alder rows . . . It is the most steady and resolute singer as yet.  See March 21, 1853("These song sparrows are now first heard commonly."); March 22, 1855 ("The song sparrows are very lively and musical… I hear a song sparrow on an alder-top sing. . . Hear one sing uninterruptedly, i.e. without a pause, almost a minute. ") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Signs of the Spring: the Song Sparrow Sings

There is no opening in Flint’s Pond except a very little around the boat-house. See March 19, 1854 ("Flint's Pond almost entirely open."); March 21, 1853(" I am surprised to find Flint's Pond not more than half broken up."); March 23, 1853 (" The ice went out ...of Flint's Pond day before yesterday."); March 24, 1854 (" Flint's has perhaps fifteen or twenty acres of ice yet about shores. Can hardly tell when it is open this year."); April 3, 1854 ("I think I may say that Flint's broke up entirely on the first wet day after the cold spell, — i.e. the 31st of March, — though I have not been there lately."), March 29, 1855 ("Flint’s Pond is entirely open; may have been a day or two."); April 1, 1852 (" I am surprised to find Flint's Pond frozen still, which should have been open a week ago. ")

Seven mouse-holes — probably Mus leucopus — around an old oak stump See November 14, 1857 ("A deer mouse (Mus leucopus) . . .our most common wood mouse."); February 20, 1855 ("It is a very pretty and neat little animal for a mouse, with its wholesome reddish - brown sides distinctly bounding on its pure white belly , neat white feet , large slate - colored ears which suggest circumspection and timidity, — ready to earth itself on the least sound of danger , long tail , and numerous whiskers." ); See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Wild Mouse

I see red maple sap oozing out and wetting the young trees where there is no obvious wound. See March 14, 1856 ("Just above Pinxter Swamp, one red maple limb was moistened by sap trickling along the bark. Tapping this, I was surprised to find it flow freely."): March 21, 1856 ("The south side of a tree bleeds first in spring. ") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Signs of the Spring: Red Maple Sap Flows.

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

Early willow and 

aspen catkins are very 

conspicuous now.

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The most steady and resolute singer.

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-550321

We hike up to the lower pond and she wants to veer off onto the neighbor’s land to show me the track of a snow cat or skidder that is been in their woods we end up going around a cliff and up the hill at times the snow turns into post holing I move to the right and she stays left we get separated but the dogs keep in touch with us and we end up meeting along the boundary between Martel and Kendall we are now in that old-growth woods with some very large trees and very large blow downs and we negotiate our way up over to the logging road under the cliff at this point I think I'm halfway but she wants to keep going over the next ridge into the hemlocks where she says it is easier walking and following some of her tracks from yesterday she brings me to an area with three pretty good piles of obviously bear scat. Eventually we find our way down along the moss trail (The snow by the way is soft crust occasionally post hole and for the most part supporting us) we then get over to the west but she does not want to go back up instead we go down towards Clifford Corner and cross lots bushwhack along the ridges to the left of the wetland eventually come out where that very large tree is in the Moose trail and cut across and then down the big slide to the big house wetland up to the boulder by the Birch Trail and down to and over our wetland and out through the Boulder trail a three hour hike home by six, good endorphins.


When separated
the dogs keep in touch with us
post-holing old-growth.

Zphx 20150321

Spring birding wearing gloves.

March 20.

A flurry of snow at 7 A. M. I go to turn my boat up.

Four or five song sparrows are flitting along amid the willows by the waterside. Probably they came yesterday with the bluebirds. From distant trees and bushes I hear a faint tinkling te te te te te' and at last a full strain whose rhythm is whit whit whit, ter tche, tchear tche, deliberately sung, measuredly, while the falling snow is beginning to whiten the ground, —not discouraged by such a reception. 

The bluebird, too, is in the air, and I detect its blue back for a moment upon a picket. 

It is remarkable by what a gradation of days which we call pleasant and warm, beginning in the last of February, we come at last to real summer warmth. At first a sunny, calm, serene winter day is pronounced spring, or reminds us of it; and then the first pleasant spring day perhaps we walk with our greatcoat buttoned up and gloves on.

P. M. — Up Assabet. It soon clears off and proves a fair but windy day.  I notice havoc along the stream on making my first voyages on it.  

At my landing I hear the F. hyemalis, in company with a few tree sparrows. They take refuge from the cold wind, half a dozen in all, behind an arbor-vitae hedge, and there plume themselves with puffed-up feathers.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, March 20, 1855

It is remarkable by what a gradation of days which we call pleasant and warm . . ..  See April 26, 1860 ("What we should have called a warm day in March is a cold one at this date in April.”)