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