The waters, too, are smooth and full of reflections.

April 14 

6 A. M. —To Island. 

An overcast and moist day, but truly April—no sun all day—like such as began methinks on Fast Day, or the 5th. You cannot foretell how it will turn out. 

The river has been steadily rising since the first of April, though you would not think there had been rain enough to cause it. It now covers the meadows pretty respectably. It is perhaps because the warm rain has been melting the frost in the ground. This may be the great cause of the regular spring rise. 

I see half a dozen crow blackbirds uttering their coarse rasping char char, like great rusty springs, on the top of an elm by the riverside; and often at each char they open their great tails. They also attain to a clear I whistle with some effort, but seem to have some difficulty in their throats yet. 

The Populus tremuloides by the Island shed pollen — a very few catkins — yesterday at least; for some anthers are effete and black this morning, though it  is hardly curved down yet an is but an inch and a half long at most. 

White maples are now generally in bloom. 

The musk tortoise stirring on the bottom.

Most of the stellaria has been winter-killed, but I find a few flowers on a protected and still green sprig, probably not blossomed long. 

At 8 A. M. — Took caterpillars’ eggs from the apple trees at the Texas house and found about thirty. 

April 14, 2017

It being completely overcast, having rained a little, the robins, etc., sing at 4.30 as at sundown usually.

The waters, too, are smooth and full of reflections.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, April 14, 1855

An overcast and moist day, but truly April—no sun all day—like such as began methinks on Fast Day. See April 5, 1855 ("Fast-Day. 9 A. M. . . . A still and rather warm morning, with a very thick haze concealing the sun and threatening to turn to rain. ") See also note to April 1, 1855 ("The month comes in true to its reputation . . . a strong, steady, and rather warm rain.")

You cannot foretell how it will turn out.  See April 27, 1857 (" It is a true April morning . . . It will surely rain to-day, but when it will begin in earnest and how long it will last, none can tell.") See also December 28, 1851 ("How admirable it is that we can never foresee the weather, — that that is always novel! Yesterday nobody dreamed of to-day; nobody dreams of tomorrow.Hence the weather is ever the news.What a fine and measureless joy the gods grant us thus, letting us know nothing about the day that is to dawn! This day, yesterday, was as incredible as any other miracle.")

I see half a dozen crow blackbirds uttering their coarse rasping char char. . . They also attain to a clear whistle with some effort, but seem to have some difficulty in their throats yet. See April 14, 1856 (" I see an elm-top at the Battle-Ground covered with blackbirds uttering their squeaks and split whistles, as if they had not got their voices yet, and a coarse, rasping tchuck or char, not in this case from a crow blackbird.") See aslo April 3, 1855 ("The first grackles [rusty grackles, or rusty blackbirds.] I have seen. I detected them first by their more rasping note . . . after a short stuttering, then a fine, clear whistle. "); See April 9, 1855 ("Wilson says that the only note of the rusty grackle is a chuck, though he is told that at Hudson’s Bay, at the breeding-time, they sing with a fine note. Here they utter not only a chuck, but a fine shrill whistle."); March 29, 1853 ("It would be worth the while to attend more to the different notes of the blackbirds.") 

The Populus tremuloides by the Island shed pollen. See April 9, 1853 ("The Populus tremuliformis, just beyond, resound with the hum of honey-bees, flies, etc. These male trees are frequently at a great distance from the females. Do not the bees and flies alone carry the pollen to the latter?").  T April 13, 1854 ("he poplar (tremuloides) by Miles's Swamp has been out - the earliest catkins maybe two or three days."); minal catkins, though it droops like dead cats' tails in the rain. It appears about the same date with the elm.  April 15, 1852 ("The aspen on the railroad is beginning to blossom, showing the purple or mulberry in the ter"); April 17, 1855 ("The early aspen catkins are now some of them two and a half inches long and white, dangling in the breeze") See also  A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,  the Aspen

White maples are now generally in bloom. See  April 8, 1855 ("The crimson female stigmas also peeping forth"); April 10, 1855 ("Early on the morning of the 8th I paddled up the' Assabet looking for the first flowers of the white maple and alder. I held on to the low curving twigs of the maple where the stream ran swiftly, the round clusters of its bursting flower-buds spotting the sky above me, and on a close inspection found a few which (as I have said) must have blossomed the day before. ")  See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, White Maple Buds and Flowers

Most of the stellaria has been winter-killed, but I find a few flowers on a protected and still green sprig, probably not blossomed long.  See February 2, 1853 (''The Stellaria media is full of frost-bitten blossoms, containing stamens, etc., still and half-grown buds. Apparently it never rests"); March 5, 1860 ("Chickweed and shepherd's-purse in bloom in C.'s garden, and probably all winter, or each month."); March 22, 1860 ("Stellaria media and shepherd's-purse bloom;"); See April 2, 1856 ("Some of the earliest plants are now not started because covered with snow, as the stellaria and shepherd’s purse.”); April 16, 1856 ("The Stellaria media is abundantly out. I did not look for it early, it was so snowy."); April 26, 1852 ("Chickweed (Stellaria media), naturalized, shows its humble star-like white flowers now")

The musk tortoise stirring on the bottom. See April 1, 1858 (" I see six Sternothaerus odoratus in the river thus early.. . . I took up and smelt of five of these, and they emitted none of their peculiar scent! It would seem, then, that this may be connected with their breeding, or at least with their period of greatest activity. They are quite sluggish now."); April 1, 1860 ("As we paddle up the Assabet we hear the wood turtles -- the first I have noticed — and painted turtles rustling down the bank into the water. . . Also see the sternothærus on the bottom") A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau,  the Musk Turtle (Sternothaerus odoratus)

Overcast, having rained, the robins sing at 4.30 as at sundown.  See April 1, 1857 ("It is a true April evening, feeling and looking as if it would rain, and already I hear a robin or two singing their evening song."); April 13, 1852 ("Heard the robin singing as usual last night, though it was raining. "); April 16, 1856 ("The robin sings most before 6 o’clock now.”); May 14, 1852 (“The robin sings this louring day. . . . The song of the robin is most suggestive in cloudy weather.”). See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Robins in Spring

The waters, too, are smooth and full of reflections. See April 14, 1852 ("So perfectly calm and beautiful, and yet no man looking at it this morning but myself."); April 15, 1855 ("The reflections of the maples, of Ponkawtasset and the poplar hill, and the whole township in the southwest, are as perfect as I ever saw.")

April 14. See A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, April 14.

Birdsong at sunset.

The waters, too, are smooth and 

full of reflections.

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The waters, too, are smooth and full of reflections.

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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