May 29
P. M. —To Island Neck.
That willow by the rock south of Island (of May 2d) appears to be without doubt the Salix sericea, — the leaves beginning to turn black quite soon, and the bark is very bitter.
There is, then, another small willow or sallow with narrower and shining leaves, very common along river, with longer catkins and very long tapering smooth pods, —I mean the one I have associated with the S. alba.
Azalea nudiflora in garden.
There are a great many birds now on the Island Neck.
- The red-eye, its clear loud song in bars continuously repeated and varied; all tempered white beneath and dark yellow olive above and on edge of wings, with a dark line on side-head or from root of bill; dusky claws, and a very long bill. The long bill and the dark line on the side of the head, with the white above and beneath, or in the midst of the white, giving it a certain oblong, swelled-cheek look, would distinguish on a side view.
- There is also the warbling vireo, with its smooth-flowing, continuous, one-barred, shorter strain, with methinks a dusky side-head.
- Also the yellow-throated vireo—its head and shoulders as well as throat yellow (apparently olive-yellow above), and its strain but little varied and short, not continuous. It has dusky legs and two very distinct white bars on wings (the male).
- I see the first swamp sparrow of the season, and probably heard its loud song; clear, broad, undivided chestnut or bay (?) crown and clear dark-ash throat and breast, and light, perhaps yellowish, line over eye, dark bill, and much bay (?) on wings. Low, amid the alders.
But what is that bird I hear much like the first part of the yellowbird’s strain, only two thirds as long and varied at end, and not so loud, — a-che che che, che-a, or tche tche tche, tche-a, or ah tche tche tche, chit-i-vet?
It is very small, not timid, but incessantly changing its position on the pitch pines, etc. Some a pure dull white, some tawny-white, beneath; some cinereous, others more dusky still, above; with a flycatcher or muscicapa bill and head (head rounded ?), but — what is most remarkable —a very deeply forked or divided tail with a broad black tip beneath, and toward the roots a fire—brick-color, this last color much brighter on the sides of the breast, and some of it on the wings in a broad bar, though some perhaps have not the last mark.
Did I see some of the yellowish on rump? Dark ash above and some reddish-brown (?). One is very inquisitive; hops down toward me lower and lower on the pitch pine twigs, while I hold out my hand till within five feet, but in such a light that I cannot distinguish its colors.
There are at least half a dozen of them about; continually flitting about, sometimes in a circle of a few rods’ diameter, one pursuing another, both male and female, back to near the same spot, but I can hardly bring my glass to bear on them before they change their position.
It is undoubtedly young males and the females of the redstart, described by Wilson, — very different from the full-plumaged black males.
American Redstart
(the full-plumaged black male )
The young males of this species do not possess the brilliancy and richness of plumage which the old birds display, until the second year, the first being spent in the garb worn by the females . . . Notwithstanding their want of full plumage, they breed and sing the first spring like the old males . . . Female with the upper parts yellowish-brown; the head grey; the quills greyish-brown; the tail darker; the parts yellow which in the male are bright orange; the rest of the lower parts white, tinged with yellow. ~ J.J. Audubon
I see on the first limb of a white oak, close to the trunk and about eight feet from the ground, squatting as if asleep, a chipping squirrel two thirds grown. The hole it came out of, apparently, is four or five feet from the base of the tree. When I am about to put my hand on it, it runs feebly up the tree and rests again as much higher in a similar place. When C. climbs after, it runs out quite to the end of a limb, where it can hardly hold on, and I think it will drop every moment with the shaking of the tree.
H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 29, 1855
That willow by the rock south of Island (of May 2d) appears to be without doubt the Salix sericea. See May 2, 1855 ('That small native willow now in flower, or say yesterday, just before leaf.") See also May 11, 1856 ("The Salix sericea at Island rock is out . . . I think I can pretty well distinguish the sericea by the grayness of the female catkins.")
We cross the river
Melvin and I and his dog
to the azalea.
I see the first swamp sparrow of the season . . .clear, broad, undivided chestnut or bay (?) crown and clear dark-ash throat and breast. See April 11, 1853 ("At Natural History Rooms . . .The swamp sparrow is ferruginous-brown (spotted with black) and ash above about neck; brownish-white beneath; undivided chestnut crown.")
But what is that bird I hear? It is undoubtedly young males and the females of the redstart. See
May 28, 1855 ("I have seen within three or four days two or three new warblers which I have not identified; one to-day, in the woods, all pure white beneath, with a full breast, and greenish-olive-yellow (?) above, with a duskier head and a slight crest muscicapa-like, on pines, etc., high; very small.(Perhaps young and female redstarts."); April 11, 1853 ("Female dark ashy and fainter marks") See also A Book of Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The American Redstart
A chipping squirrel two thirds grown . . . When I am about to put my hand on it, it runs feebly up the tree. See June 16, 1855 (" See young and weak striped squirrels nowadays, with slender tails, asleep on horizontal boughs above their holes, or moving feebly about; might catch them."); See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Striped Squirrel