Heat wave.

June 30.

2 P. M. -- Thermometer north side of house, 95°; in river where one foot deep, one rod from shore, 82°.

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

Thermometer north side of house, 95°. See June 30, 1851 (“The day has been so oppressively warm that some workmen have lain by at noon, and the haymakers are mowing now in the early twilight.”);  June 30, 1853 (“Hot weather”); June 21, 1856 (”Very hot day, as was yesterday, -— 98° at 2 P. M., 99° at 3, and 128° in sun”); June 25, 1858 (“Hotter than yesterday and, like it, muggy or close. So hazy can see no mountains. In many spots in the road and by edge of rye-fields the reflected heat is almost suffocating. 93° at 1 P. M. ”);  July 12, 1859 ("Another hot day. 96° at mid-afternoon.");June 29, 1860 ("At 6 P.M. 91°, the hottest yet."). Compare June 30, 1857 (“The coolness continues”); June 30, 1859 ("Cooler, with a northerly wind.”)

Two red-wings' nests

June 28. 

On river. 

Two red-wings’ nests, four eggs and three —one without any black marks. 

Hear and see young golden robins which have left the nest, now peeping with a peculiar tone. 

Shoals of minnows a half-inch long. 

Eel-grass washed up.

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

Young golden robins which have left the nest, now peeping with a peculiar tone.  See June 28, 1857 (". . .the twittering peep of young gold robins, which have recently left their nests, and apparently indicate their locality to their parents by thus incessantly peeping all day long."); July 1, 1859 ("The peculiar peep of young tailless golden robins for a day or more"); July 2, 1860 ("Nowadays hear from my window the constant tittering of young golden robins, ")

Spots of two shades in a ring about large end.

June 26. 

C. has found a wood pewee’s nest on a horizontal limb of a small swamp white oak, ten feet high, with three fresh eggs, cream-colored with spots of two shades in a ring about large end. Have nest and an egg.

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

Spots of two shades in a ring....  Modern field guides say,  "3 [eggs], sometimes 2, rarely 4. Whitish, with brown and lavender blotches often concentrated toward larger end" (Audubon) and "White or creamy with a wreath of brown or purple speckles." (Cornell.)

See the Eastern Wood-Pewee and  note to June 11, 1860 ("See one wood pewee nest on a swamp white oak, not quite done.")

More nests.

June 25.

Under E. Wood’s barn, a phoebe’s nest, with two birds ready to fly; also barn swallow’s nest lined with feathers, hemisphere or cone against side of sleeper; five eggs, delicate, as well as white-bellied swallow’s.

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

A phoebe’s nest, with two birds ready to fly. See June 20, 1856 ("Five young phoebes in a nest . . .just ready to fly.

July 25. See A Book of the Seasons,, by Henry Thoreau, June 25

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 © 2009-2021

A redstart's nest

June 23.  

June 23, 2015

Probably a redstart’s nest on a white oak sapling, twelve feet up, on forks against stem. Have it. See young redstarts about. 

Hear of flying squirrels now grown.


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



Probably a redstart’s nest on a white oak sapling, twelve feet up. See young redstarts about. See June 23, 1858 ("A male redstart seen, and often heard. What a little fellow!")  See also June 6, 1855 ("On the Island I hear still the redstart—tsip tsip tsip tsip, tsit-i-yet, or sometimes tsip tsip tsip tsip, tse vet. A young male"); July 8, 1857 ("To Laurel Glen. . . . Hear apparently redstarts there, — so they must have nests near");  July 13, 1856 ("Saw and heard two or three redstarts at Redstart Woods, where they probably have nests ") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The American Redstart

Hear of flying squirrels now grown. See 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,")

Warmest day yet.

June 22. 

At 6 P. M. the temperature of the air is 77°, of river one rod from shore 72°. Warmest day yet.


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

Peetweets make quite a noise calling to their young with alarm.

June 21.

Saw a white lily in Everett’s Pond. 

Sparrow’s nest, four eggs, deep in the moist bank beyond cherry-bird’s nest (have three), of peculiar color. She deserted the nest after one was taken. Outside of stubble, scantily lined with fibrous roots.

Clams abundant within three feet of shore, and bream-nests. 

The early grass is ripe or browned, and clover is drying. 

Peetweets make quite a noise calling to their young with alarm. 

On an apple at R.W.E.’s a small pewee’s nest, on a horizontal branch, seven feet high, almost wholly of hair, cotton without, not incurved at edge; four eggs, pale cream-color.

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

Peetweets ... calling to their young... See July 2, 1860 ("Nowadays hear from my window the constant tittering of young golden robins, and by the river fields the alarm note of the peetweets, concerned about their young"); July 2, 1853  ("The peetweets are quite noisy about the rocks in Merrick's pasture when I approach; have eggs or young there, which they are anxious about").

Four nests.

June 20, 2014

June 20.

A catbird’s nest eight feet high on a pitch pine in Emerson’s heater piece, partly of paper. 

A summer yellowbird’s, saddled on an apple, of cotton-wool, lined with hair and feathers, three eggs, white with flesh-colored tinge and purplish-brown and black spots. 

Two hair-birds’ nests fifteen feet high on apple trees at R.W.E.’s (one with two eggs). 

A robin’s nest with young, which was lately, in the great wind, blown down and somehow lodged on the lower part of an evergreen by arbor,—without spilling the young!

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

A catbird’s nest eight feet high on a pitch pine . . . See June 16, 1855 (“Catbird’s nest in an alder, three feet from ground, three fresh eggs.”); June 15, 1855 (“In the swamp a catbird’s nest in the darkest and thickest part, in a high blueberry, five feet from ground, two eggs; bird comes within three feet while I am looking. ”); June 12, 1855 (“In a hedge thicket by meadow near Peter’s Path, a catbird’s nest, one egg; as usual in a high blueberry, in the thickest and darkest of the hedge, and very loosely built beneath on joggle-sticks. . . . In a high blueberry bush, on the Poplar Hill-side, four feet from ground, a catbird’s nest with four eggs, forty feet high up the hill. They even follow the blueberry up-hill. ”); June 10, 1855 (“A catbird’s nest of usual construction, one egg, two feet high on a swamp-pink; an old nest of same near by on same. ”); June 9, 1855 (“A catbird’s nest, three eggs, in a high blueberry, four feet from ground, with rather more dry leaves than usual, above Assabet Spring. . . . Catbird’s nest, one egg, on a blueberry bush, three feet from ground, of (as usual) sticks, leaves, bark, roots. Another near same (also in V. Muhlenbergii Swamp) on a bent white birch and andromeda, eighteen inches from ground; three eggs; stubble of weeds mainly instead of twigs, otherwise as usual. ”); June 8, 1855 (“A catbird’s nest on the peninsula of Goose Pond — four eggs — in a blueberry bush, four feet from ground, close to water; as usual of sticks, dry leaves, and bark lined with roots. ”); June 6, 1855 ("Two catbirds’ nests in the thickest part of the thicket on the edge of Wheeler’s meadow near Island. One done laying (I learn after); four eggs, green, —much darker green than the robin’s and more slender in proportion. This is loosely placed in the forks of a broad alternate or silky cornel bush, about five feet from the ground, and is composed of dead twigs and a little stubble, then grape vine bark, and is lined with dark root-fibres. Another, eight rods beyond, rests still more loosely on a Viburnum dentatum and birch; has some dry leaves with the twigs, and one egg,—about six feet high. The bird hops within five feet"); July 19, 1854 (“Apparently a catbird's nest in a shrub oak, lined with root-fibres, with three green- blue eggs.”)  See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau,  Catbird nests

June 20. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, June 20

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 © 2009-2021

A wood pewee's nest at the Leaning Hemlocks.

June 19.

June 19.

P. M. — Up Assabet. 

June 19, 2015

A pewee’s nest (bird apparently small pewee, nest apparently wood pewee’s) on a white maple’s nearly horizontal bough, eighteen feet above water, opposite Hemlocks; externally of lichens from the maple trunk, and hemlock twigs, very inconspicuous, like a lichen covered knot. I hear many wood pewees about here. 

Young song sparrows flutter about. 

A yellowbird’s nest saddled on a horizontal (or slanting down amid twigs) branch of a swamp white oak, within reach, six feet high, of fern down and lint; a sharp cone bottom; four eggs, just laid, pale flesh-color with brown spots; have one. 

There are a great many glaucous and also hoary and yellowish-green puffs on the Andromeda particulata now, some four inches in diameter. 

Wood tortoises united, with heads out of water. 

Did I enumerate the sharp-shinned hawk among ours? 

Mr. Bull found in his garden this morning a snapping turtle about twenty rods from the brook, which had there just made a round hole (apparently with head) 2 1/2 inches in diameter and 5+ deep, in a slanting direction. I brought her home and put her into a pen in the garden that she might lay (she weighed seven pounds five ounces), but she climbed over an upright fence of smooth stakes twenty-two inches high.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, June 19, 1855

A pewee’s nest (bird apparently small pewee, nest apparently wood pewee’s) on a white maple . . . See June 12, 1856 ("Apparently a small pewee nest on apple in Miles’s meadow. Bird on, and not to be frightened off. . ."); June 21, 1855 (" On an apple at R.W.E.’s a small pewee’s nest, on a horizontal branch, seven feet high, almost wholly of hair, cotton without, not incurved at edge; four eggs, pale cream-color.”) See also A Book of the Seasons: The Small Pewee

A yellowbird’s nest saddled on a . . .branch of a swamp white oak, within reach, six feet high, of fern down and lint; . . . four eggs, just laid, pale flesh-color with brown spots . . . See June 20, 1855 ("A summer yellowbird’s, saddled on an apple, of cotton-wool, lined with hair and feathers, three eggs, white with flesh-colored tinge and purplish-brown and black spots."). See also A Book of the Seasons: the Summer Yellowbird

A painted tortoise lays her eggs near the Leaning Hemlocks

June 18. 

At 3 P. M., as I walk up the bank by the Hemlocks, I see a painted tortoise just beginning its hole; then another a dozen rods from the river on the bare barren field near some pitch pines, where the earth was covered with cladonias, cinquefoil, sorrel, etc. 

Its hole is about two thirds done. I stoop down over it, and, to my surprise, after a slight pause it proceeds in its work, directly under and within eighteen inches of my face. 

I retain a constrained position for three quarters of an hour or more for fear of alarming it.  ...

... When it has done, it immediately starts for the river at a pretty rapid rate, pausing from time to time, and I judge that it would reach it in fifteen minutes. It is not easy to detect that the ground had been disturbed there.  In a few minutes all, traces of it will be lost to the eye.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal,  June 18, 1855
A painted tortoise lays her eggs near the Leaning Hemlocks. See  September 10, 1855 ("I can find no trace of the tortoise-eggs of June 18, though there is no trace of their having been disturbed by skunks. They must have been hatched earlier.") See also June 10, 1856  ("A painted tortoise laying her eggs ten feet from the wheel-track on the Marlborough road.”); June 10, 1858 ("See a painted turtle digging her nest in the road at 5.45 P. M.”) ;  June 16, 1855 ("A painted tortoise just burying three flesh-colored eggs in the dry, sandy plain near the thrasher’s nest. It leaves no trace on the surface. Find near by four more about this business. When seen they stop stock still in whatever position, and stir not nor make any noise, just as their shells may happen to be tilted up.”); See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Painted Turtle (Emys picta)

June18. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, June 18

More nests and eggs

American Redstart
Setophaga ruticilla

June 16 

The cherry-bird’s egg was a satin color, or very pale slate, with an internal or what would be called black-and-blue ring about large end. 

P. M. —To Hubbard’s Grove, on river. 

A sparrow’s nest with four gray eggs in bank beyond ivy tree. 

Four catbirds half fledged in the green-briar near bathing-place, hung three feet from ground.

Examined a kingbird’s nest found before (13th) in a black willow over edge of river, four feet from ground. Two eggs. West of oak in Hubbard’s meadow. 

Catbird’s nest in an alder, three feet from ground, three fresh eggs. 

See young and weak striped squirrels nowadays, with slender tails, asleep on horizontal boughs above their holes, or moving feebly about; might catch them. 

Redstarts in the swamp there. 

Also see there a blue yellow-green-backed warbler, with an orange breast and throat, white belly and vent, and forked tail— indigo-blue head, etc.

Ground-nut, how long? 

A painted tortoise just burying three flesh-colored eggs in the dry, sandy plain near the thrasher’s nest. It leaves no trace on the surface. Find near by four more about this business. When seen they stop stock still in whatever position, and stir not nor make any noise, just as their shells may happen to be tilted up.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, June 16, 1855

Catbird’s nest in an alder, three feet from ground, three fresh eggs. See note to June 20, 1855 ("A catbird’s nest eight feet high on a pitch pine")

Examined a kingbird’s nest found before (13th) in a black willow. See June 13, 1855 ("Two kingbirds’ nests with eggs in an apple and in a willow by riverside.").

Redstarts in the swamp there. See May 17, 1856(“At the Kalmia Swamp, see and hear the redstart, very lively and restless, flirting and spreading its reddish tail.”); June 4, 1855 ("Redstarts still very common in the Trillium Woods (yesterday on Assabet also). Note tche, tche, tche vit, etc.”); June 6, 1855 ("On the Island I hear still the redstart—tsip tsip tsip tsip, tsit-i-yet, or sometimes tsip tsip tsip tsip, tse vet. A young male.”);June 23, 1855 ("Probably a redstart’s nest on a white oak sapling, twelve feet up, on forks against stem. Have it. See young redstarts about.”) See also A Book of Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The American Redstart

When seen they stop stock still in whatever position. See June 10, 1856 ("A tedious, naturlangsam pause of the slow-blooded creature, a sacrifice of time such as those animals are up to which slumber half a year and live for centuries"); see also A Book of the Seasons. by Henry Thoreau, the Painted Turtle (Emys picta)

June 16. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, June 16

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 ©  2009-2021

A strange warbler in Moore's Swamp

June 

June 15.
To Moore’s Swamp. 






Robin’s nest in apple tree, twelve feet high — young nearly grown.

Hair-bird’s nest on main limb of an apple tree, horizontal, ten feet high. 

Many pollywogs an inch long.

In the swamp a catbird’s nest in the darkest and thickest part, in a high blueberry, five feet from ground, two eggs; bird comes within three feet while I am looking. 

Viburnum nudum, how long? Not long. 

Wool(?)-grass. 

I see a strange warbler still in this swamp. A chestnut and gray backed bird, five or six inches long, with a black throat and yellow crown; note, chit chit chill le le, or chut chut a wutter chut a wut, che che. 

Crimson frosting on maple leaves. 

The swamp pyrus twigs are in some places curving over and swollen, and curling up at ends, forming bunches of leaves.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, June 15, 1855

Robin’s nest in apple tree, twelve feet high — young nearly grown. See June 15, 1852 ("Young robins, dark-speckled,")

Viburnum nudum, how long? See June 10, 1854 ("The Viburnum lentago is just out of bloom now that the V. nudum is fairly begun.)


Wool-grass. See June 15, 1858 ("That coarse grass in the Island meadow which grows in full circles . . . is wool-grass. . . The peculiarly circular form of the patches, sometimes their projecting edges being the arcs of circles, is very obvious now that the lower and different grass around is under water”)


Hair-bird’s [chipping sparrow’s] nest on main limb of an apple tree, horizontal, ten feet high. See June 20, 1855 (“Two hair-birds’ nests fifteen feet high on apple trees at R.W.E.’s (one with two eggs).”)

Many pollywogs an inch long. See June 15, 1851 ("The pollywogs in the pond are now fulltailed")
A chestnut and gray backed bird, five or six inches long, with a black throat and yellow crown. See note to June 15, 1854 (“Saw there also, probably, a chestnut-sided warbler. A yellow crown, chestnut stripe on sides, white beneath, and two yellowish bars on wings.”)

Strawberries after rain

June 14. 

Up river. 

See young red-wings; like grizzly-black vultures, they are still so bald. See many empty red-wing nests now amid the Camus sericea. 

The bluebird’s nest high in the black willow at Sassafras Shore has five eggs. The gold robin’s nest, which I could pull down within reach, just beyond, has three eggs. I have one. 

I tell C. to look into an old mortise-hole in Wood’s Bridge for a white-bellied swallow’s nest, as we paddle under; but he laughs, incredulous. I insist, and when he climbs up he scares out the bird. Five eggs. “You see the feathers about, do you not?” “Yes,” said he. 

Kalmiana lily, several days. The little galium in meadow, say one day. 

A song sparrow’s nest in ditch bank under Clamshell, of coarse grass lined with fine, and five eggs nearly hatched and a peculiar dark end to them. Have one or more and the nest. The bird evidently deserted the nest when two eggs had been taken. Could not see her return to it, nor find her on it again after we had flushed her. 

A kingbird’s nest with four eggs on a large horizontal stem or trunk of a black willow, four feet high, over the edge of the river, amid small shoots from the willow; outside of mikania, roots, and knotty sedge, well lined with root fibres and wiry weeds. 

Viburnum dentatum, apparently not long, say two days, and carrion-flower the same. 

Looked at the peetweet’s nest which C. found yesterday. It was very difficult to find again in the broad open meadow; no nest but a mere hollow in the dead cranberry leaves, the grass and stubble ruins, under a little alder. The old bird went off at last from under us; low in the grass at first and with wings up, making a worried sound which attracted other birds. I frequently noticed others afterward flying low over the meadow and alighting and uttering this same note of alarm. 

There were only four eggs in this nest yesterday, and to-day, to C.’s surprise, there are the two eggs which he left and a young peetweet beside; a gray pinch of down with a black centre to its back, but already so old and precocious that it runs with its long legs swiftly off from squatting beside the two eggs, and hides in the grass. We have some trouble to catch it. 

How came it here with these eggs, which will not be hatched for some days? C. saw nothing of it yesterday. These eggs were not addled (I had opened one, C. another). Did this bird come from another nest, or did it belong to an earlier brood? Eggs white, with black spots here and there all over, dim at great end. (J. Farmer says that young peetweets run at once like partridges and quails, and that they are the only birds he knows that do.)

A cherry-bird’s nest and two eggs in an apple tree fourteen feet from ground. One egg, round black spots and a few oblong, about equally but thinly dispersed over the whole, and a dim, internal, purplish tinge about the large end. It is difficult to see anything of the bird, for she steals away early, and you may neither see nor hear anything of her while examining the nest, and so think it deserted. Approach very warily and look out for them a dozen or more rods off. 

It suddenly begins to rain with great violence, and we in haste draw up our boat on the Clamshell shore, upset it, and get under, sitting on the paddles, and so are quite dry while our friends thought we were being wet to our skins. But we have as good a roof as they. It is very pleasant to lie there half an hour close to the edge of the water and see and hear the great drops patter on the river, each making a great bubble; the rain seemed much heavier for it. 

The swallows at once and numerously begin to fly low over the water in the rain, as they had not before, and the toads’ spray rings in it. After it begins to hold up, the wind veers a little to the east and apparently blows back the rear of the cloud, and blows a second rain somewhat in upon us. 

As soon as the rain is over I crawl out, straighten my legs, and stumble at once upon a little patch of strawberries within a rod, -- the sward red with them. These we pluck while the last drops are thinly falling. 

Silene antirrhina out on Clamshell, how long? 

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

It suddenly begins to rain with great violence, and we in haste draw up our boat on the Clamshell shore, upset it, and get under. See July 22, 1858 (“C. and I took refuge from a shower under our boat at Clamshell; staid an hour at least.”)

A little patch of strawberries. See June 14, 1859 ("Early strawberries begin to be common. The lower leaves of the plant are red, concealing the fruit. "); June 10, 1856 ("Ripe strawberries . . . hard at first to detect amid the red radical leaves.”); June 15, 1853 ("Strawberries in the meadow now ready for the picker. They lie deep at the roots of the grass in the shade. You spread aside the tall grass, and deep down in little cavities by the roots of the grass you find this rich fruit.”)



Silene antirrhina: sleepy campion.

More nests

June 13, 2013

June 13.

C. finds a pigeon woodpecker’s nest in an apple tree, five of those pearly eggs, about six feet from the ground; could squeeze your hand in. 

Also a peetweet’s, with four eggs, in Hubbard’s meadow beyond the old swamp oak site; and two kingbirds’ nests with eggs in an apple and in a willow by riverside.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, June 13, 1855

A pigeon woodpecker’s nest in an apple tree, five of those pearly eggs . . . See June 13, 1858 ("In the great apple tree front of the Miles house I hear young pigeon woodpeckers.");  June 10, 1856 ("In a hollow apple tree, hole eighteen inches deep, young pigeon woodpeckers, large and well feathered. . . .”); July 22, 1855 (“The pigeon woodpeckers have flown. Dog day weather begins.”). See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Pigeon Woodpecker (flicker).


Two kingbirds’ nests with eggs in an apple and in a willow by riverside. See June 14, 1855 ("A kingbird’s nest with four eggs on a large horizontal stem or trunk of a black willow, four feet high, over the edge of the river, amid small shoots from the willow; outside of mikania, roots, and knotty sedge, well lined with root fibres and wiry weeds"); June 16, 1855 ("Examined a kingbird’s nest found before (13th) in a black willow over edge of river, four feet from ground. Two eggs."); see also note to June 8, 1858 ("A kingbird's nest with three eggs, lined with some hair, in a fork — or against upright part — of a willow. ") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Eastern Kingbird

Eight more birds' nests and a ventriloquist toad.

June 12.

Down river to swamp east of Poplar Hill. 

I hear the toad, which I have called “spray frog” falsely, still. He sits close to the edge of the water and is hard to find—hard to tell the direction, though you may be within three feet. I detect him chiefly by the motion of the great swelling bubble in his throat. A peculiarly rich, sprayey dreamer, now at 2 P. M.! How serenely it ripples over the water! What a luxury life is to him! I have to use a little geometry to detect him. Am surprised at my discovery at last, while C. sits by incredulous. Had turned our prow to shore to search. This rich, sprayey note possesses all the shore. It diffuses itself far and wide over the water and enters into every crevice of the noon, and you cannot tell whence it proceeds. 

Young red-wings now begin to fly feebly amid the button-bushes, and the old ones chatter their anxiety. At mouth of Mill Brook, a red-wing’s nest tied on to that thick, high grass and some low willow, eighteen inches from ground, with four eggs variously marked, full of young. 

In a hedge thicket by meadow near Peter’s Path, a catbird’s nest, one egg; as usual in a high blueberry, in the thickest and darkest of the hedge, and very loosely built beneath on joggle-sticks. 

In the thick swamp behind the hill I look at the vireo’s nest which C. found on the 10th, within reach on a red maple forked twig, eight feet from ground. He took one cowbird’s egg from it, and I now take the other, which he left. There is no vireo’s egg, and it is said they always desert their nest when there are two cowbird’s eggs laid in it. I saw a red-eye lurking near. Have the nest. 

Near by, in a part of the swamp which had been cleared and then burnt apparently by accident, we find the nest of a veery on a tussock eight inches high, which like those around has been burnt all off close and black. The nest is directly in the top, the outside burnt. It contains three eggs, which have been scorched, discolored, and cooked, — one cracked by the heat, though fresh. Some of the sedge has since sprung up green, eight inches high, around here and there. All the lower part of the nest is left, an inch thick with dead leaves, —maple, etc., —and well lined with moss stems (?). It is a dry swamp. 

In a high blueberry bush, on the Poplar Hill-side, four feet from ground, a catbird’s nest with four eggs, forty feet high up the hill. They even follow the blue berry up-hill. 

A field sparrow’s nest with three young, on a Vaccinium vacillans, rose, and grass, six inches from ground, made of grass and hair. 

A Carya tomentosa hickory on the hill well out, and froth on the nuts, almost all out and black; perhaps three or four days. 

A hawthorn grows near by, just out of bloom, twelve feet high — Crataegus Oxyacantha. 

A veronica at Peet weet Rock; forget which kind. 

A crow blackbird’s nest high in an elm by riverside just below the Island. C. climbed to it and got it. I have it. There were eggs. Bottom of mud and coarse grass and sedge, lined with finer grass and dry weed stems. 

Another in an elm rear of Loring’s, in a recess where a limb was once broken off, open on one side, eighteen feet high. Young with heads out almost ready to fly. 

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, June 12, 1855

This rich, sprayed note . . . diffuses itself far . . . and you cannot tell whence it proceeds. See April 5, 1860. ("a very faint distant ring of toads, which, though I walk and walk all the afternoon, I never come nearer to.”); compare May 3, 1857 ("A clear, ringing note with a bubbling trill. It takes complete possession of you, for you vibrate to it, and can hear nothing else."

That fine, dry, wiry wild grass in hollows in woods and sprout-lands,

June 11. What if we feel a yearning to which no breast answers? I walk alone. My heart is full. Feelings impede the current of my thoughts. I knock on the earth but no friend appears, and perhaps none is dreaming of me. 

Now (September 16, ’55), after four or five months of invalidity and worthlessness, I begin to feel some stirrings of life in me. 

Is not that carex, Pennsylvanica-like, with a long spike (one inch long by one half-inch wide), C. bullata? 

What a difference between one red-wing blackbird’s egg and another’s! C. finds one long as a robin’s, but narrow, with large black spots on larger end and on side, on or between the bushes by riverside; another much shorter, with a large black spot on the side. Both pale-blue ground. 

The early willows at the bridge are apparently either S. discolor or eriocephala, or both. 

I have noticed the green oak-balls some days. 

Now observe the dark evergreen of June. 

The target leaf is eaten above. 

In order to get the deserted tanager’s nest at the top [of] a pitch pine which was too weak to climb, we carried a rope in our pockets and took three rails a quarter of a mile into the woods, and there rigged a derrick, by which I climbed to a level with the nest, and I could see if there were eggs in it. I have the nest. Tied the three tops together and spread the bottoms. 

Carex cephalophora (?) on Heywood’s Peak. 

That fine, dry, wiry wild grass in hollows in woods and sprout-lands, never mown, is apparently the C. Pennsylvanica, or early sedge. 

There are young bluebirds.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, June 11, 1855

No friend appears, and perhaps none is dreaming of me. See March 28, 1856 ("Farewell, my friends, my path inclines to this side the mountain, yours to that."): February 8, 1857 ("I know that in love there is no mistake, and that every estrangement is well founded."); November 3, 1858 ("How long we will follow an illusion! On meeting that one whom I call my friend, I find that I had imagined something that was not there.")

What a difference between one red-wing blackbird’s egg and another’s! See May 20, 1853 ("Probably a red-wing blackbird's nest, of grass, hung between two button-bushes; whitish eggs with irregular black marks"); May 25, 1855 ("Red-wing’s nest with four eggs — white, very faintly tinged with (perhaps) green and curiously and neatly marked with brown-black spots and lines on the large end.”); June 1, 1857 ("A red-wing's nest, four eggs, low in a tuft of sedge in an open meadow. What Champollion can translate the hieroglyphics on these eggs? It is always writing of the same character, though much diversified. While the bird picks up the material and lays the egg, who determines the style of the marking?"); June 12, 1855 ("At mouth of Mill Brook, a red-wing’s nest tied on to that thick, high grass and some low willow, eighteen inches from ground, with four eggs variously marked, full of young.”) ; June 28, 1855 ('Two red-wings’ nests, four eggs and three —one without any black marks.")

The tanager’s nest at the top of a pitch pine. See June 8, 1855 ("A tanager’s nest in the topmost forks of a pitch pine about fifteen feet high, by Thrush Alley; the nest very slight, apparently of pine needles, twigs, etc.; can see through it; bird on.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Scarlet Tanager

That fine, dry, wiry wild grass in hollows in woods and sprout-lands, never mown, is apparently the C. Pennsylvanica, or early sedge. See July 10, 1860 ("I was exhilarated by the mass of cheerful bright-yellowish light reflected from the sedge (Carex Pennsylvanica) growing densely on the hillsides laid bare within a year or two there. It is of a distinct cheerful yellow color even this overcast day, even as if they were reflecting a bright sunlight, though no sun is visible")

Young bluebirds. See  June 13, 1852 ("I hear the feeble plaintive note of young bluebirds, just trying their wings or getting used to them");  June 13, 1858 ("I hear the peculiar notes of young bluebirds that have flown. ");  See also  A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Young Birds

The young owls are gone.

June 10.

P. M. -- To owl’s nest.

A remarkably strong wind from the southwest all day, racking the trees very much and filling the air with dust. I do not remember such violent and incessant gusts at this season.

Many eggs, if not young, must have been shaken out of birds’ nests, for I hear of some fallen. 

It is almost impossible to hear birds— or to keep your hat on. The waves are like those of March. 

That common grass (June-grass), which was in blossom a fortnight since, and still on our bank, began a week ago to turn white here and there, killed by worms. 

Veronica scutellata, apparently a day or two. Iris versicolor, also a day or two. A red maple leaf with those crimson spots. Clintonia, apparently four or five days (not out at Hubbard’s Close the 4th). 

A catbird’s nest of usual construction, one egg, two feet high on a swamp-pink; an old nest of same near by on same. 

Some Viola cucullata are now nine inches high, and leaves nearly two inches wide. Archangelica staminiferous umbellets, say yesterday, but some, apparently only pistilliferous ones, look some days at least older; seed-vessel pretty large. 

Oven bird or
Golden crowned thrush

Oven-bird’s nest with four eggs two thirds hatched, under dry leaves, composed of pine-needles and dry leaves and a hair or two for lining, about six feet south west of a white oak which is six rods southwest of the hawk pine. 

The young owls are gone. 

The Kalmia glauca is done before the lambkill is begun here; apparently was done some days ago. A very few rhodoras linger. 

Nest of the Muscicapa Cooperi, or pe pe, on a white spruce in the Holden Swamp, about fifteen feet high, on a small branch near the top, of a few twigs and pine-needles, and an abundance of usnea mainly composing and lining and overflowing from it, very open beneath and carelessly built, with a small concavity; with three eggs pretty fresh, but apparently all told, cream-color before blowing, with a circle of brown spots about larger end. 

The female looked darker beneath than a kingbird and uttered that clear plaintive till tilt, like a robin somewhat, sitting on a spruce. 

C. finds an egg to-day, somewhat like a song sparrow’s, but a little longer and slenderer, or with less difference between the ends in form, and more finely and regularly spotted all over with pale brown. -It was in a pensile nest of grape-vine bark, on the low branch of a maple. Probably a cowbird’s; fresh-laid. 

He has found in nests of grass in thick bushes near river what he thought red-wing’s eggs, but they are pale-blue with large black blotches — one with a very I large black spot on one side. Can they be bobolinks? or what?  Probably red-wings.

My partridge still sits on seven eggs. 

The black spruce which I plucked on the 2d expanded a loose, rather light brown cone on the 5th, say. Can that be the pistillate flower? The white spruce cones are now a rich dark purple, more than a half inch long. 

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, June 10, 1855

Nest of the Muscicapa Cooperi, or pe pe, on a white spruce in the Holden Swamp .See May 15, 1855 ("I hear from the top of a pitch pine in the swamp that loud, clear, familiar whistle . . . I saw it dart out once, catch an insect, and return to its perch muscicapa-like..”).June 5, 1856 ("The Muscicapa Cooperi sings pe pe pe’, sitting on the top of a pine.”); June 8, 1856 ("At Cedar Swamp, saw the pe-pe catching flies like a wood pewee, darting from its perch on a dead cedar twig from time to time and returning to it.“); . June 20, 1858 ("I wade about Holden Swamp, looking for birds’ nests. The spruce there are too thin-foliaged for nests, though I hear a pepe expressing anxiety") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Olive-sided flycatcher or pe-pe

Oven-bird’s nest with four eggs. . . See Early June, 1850;  (". Who taught the oven-bird to conceal her nest ? It is on the ground, yet out of sight.Only the escape of the bird betrays it.")June 1, 1853 ("Eggs in oven- bird's nest.”); June 18, 1854 (Observe in two places golden-crowned thrushes, near whose nests I must have been, hopping on the lower branches and in the underwood, — a somewhat sparrow-like bird, with its golden-brown crest and white circle about eye, carrying the tail somewhat like a wren, and inclined to run along the branches.”); July 3, 1853 ("The oven-bird's nest in Laurel Glen is near the edge of an open pine wood, under a fallen pine twig and a heap of dry oak leaves. Within these, on the ground, is the nest, with a dome-like top and an arched entrance of the whole height and width on one side. Lined within with dry pine-needles.”) See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Oven-bird


My partridge still sits on seven eggs. See May 26, 1855 ("The partridge which on the 12th had left three cold eggs covered up with oak leaves is now sitting on eight.") See also  A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Partridge

June 10. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, June 10

A strong wind all day

impossible to hear birds

or keep your hat on.

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