The First Spring Sound.

March 20

It snowed three or four inches of damp snow last afternoon and night, now thickly adhering to the twigs and branches. Probably it will soon melt and help carry off the snow. 

P. M. —To Trillium Wood and to Nut Meadow Brook to tap a maple, see paludina, and get elder and sumach spouts, slumping in the deep snow. 

It is now so softened that I slump at every third step. 

The sap of red maples in low and warm positions now generally flows, but not in high and exposed ones.

Where I saw those furrows in the sand in Nut Meadow Brook the other day, I now explore, and find within a square foot or two half a dozen of Paludina decisa with their feet out, within an inch of the surface, so I have scarcely a doubt that they made them. I suppose that they do not furrow the bottom thus under the ice, but as soon as the spring sun has thawed it, they come to the surface, — perhaps at night only, — where there is some little sand, and furrow it thus by their motions. Maybe it is the love season. 

Perhaps these make part of the food of the crows which visit this brook and whose tracks I now see on the edge, and have all winter. Probably they also pick up some dead frogs. 

March 29, 2016

Considering how solid and thick the river was a week ago, I am surprised to find how cautious I have grown about crossing it in many places now. The river has just begun to open at Hubbard’s Bend. It has been closed there since January 7th, i. e. ten weeks and a half.

For two or three days I have heard the gobbling of turkeys, the first spring sound, after the chickadees and hens, that I think of. 

Set a pail before coming here to catch red maple sap, at Trillium Wood. I am now looking after elder and sumach for spouts.  Got my smooth sumach on the south side of Nawshawtuct. I know of no shrubs hereabout except elders and the sumachs which have a suitable pith and wood for such a purpose.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, March 20, 1856

Where I saw those furrows in the sand in Nut Meadow Brook the other day. I now explore, and find . . . half a dozen of Paludina. See March 18, 1856 (“I see many small furrows, freshly made, in the sand at the bottom of the brook, from half an inch to three quarters wide, which I suspect are made by some small shellfish already moving.”);  March 22, 1860 ("The phenomena of an average March . . .  small shell snails copulate")

Perhaps these make part of the food of the crows which visit this brook and whose tracks I now see on the edge, and have all winter. See March 22, 1854 ("See crows along the water's edge. What do they eat? "); March 22, 1856 ("Crows . . . visit the edge of water—this and brooks —before any ground is exposed. Is it for small shellfish?"); March 4, 1860 ("I saw half a dozen crows on a cake of ice in the middle of the Great Meadows yesterday, evidently looking for some favorite food which is washed on to it, - snails, or cranberries perhaps.") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the American Crow

The river has just begun to open at Hubbard’s Bend. It has been closed there since January 7th, i. e. ten weeks and a half. See March 14, 1856 ("I still travel everywhere on the middle of the river."); March 18, 1856 ("It is still quite tight at Hubbard’s Bath Bend and at Clamshell, though I hesitate a little to cross at these places.");  April 2, 1856. ("I returned down the middle of the river to near the Hubbard Bridge without seeing any opening.")Compare March 19, 1855 ("Launch my boat. Paddle to Fair Haven Pond. "); March 22, 1854 ("Launch boat and paddle to Fair Haven."); See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Ice-Out

For two or three days I have heard the gobbling of turkeys, the first spring sound. See.March 19, 1858 ("I hear turkeys gobble. This too, I suppose, is a spring sound"); 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 gobbling of turkeys.

Set a pail before coming here to catch red maple sap, at Trillium Wood. I am now looking after spouts. See March 15, 1856 ("Put a spout in the red maple of yesterday, and hang a pail beneath to catch the sap"); March 16, 1856 (" Going home, slip on the ice, throwing the pail over my head to save myself, and spill all but a pint."); March 21, 1856 (" It is worth the while to know that there is all this sugar in our woods . . . I left home at ten and got back before twelve with two and three quarters pints of sap, in addition to the one and three quarters I found collected.") See also  A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Signs of the Spring:  Red Maple Sap Flows

For two or three days 

the gobbling of turkeys, 

the first spring sound.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The First Spring Sound

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 ©  2009-2026

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