7 A. M. — To Willow [Lily] Bay.
The meadow has frozen over, skimmed over in the night. The ducks must have had a cold night of it.
I thought I heard white-bellied swallows over the house before I arose.
The hedges resound with the song of the song sparrow. He sits high on a spray singing, While I stand near, but suddenly, becoming alarmed, drops down and skulks behind the bushes close to the ground, gradually removing far to one side.
What a sly, skulking fellow! I have a glimpse of him skulking behind a stone or a bush next to the ground, or perhaps he drops into a ditch just before me, and when I run forward he is not to be seen in it, having flitted down it four or five rods to where it intersected with another, and then up that, all beneath the level of the surface, till he is in the rear of me.
Just beyond Wood’s Bridge, I hear the pewee. With What confidence after the lapse of many months, I come out to this waterside, some warm and pleasant spring morning, and, listening, hear, from farther or nearer, through the still concave of the air, the note of the first pewee! If there is one within half a mile, it will be here, and I shall be sure to hear its simple notes from those trees, borne over the water.
It is remarkable how large a mansion of the air you can explore with your ears in the still morning by the waterside.
I can dig in the garden now, where the snow is gone, and even under six inches of snow and ice I make out to get through the frost with a spade. The frost will all be out about as soon as last year, for the melting of the snow has been taking it out. It is remarkable how rapidly the ground dries, for where the frost is out the water does not stand, but is soaked up.
There has been no skating the last winter, the snow having covered the ice immediately after it formed and not melting, and the river not rising till April, when it was too warm to freeze thick enough.
As we sat yesterday under the warm, dry hillside, amid the F. hyemalis by Tarbell’s, I noticed the first bluish haze—a small patch of it—over the true Nut Meadow, seen against the further blue pine forest over the near low yellow one. This was of course the subtle vapor which the warmth of the day raised from Nut Meadow. This, while a large part of the landscape was covered with snow, an affecting announcement of the approach of summer.
The one wood seemed but an underwood on the edge of the other, yet all Nut Meadow’s varied surface intervened, with its brook and its cranberries, its sweet gale, alder, and willow, and this was its blue feather!
P. M. — To Hubbard’s second grove, by river.
At Ivy Tree, hear the fine tseep of a sparrow, and detect the fox-colored sparrow on the lower twigs of the willows and from time to time scratching the ground beneath. It is quite tame,—a single one with its ashy head and mottled breast.
It is a still and warm, overcast afternoon, and I am come to look for ducks on the smooth reflecting water which has suddenly surrounded the village, — water half covered with ice or icy snow.
April 6, 2019
On the 2d it was a winter landscape, —a narrow river covered thick with ice for the most part, and only snow on the meadows. In three or four days the scene is changed to these vernal lakes, and the ground more than half bare. The reflecting water alternating with unreflecting ice.
Apparently song sparrows may have the dark splash on each side of the throat but be more or less brown on the breast and head. Some are quite light, some quite dark. Here is one of the light—breasted on the top of an apple tree, sings unweariedly at regular intervals something like ichulp I chili chili, chili chili, (faster and faster) chili chili, chili chili I iuller ichay ier splay-ee. The last, or third, bar I am not sure about. It flew too soon for me. I only remember that the last part was sprinkled on the air like drops from a rill, as if its strain were moulded by the spray it sat upon.
Now see considerable flocks of robins hopping and running in the meadows; crows next the water-edge, on small isles in the meadow.
As I am going along the Corner Road by the meadow mouse brook, hear and see, a quarter of a mile north west, on those conspicuous white oaks near the river in Hubbard’s second grove, the crows buffeting some intruder. The crows had betrayed to me some large bird of the hawk kind which they were buffeting. I suspected it before I looked carefully. I saw several crows on the oaks, and also what looked to my naked eye like a cluster of the palest and most withered oak leaves with a black base about as big as a crow.
Looking with my glass, I saw that it was a great bird.
The crows sat about a rod off, higher up, while another crow was occasionally diving at him, and all were cawing. The great bird was just starting.
It was chiefly a dirty white with great broad wings with black tips and black on other parts, giving it the appearance of dirty white, barred with black.
I am not sure whether it was a white-headed eagle or a fish hawk. There appeared much more white than belongs to either, and more blackthan the fish hawk has.
It rose and wheeled, flapping several times, till it got under way; then, with its rear to me, presenting the least surface, it moved off steadily in its orbit over the woods northwest, with the slightest possible undulation of its wings, — a noble planetary motion, like Saturn with its ring seen edgewise.
It is so rare that we see a large body self sustained in the air. While crows sat still and silent and confessed their lord.
Through my glass I saw the outlines of this sphere against the sky, trembling with life and power as it skimmed the topmost twigs of the wood toward some more solitary oak amid the meadows.
To my naked eye it showed only so much black as a crow in its talons might. Was it not the white-headed eagle in the state when it is called the sea eagle? Perhaps its neck-feathers were erected.
I went to the oaks. Heard there a nuthatch’s faint vibrating tut-tut, somewhat even like croaking of frogs, as it made its way up the oak bark and turned head down to peck. Anon it answered its mate with a gnah gnah.
Smelt a skunk on my return, at Hubbard’s blueberry swamp, which some dogs that had been barking there for half an hour had probably worried, for I did not smell it when I went along first. I smelt this all the way thence home, the wind being southwest, and it was quite as perceptible in our yard as at the swamp. The family had already noticed it, and you might have supposed that there was a skunk in the yard, yet it was three quarters of a mile off, at least.
H. D. Thoreau, Journal, April 6, 1856
Apparently song sparrows may have the dark splash on each side of the throat but be more or less brown on the breast and head. Some are quite light, some quite dark. Here is one of the light—breasted on the top of an apple tree, sings unweariedly at regular intervals something like ichulp I chili chili, chili chili, (faster and faster) chili chili, chili chili I iuller ichay ier splay-ee. The last, or third, bar I am not sure about. It flew too soon for me. I only remember that the last part was sprinkled on the air like drops from a rill, as if its strain were moulded by the spray it sat upon.
Now see considerable flocks of robins hopping and running in the meadows; crows next the water-edge, on small isles in the meadow.
As I am going along the Corner Road by the meadow mouse brook, hear and see, a quarter of a mile north west, on those conspicuous white oaks near the river in Hubbard’s second grove, the crows buffeting some intruder. The crows had betrayed to me some large bird of the hawk kind which they were buffeting. I suspected it before I looked carefully. I saw several crows on the oaks, and also what looked to my naked eye like a cluster of the palest and most withered oak leaves with a black base about as big as a crow.
Looking with my glass, I saw that it was a great bird.
The crows sat about a rod off, higher up, while another crow was occasionally diving at him, and all were cawing. The great bird was just starting.
It was chiefly a dirty white with great broad wings with black tips and black on other parts, giving it the appearance of dirty white, barred with black.
I am not sure whether it was a white-headed eagle or a fish hawk. There appeared much more white than belongs to either, and more blackthan the fish hawk has.
It rose and wheeled, flapping several times, till it got under way; then, with its rear to me, presenting the least surface, it moved off steadily in its orbit over the woods northwest, with the slightest possible undulation of its wings, — a noble planetary motion, like Saturn with its ring seen edgewise.
It is so rare that we see a large body self sustained in the air. While crows sat still and silent and confessed their lord.
Through my glass I saw the outlines of this sphere against the sky, trembling with life and power as it skimmed the topmost twigs of the wood toward some more solitary oak amid the meadows.
To my naked eye it showed only so much black as a crow in its talons might. Was it not the white-headed eagle in the state when it is called the sea eagle? Perhaps its neck-feathers were erected.
I went to the oaks. Heard there a nuthatch’s faint vibrating tut-tut, somewhat even like croaking of frogs, as it made its way up the oak bark and turned head down to peck. Anon it answered its mate with a gnah gnah.
Smelt a skunk on my return, at Hubbard’s blueberry swamp, which some dogs that had been barking there for half an hour had probably worried, for I did not smell it when I went along first. I smelt this all the way thence home, the wind being southwest, and it was quite as perceptible in our yard as at the swamp. The family had already noticed it, and you might have supposed that there was a skunk in the yard, yet it was three quarters of a mile off, at least.
H. D. Thoreau, Journal, April 6, 1856
The hedges resound with the song of the song sparrow. See April 3, 1856 ("Hear the sprayey tinkle of the song sparrow along the hedges."); April 6, 1855 ("The banks of the river are alive with song sparrows . . . they have come to enliven the bare twigs before the buds show any signs of starting. ") See also A Book of Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Song Sparrow (Fringilla melodia)
Just beyond Wood’s Bridge, I hear the pewee. If there is one within half a mile, it will be here, and I shall be sure to hear its simple notes from those trees, borne over the water. See April 1, 1859 ("At the Pokelogan up the Assabet, I see my first phoebe, the mild bird. It flirts its tail and sings pre vit, pre vit, pre vit, pre vit incessantly, as it sits over the water, and then at last, rising on the last syllable, says pre-VEE, as if insisting on that with peculiar emphasis"); April 7, 1856 ("At the Hubbard Bridge, we hear the incessant note of the phoebe,— pevet, pe-e-vet, pevee’, —its innocent, somewhat impatient call."). See also A Book of Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Eastern Phoebe and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Arrival of the Phoebe in Early Spring
There has been no skating the last winter, the snow having covered the ice immediately after it formed. See March 27, 1856 ("People do not remember when there was so much old snow on the ground at this date."); also Donald Sutherland, The Long, Hard Winter of 1855-56 ("The Winter of 1855-56 was the coldest winter of the 1850s."); Compare January 31, 1855 (“An unprecedented expanse of ice. At 10 A. M., skated up the river to explore further than I had been.”) and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Winter of Skating
I noticed the first bluish haze . . . an affecting announcement of the approach of summer . . . its blue feather! See March 5, 1855 ("This blue haze, and the russet earth seen through it, remind me that a new season has come."); April 16, 1855 ("At sunset, the mountains, after this our warmest day as yet, had got a peculiar soft mantle of blue haze, pale blue as a blue heron, ushering in the long series of summer sunsets."); June 2, 1854 ("The air has now begun to be filled with a bluish haze.")
Hear the fine tseep of a sparrow, and detect the fox-colored sparrow . . . with its ashy head and mottled breast. See April 4, 1855 ("Their clear, fox colored backs are very handsome. I get quite near to them."); April 6, 1859 ("The sparrows love to flit along any thick hedge . . . Tree sparrows, F. hyemalis, and fox-colored sparrows in company.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Fox-colored Sparrow.
Now see considerable flocks of robins hopping and running in the meadows. See March 28, 1853 ("I do not now think of a bird that hops so distinctly, rapidly, and commonly as the robin, with its head up. "); April 3, 1856 ("I see small flocks of robins running on the bared portions of the meadow.")
Smelt a skunk on my return. See April 18, 1852 ("Why should just these sights and sounds accompany our life? Why should I hear the chattering of black-birds, why smell the skunk each year?") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Skunk
April 6. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, April 6
The first bluish haze,
subtle vapor, blue feather
of approaching summer.
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau,
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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