The year is but a succession of days,
and I see that I could assign some office to each day
which, summed up, would be the history of the year.
Henry Thoreau, August 24, 1852Against the dark pines
deciduous trees are now
a mist of leaflets.
Pines and evergreens
are now fast being merged in
a sea of foliage.
I see an oak shoot
already grown ten inches
in four or five days.
May 15, 1859
The warblers begin
to come in numbers with the
leafing of the trees.
It is suddenly very warm and looks as if there might be a thunder-shower coming up from the west. May 15, 1854
The weather has grown rapidly warm. I even think of bathing in the river . May 15, 1853
I love to sit in the wind on this hill and be blown on. We bathe thus first in air; then, when the air has warmed it, in water. May 15, 1853
Looking off from hilltop. Trees generally are now bursting into leaf. The aspect of oak and other woods at a distance is somewhat like that of a very thick and reddish or yellowish mist about the evergreens. May 15, 1854
The mist produced by the leafing of the deciduous trees has greatly thickened now and lost much of its reddishness in the lighter green of expanding leaves, May 15, 1853
The pines and other evergreens are now fast being merged in a sea of foliage. May 15, 1853
Looking from the Cliffs through the haze, the deciduous trees are a mist of leaflets, against which the pines are already darkened. At this season there is thus a mist in the air and a mist on the earth. May 15, 1860
In other directions, the light, graceful, and more distinct yellowish-green forms of birches are seen, and, in swamps, the reddish or reddish-brown crescents of the red maple tops, now covered with keys. May 15, 1854
The shad-bush in bloom is now conspicuous, its white flags on all sides. Is it not the most massy and conspicuous of any wild plant now in bloom? May 15, 1858
Hickory leafets not so large as beech. Beech leaves two inches long. Say it has leafed a day or two. May 15, 1856
Locust, black and scarlet oak, and some buttonwoods leaf. May 15, 1855
Oak leaves are as big as a mouse's ear, and the farmers are busily planting. May 15, 1854
The greater part of the large sugar maples on the Common leaf. Large red maples generally are late to leaf. May 15, 1855
The large P. grandidentata by river not leafing yet. May 15, 1854
I have been struck of late with the prominence of the Viburnum nudum leaf in the swamps, reddish-brown and one inch over, a peculiarly large and mature-looking, firm-looking leaf. May 15, 1859
Deciduous woods now swarm with migrating warblers, especially about swamps. May 15, 1860
See also, for a moment, in dry woods, a warbler with blue-slate head and apparently all yellow beneath for a minute, nothing else conspicuous; note slightly like tseep, tseep, tseep, tseep, tsit sitter ra-re-ra, May 15, 1856
Also, in rather low ground in Bedford, a note much like the summer yellowbird's, or between that and the redstart, and see the bird quite near, but hopping quite low on the bushes. It looked like the yellowbird with a bluish ash top of head. What was it? May 15, 1858
See and hear for a moment a small warbler-like bird in Nemopanthes Swamp which sings somewhat like tchut a-worieter-worieter-worieter-woo. May 15, 1855
Watch a pine warbler on a pitch pine, slowly and faithfully searching it creeper-like. It encounters a black and white creeper on the same tree; they fly at each other, and the latter leaves, apparently driven off by the first. This warbler shuts its bill each time to produce its peculiar note. 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. As near as I could see it had a white throat, was whitish, streaked with dark, beneath, darker tail and wings, and maybe olivaceous shoulders; bright yellow within bill. Probably M. Cooperi. May 15, 1855
Hear a hummingbird in the garden. May 15, 1855
A red butterfly goes by. Methinks I have seen them before. May 15, 1853
As I sat by the Riordan crossing, thought it was the tanager I heard? May 15, 1856
A woodcock starts up with whistling sound. May 15, 1859
The 13th, saw large water-bugs (Gyrinus) crawled up high on rocks. May 15, 1855
Viola cucullata abundant now. May 15, 1856
Checker-berries very abundant on south side of Pine Hill, by pitch pine wood. Now is probably best time to gather them. May 15, 1856
The meadows are now full of sedges in bloom, which shed clouds of pollen and cover my shoes with it. May 15, 1858
And buttercups and silvery cinquefoil, and the first apple blossoms, and waving grass beginning to be tinged with sorrel, introduce us to a different season. May 15, 1853
The springing sorrel, the expanding leafets, the already waving rye tell of June. May 15, 1860
I see an oak shoot already grown ten inches, when the buds of oaks and of most trees are but just burst generally. This plant has, perhaps, in four or five days accomplished one fourth part [of] its whole summer's growth. May 15, 1859
This is a field which lies nearer to summer. May 15, 1853
Through pale golden and green we arrive at the yellow of the buttercup; through scarlet, to the fiery July red. May 15, 1853
Yellow is the color of spring; red, of midsummer. May 15, 1853
Sun goes down red, and did last night. A hot day does not succeed, but the very dry weather continues. May 15, 1860
*****
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Leaf-OutA Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Shad-bush, Juneberry, or Service-berry (Amelanchier canadensis)
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Viburnum lentago
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Birches.
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Red Maple
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Checkerberry
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Small Red Butterfly
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Scarlet Tanager
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Pine Warbler
 |
| May 15, 2013 |
If you make the least correct
observation of nature this year,
you will have occasion to repeat it
with illustrations the next,
and the season and life itself is prolonged.
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau,, I love you like I love the sky
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, May 15
"A book, each page written in its own season,
out-of-doors, in its own locality.”
~edited, assembled and rewritten by zphx © 2009-2022
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