Thimble-berries are now fairly ripe and abundant

July 13

P. M. — To Corner Spring. 

Orchis lacera, apparently several days, lower part of spike, willow-row, Hubbard side, opposite Wheildon's land. 

See quite a large flock of chattering red-wings, the flight of first broods. 

Thimble-berries are now fairly ripe and abundant along walls, to be strung on herd's-grass, but not much flavor to them; honest and wholesome. See where the mowers have plucked them. Gather the large black and blackening ones. No drought has shrivelled them this year. 

Heard yesterday a sharp and loud ker-pheet, I think from a surprised woodchuck, amid bushes, — the siffleur. Reminds me somewhat of a peetweet, and also of the squeak of a rabbit, but much louder and sharper. And all is still. 

Hubbard's meadow — or I will call it early meadow-aster, some days, now rather slender and small- bushed. Drosera longifolia and also rotundifolia, some time. Polygala sanguinea, some time, Hubbard's Meadow Path; say meadow-paths and banks. 

Saw and heard two or three redstarts at Redstart Woods, where they probably have nests. 

Have noticed bright-red geranium and pyrus leaves a week or more. 

In Hubbard's euphorbia pasture, cow blackbirds about cows. At first the cows were resting and ruminating in the shade, and no birds were seen. Then one after another got up and went to feeding, straggling into the midst of the field. With a chattering appeared a cowbird, and, with a long slanting flight, lit close to a cow's nose, within the shadow of it, and watched for insects, the cow still eating along and almost hitting it, taking no notice of it. Soon it is joined by two or three more birds. 

An abundance of spurry in the half-grown oats adjoining, apparently some time out. 

Yellow lily, how long? 

Am surprised to see an Aster laevis, out a day or two, in road on sandy bank. 

Goldfinches twitter over. 

Hydrocotyle, some time. 


H. D. Thoreau, Journal, July 13, 1856

See quite a large flock of chattering red-wings, the flight of first broods. See July 11, 1856 ("Hear now the link of bobolinks, and see quite a flock of red-wing blackbirds and young."); July 15, 1854 ("We seem to be passing, or to have passed, a dividing line between spring and autumn . . . Many birds begin to fly in small flocks like grown-up broods."); July 22, 1855 ("See small flocks of red-wings, young and old, now, over the willows."); July 29, 1859 ("See large flocks of red-wings now, the young grown.")

Thimble-berries are now fairly ripe and abundant . . . No drought has shrivelled them this year. See July 4, 1852 ("One thimble-berry which will be quite ripe by to-morrow.");  July 18, 1854 ("Every bush and bramble bears its fruit; the sides of the road are a fruit garden; blackberries, huckleberries, thimble-berries, fresh and abundant, no signs of drought; all fruits in abundance; the earth teems.") 

Saw and heard two or three redstarts at Redstart Woods, where they probably have nests. See 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.”); July 8, 1857 ("To Laurel Glen. . . . Hear apparently redstarts there, — so they must have nests near")  See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The American Redstart

Heard yesterday a sharp and loud ker-pheet, I think from a surprised woodchuck, amid bushes, — the siffleur. See July 14, 1845 ("Alek Therien, he called himself; a Canadian now, a woodchopper, a post-maker; makes fifty posts—holes them, i. e.—in a day; and who made his last supper on a woodchuck which his dog caught. And he too has heard of Homer, and if it were not for books, would not know what to do rainy days.")

A cowbird. . . lit close to a cow's nose, within the shadow of it, and watched for insects. See August 25, 1855 ("I count about one hundred and fifty cowbirds about eight cows, running before their noses and in odd positions, awkwardly walking with a straddle, often their heads down and tails up a long time at once, occasionally flying to keep up with a cow.")

Goldfinches twitter over. See July 15, 1854 ("This cooler, still, cloudy weather after the rain is very autumnal and restorative to our spirits. The robin sings still, but the goldfinch twitters over oftener, and I hear the link link of the bobolink, and the crickets creak more as in the fall."); July 17, 1852 ("Again methinks I hear the goldfinch.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Goldfinch

July 13.  See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, July 13.

See quite a large flock

of chattering red-wings,

the flight of first broods. 

Ripe thimble-berries

now abundant along walls

but not much flavor.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Ripe Thimble-berries

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

https://tinyurl.com/hdt-560713