A song sparrow on the wood-pile

January 28

Am again surprised to see a song sparrow sitting for hours on our wood-pile in the yard, in the midst of snow in the yard. It is unwilling to move. People go to the pump, and the cat and dog walk round the wood-pile without starting it. I examine it at my leisure through a glass. 

Remarkable that the coldest of all winters these summer birds should remain. Perhaps it is no more comfortable this season further south, where they are accustomed to abide. 

In the afternoon this sparrow joined a flock of tree sparrows on the bare ground west of the house. 

It was amusing to see the tree sparrows wash themselves, standing in the puddles and tossing the water over themselves.  Minott says they wade in to where it is an inch deep and then "splutter splutter," throwing the water over them. They have had no opportunity to wash for a month, perhaps, there having been no thaw. 

The song sparrow did not go off with them. 

January 28, 2018

P. M. — To Walden.  Notice many heaps of leaves on snow on the hillside southwest of the pond, as usual. Probably the rain and thaw have brought down some of them.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, January 28, 1857

Am again surprised to see a song sparrow sitting for hours on our wood-pile in the yard. See January 15, 1857 ("I saw, to my surprise, that it must be a song sparrow . . . taken refuge in this shed”) See also January 22, 1857 ("Minott tells me that Sam Barrett told him once when he went to mill that a song sparrow took up its quarters in his grist-mill and stayed there all winter.”) See also  A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Song Sparrow (Fringilla melodia) 

The coldest of all winters . . . no thaw.  See note to January 23, 1857 ("I may safely say that -5° has been the highest temperature to-day by our thermometer.")

Notice many heaps of leaves on snow on the hillside southwest of the pond, as usual. See December 9, 1856 ("Coming through the Walden woods, I see already great heaps of oak leaves collected in certain places on the snow-crust by the roadside, where an eddy deposited them."); December 11, 1858 ("Already, in hollows in the woods and on the sheltered sides of hills, the fallen leaves are collected in small heaps on the snow-crust. ")

January 28.  See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, January 28

See a song sparrow 

sitting for hours on our 

wood-pile in the yard.

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, A song sparrow on the wood-pile 

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 © 2009-2025

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