So do the seasons revolve and every chink is filled.

March 31. 

P. M. — To Flint’s Pond. 

A fresh south or southeast wind. 

The most forward willow catkins are not so silvery now, more grayish, being much enlarged and the down less compact, revealing the dark scales. 

Flint's, Fair Haven, and Walden Ponds broke up just about the same time, or March 28th, this year. This is very unusual. It is because on account of the mildness of the winter Walden did not become so cold as the others, or freeze so thick, and there was proportionally less thawing to be done in it. 

They are burning brush nowadays. You see a great slanting column of dun smoke on the northeast of the town, which turns out to be much farther off than you suppose. It is Sam Pierce burning brush. Thus we are advertised of some man's occupation in a neighboring town. As I walk I smell the smoke of burnings, though I see none. 

In the wood-paths now I see many small red butterflies, I am not sure of what species, not seeing them still. The earliest butterflies seem to be born of the dry leaves on the forest floor. 

I see about a dozen black ducks on Flint's Pond, asleep with their heads in their backs and drifting across the pond before the wind. I suspect that they are nocturnal in their habits and therefore require much rest by day. 

So do the seasons revolve and every chink is filled. While the waves toss this bright day, the ducks, asleep, are drifting before it across the ponds. 

Every now and then one or two lift their heads and look about, as if they watched by turns. I see also two ducks, perhaps a little larger than these, I am pretty sure without red bills and therefore not sheldrakes (and they are not nearly as white as sheldrakes ordinarily), with more elevated heads and gibbous (?) bills. The heads, bills, and upper parts of neck, black; breast, white or whitish; but back sober-colored. Can they be brant or mallards? [Were they geese?] 

The leaves are now so dry and loose that it is almost impossible to approach the shore of the pond without being heard by the ducks. 

I am not sure but I heard a pine warbler day before yesterday, and from what a boy asks me about a yellow bird which he saw there I think it likely. 

Just after sundown I see a large flock of geese in a perfect harrow cleaving their way toward the northeast, with Napoleonic tactics splitting the forces of winter. 

C. says he saw a great many wood turtles on the bank of the Assabet to-day. The painted and wood turtles have seemed to be out in surprising abundance at an unusually early date this year, but I think I can account for it. 

The river is remarkably low, almost at summer level. I am not sure that I remember it so low at this season. Now, probably, these tortoises would always lie out in the sun at this season, if there were any bank at hand to lie on. Ordinarily at this season, the meadows being flooded, together with the pools and ditches in which the painted turtles lie, there is no bank exposed near their winter quarters for them to come out on, and I first noticed them underwater on the meadow. But this year it is but a step for them to the sunny bank, and the shores of the Assabet and of ditches are lined with them. 

C. heard hylas to-day.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, March 31, 1858

Flint's, Fair Haven, and Walden Ponds broke up just about the same time, or March 28th, this year. This is very unusual. See note to March 31, 1855 ("Looking from the Cliffs I see that Walden is open to-day first, and Fair Haven Pond will open by day after to-morrow.”)

In the wood-paths now I see many small red butterflies. See March 31, 1860 ("The small red butterfly in the wood-paths and sprout-lands") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Small Red Butterfly

C. heard hylas to-day. See March 31, 1857 (“How gradually and imperceptibly the peep of the hylodes mingles with and swells the volume of sound which makes the voice of awakening nature!”)

The painted and wood turtles have seemed to be out in surprising abundance at an unusually early date this year. See March 31, 1857 ("The tortoises now quite commonly lie out sunning on the sedge or the bank.“)

An early frog, peculiar to pools and small ponds in the woods and fields.

March 30. 

March 30, 2018

P. M. – To my boat at Cardinal Shore and thence to Lee's Cliff. 

Another fine afternoon, warmer than before, I think. I walk in the fields now without slumping in the thawing ground, or there are but few soft places, and the distant sand-banks look dry and warm. 

The frogs are now heard leaping into the ditches on your approach, bullfrog under my boat. 

Approaching carefully the little pool south of Hubbard's Grove, I see the dimples where the croakers which were on the surface have dived, and I see two or three still spread out on the surface, in the sun. They are very wary, and instantly dive to the bottom on your approach and bury themselves in the weeds or mud. The water is quite smooth, and it is very warm here, just under the edge of the wood, but I do not hear any croaking. Later, in a pool behind Lee's Cliff, I hear them, – the waking up of the leafy pools. The last was a pool amid the blue berry and huckleberry and a few little pines. I do not remember that I ever hear this frog in the river or ponds. They seem to be an early frog, peculiar to pools and small ponds in the woods and fields. 

I notice, scampering over this water, two or three brown spiders, middling-sized. They appear to be the ones which have spun this gossamer. 

There is at the bottom of this pool much of the ludwigia, that evergreen weed seen in winter at the bottom of pools and ditches. Methinks those peculiar bulbs, some of which I see near it, are of this plant.

 Landing at Bittern Cliff, I went round through the woods to get sight of ducks on the pond. Creeping down through the woods, I reached the rocks, and saw fifteen or twenty sheldrakes scattered about. The full plumaged males, conspicuously black and white and often swimming in pairs, appeared to be the most wary, keeping furthest out. Others, with much less white and duller black, were very busily fishing just north the inlet of the pond, where there is about three feet of water, and others still playing and preening themselves. 

These ducks, whose tame representatives are so sluggish and deliberate in their motions, were full of activity. A party of these ducks fishing and playing is a very lively scene. On one side, for instance, you will see a party of eight or ten busily diving and most of the time under water, not rising high when they come up, and soon plunging again. The whole surface will be in commotion there, though no ducks may be seen. I saw one come up with a large fish, whereupon all the rest, as they successively came to the surface, gave chase to it, while it held its prey over the water in its bill, and they pursued with a great rush and clatter a dozen or more rods over the surface, making a great furrow in the water, but, there being some trees in the way, I could not see the issue. 

I saw seven or eight all dive together as with one consent, remaining under half a minute or more. On another side you see a party which seem to be playing and pluming themselves. They will run and dive and come up and dive again every three or four feet, occasionally one pursuing an other; will flutter in the water, making it fly, or erect themselves at full length on the surface like a penguin, and flap their wings. This party make an incessant noise. Again you will see some steadily tacking this way or that in the middle of the pond, and often they rest there asleep with their heads in their backs. They readily cross the pond, swimming from this side to that.

While I am watching the ducks, a mosquito is endeavoring to sting me. 

At dusk I hear two flocks of geese go over.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, March 30, 1858

Approaching carefully the little pool south of Hubbard's Grove, I see the dimples where the croakers which were on the surface have dived. Later, in a pool behind Lee's Cliff, I hear them, – the waking up of the leafy pools. See March 26, 1860 ("The wood frog may be heard March 15, as this year, or not till April 13, as in’56, — twenty-nine days."); March 15, 1860 ("Am surprised to hear, from the pool behind Lee's Cliff, the croaking of the wood frog. . . . How suddenly they awake! yesterday, as it were, asleep and dormant, to-day as lively as ever they are. The awakening of the leafy woodland pools.."); March 23, 1859 ("I hear a single croak from a wood frog. . . . Thus we sit on that rock, hear the first wood frog's croak"); March 24, 1859 (" Can you ever be sure that you have heard the very first wood frog in the township croak?"); March 26, 1857 ("As I go through the woods by Andromeda Ponds, though it is rather cool and windy in exposed places, I hear a faint, stertorous croak from a frog in the open swamp; at first one faint note only, which I could not be sure that I had heard, but, after listening long, one or two more suddenly croaked in confirmation of my faith, and all was silent again."); March 27, 1853 ("Tried to see the faint-croaking frogs at J. P. Brown's Pond in the woods. They are remarkably timid and shy; had their noses and eyes out, croaking, but all ceased, dove, and concealed themselves, before I got within a rod of the shore."); March 28, 1858 ("Coming home, I hear the croaking frogs in the pool on the south side of Hubbard’s Grove. It is sufficiently warm for them at last."). See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Wood Frog (Rana sylvatica)

Now in the woods there is still snow but many open places running with water in the trails. My old snowshoe tracks are elevated. The streams are rushing. There is no difficulty going anywhere. No out of breath. We go to the view via under view trail and up the shortcut. It being too windy from the west we go to the double chair. I had not been here in the several weeks since the big snows. The red maples are showing their buds We hear and see crows usually in pairs coursing overhead.

Down the mountain trail there are spots where it is bare earth. Quite different to be walking on this solid ground. The snow is rain-saturated mushy and easy walking although there is some sliding.

On the other side of the middle pond a tree has a root growing perpendicularly out of the trunk about two or 3 feet up making a nice seat. Probably was a seedling on a tip up that is now gone.Above the cliff trail that woodpecker tree is now fallen over. The top half of the cliff trail is easy --no longer any snow. We spend good time sawing  branches and eventually saw our way through the pine that blocks the trail along the cliff. A long walk staying out almost ’til 8. (And it is light this late ) zphx 20180330

Those that were here two days ago have left us.

March 29. 

Monday. 

Hear a phoebe early in the morning over the street.

Considerable frost this morning, and some ice formed on the river. 

The white maple stamens are very apparent now on one tree, though they do not project beyond the buds. 

P. M. – To Ball’s Hill. 

Nearly as warm and pleasant as yesterday.

I see what I suppose is the female rusty grackle; black body with green reflections and purplish-brown head and neck, but I notice no light iris. 

By a pool southeast of Nathan Barrett's, see five or six painted turtles in the sun, – probably some were out yesterday, — and afterward, along a ditch just east of the pine hill near the river, a great many more, as many as twenty within a rod. I must have disturbed this afternoon one hundred at least. They have crawled out on to the grass on the sunny side of the ditches where there is a sheltering bank. I notice the scales of one all turning up on the edges. It is evident that great numbers lie buried in the mud of such ditches and mud-holes in the winter, for they have not yet been crawling over the meadows. Some have very broad yellow lines on the back; others are almost uniformly dark above. They hurry and tumble into the water at your approach, but several soon rise to the surface and just put their heads out to reconnoitre. Each trifling weed or clod is a serious impediment in their path, catching their flippers and causing them to tumble back. They never lightly skip over it. But then they have patience and perseverance, and plenty of time. The narrow edges of the ditches are almost paved in some places with their black and muddy backs. 

They seem to come out into the sun about the time the phoebe is heard over the water. 

At the first pool I also scared up a snipe. It rises with a single cra-a-ck and goes off with its zigzag flight, with its bill presented to the earth, ready to charge bayonets against the inhabitants of the mud. 

As I sit two thirds the way up the sunny side of the pine hill, looking over the meadows, which are now almost completely bare, the crows, by their swift flight and scolding, reveal to me some large bird of prey hovering over the river.

I perceive by its markings and size that it cannot be a hen-hawk, and now it settles on the topmost branch of a white maple, bending it down. Its great armed and feathered legs dangle helplessly in the air for a moment, as if feeling for the perch, while its body is tipping this way and that. It sits there facing me some forty or fifty rods off, pluming itself but keeping a good lookout. At this distance and in this light, it appears to have a rusty-brown head and breast and is white beneath, with rusty leg feathers and a tail black beneath. When it flies again it is principally black varied with white, regular light spots on its tail and wings beneath, but chiefly a conspicuous white space on the forward part of the back; also some of the upper side of the tail or tail coverts is white. It has broad, ragged, buzzard-like wings, and from the white of its back, as well as the shape and shortness of its wings and its not having a gull-like body, 

I think it must be an eagle. It lets itself down with its legs somewhat helplessly dangling, as if feeling for something on the bare meadow, and then gradually flies away, soaring and circling higher and higher until lost in the downy clouds. This lofty soaring is at least a grand recreation, as if it were nourishing sublime ideas. I should like to know why it soars higher and higher so, whether its thoughts are really turned to earth, for it seems to be more nobly as well as highly employed than the laborers ditching in the meadow beneath or any others of my fellow townsmen.

Hearing a quivering note of alarm from some bird, I look up and see a male hen-harrier, the neatly built hawk, sweeping over the hill.

While I was looking at the eagle (?), I saw, on the hillside far across the meadow by Holbrook's clearing, what I at first took for a red flag or handkerchief carried along on a pole, just above the woods. It was a fire in the woods, and I saw the top of the flashing flames above the tree-tops. The woods are in a state of tinder, and the smoker and sportsman and the burner must be careful now. 

I do not see a duck on the Great Meadows to-day, as I did not up-stream, yesterday. It is remarkable how suddenly and completely those that were here two days ago have left us. It is true the water has gone down still more on the meadows. I infer that water fowl travel in pleasant weather. 

With many men their fine manners are a lie all over, a skim-coat or finish of falsehood. They are not brave enough to do without this sort of armor, which they wear night and day.

The trees in swamps are streaming with gossamer at least thirty feet up, and probably were yesterday.

I see at Gourgas's hedge many tree sparrows and fox-colored sparrows. The latter are singing very loud and sweetly. Somewhat like ar, tea, – twe’-twe, twe’-twe, or arte, ter twe’-twe, twe’-twe, variously. They are quite tame.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, March 29, 1858

Hear a phoebe early in the morning over the street. See April 1, 1859 ("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.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Eastern Phoebe.

The white maple stamens are very apparent now on one tree, though they do not project beyond the buds. See  March 29, 1853 ("The female flowers of the white maple, crimson stigmas from the same rounded masses of buds with the male, are now quite abundant. . . . The two sorts of flowers are not only on the same tree and the same twig and sometimes in the same bud, but also sometimes in the same little cup.").  See also March 14, 1857 ("White maple buds . . .have now a minute orifice at the apex, through which you can even see the anthers.");   March 17, 1855 ("White maple blossom-buds look as if bursting . . .”); March 27, 1857 ("The white maple is well out with its pale [?] stamens on the southward boughs, and probably began about the 24th. That would be about fifteen days earlier than last year."); ; April 11, 1856 ("See how the tree is covered with great globular clusters of buds. Are there no anthers nor stigmas to be seen? Look upward to the sunniest side. . . .do you not see two or three stamens glisten like spears advanced on the sunny side of a cluster? Depend on it, the bees will find it out before noon") Also see A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,,White maple buds and flowers.

They seem to come out into the sun about the time the phoebe is heard over the water. See March 28, 1857 ("The Emys picta, now pretty numerous . . .He who painted the tortoise thus, what were his designs?")  See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Painted Turtle (Emys picta)

I scared up a snipe. It rises with a single cra-a-ck and goes off with its zigzag flight. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Snipe.

I think it must be an eagle. See April 6, 1856 ("Looking with my glass, I saw that it was a great bird."); April 8, 1854 (“. . . a perfectly white head and tail and broad or blackish wings. It sailed and circled along over the low cliff, and the crows dived at it in the field of my glass, and I saw it well,. . .”); April 23, 1854 ("We who live this plodding life here below never know how many eagles fly over us”)

I look up and see a male hen-harrier, the neatly built hawk, sweeping over the hill. See  March 29, 1853 ("I believe I saw the slate-colored marsh hawk to-day."); March 29, 1854 (See two marsh hawks, white on rump."); see also March 27, 1855 (“See my frog hawk. . . .It is the hen-barrier, i.e. marsh hawk, male. Slate-colored; beating the bush; black tips to wings and white rump.");  March 30, 1856 ("May have been a marsh hawk or harrier.") ~~ What HDT calls the "marsh hawk / frog hawk / hen harrier" is the northern harrier. See A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Marsh Hawk (Northern Harrier)

Fox-colored sparrows singing very loud and sweetly.. See March 25, 1858 ("I hear a very clear and sweet whistling strain, commonly half finished, from one every two or three minutes. It is too irregular to be readily caught, but methinks begins like ar tohe tohe tchear, te tche tchear, etc., etc"); April 4, 1855 ("Now the hedges and apple trees are alive with fox colored sparrows, all over the town, and their imperfect strains are occasionally heard. . . . I get quite near to them. "); April 17, 1855 ("A sudden warm day, like yesterday and this, takes off some birds and adds others. It is a crisis in their career. The fox-colored sparrows seem to be gone").  See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Fox-colored Sparrow.

When one kind of life goes, another comes. The same warm and placid day calls out men and butterflies.

March 28
P. M. — To Cliffs.

After a cloudy morning, a warm and pleasant afternoon. I hear that a few geese were seen this morning.

Israel Rice says that he heard two brown thrashers sing this morning! Is sure because he has kept the bird in a cage. I can’t believe it.

I go down the railroad, turning off in the cut. I notice the hazel stigmas in the warm hollow on the right there, just beginning to peep forth. This is an unobserved but very pretty and interesting evidence of the progress of the season. I should not have noticed it if I had not carefully examined the fertile buds. It is like a crimson star first dimly detected in the twilight. The warmth of the day, in this sunny hollow above the withered sedge, has caused the stigmas to show their lips through their scaly shield. They do not project more than the thirtieth of an inch, some not the sixtieth. The staminate catkins are also considerably loosened. Just as the turtles put forth their heads, so these put forth their stigmas in the spring. How many accurate thermometers there are on every hill and in every valley: Measure the length of the hazel stigmas, and you can tell how much warmth there has been this spring. How fitly and exactly any season of the year may be described by indicating the condition of some flower! 

I go by the springs toward the epigaea. 

It is a fine warm day with a slight haziness. It is pleasant to sit outdoors now, and, it being Sunday, neighbors walk about or stand talking in the sun, looking at and scratching the dry earth, which they are glad to see and smell again. 

In the sunny epigaea wood I start up two Vanessa Antiopa, which flutter about over the dry leaves be fore, and are evidently attracted toward me, settling at last within a few feet. The same warm and placid day calls out men and butterflies. 

It is surprising that men can be divided into those who lead an indoor and those who lead an outdoor life, as if birds and quadrupeds were to be divided into those that lived a within nest or burrow life and [those] that lived without their nests and holes chiefly. How many of our troubles are house-bred! He lives an out door life; i.e., he is not squatted behind the shield of a door, he does not keep himself tubbed. It is such a questionable phrase as an “honest man,” or the “naked eye,” as if the eye which is not covered with a spy glass should properly be called naked.

From Wheeler's plowed field on the top of Fair Haven Hill, I look toward Fair Haven Pond, now quite smooth. There is not a duck nor a gull to be seen on it. I can hardly believe that it was so alive with them yesterday. Apparently they improve this warm and pleasant day, with little or no wind, to continue their journey northward. The strong and cold northwest wind of about a week past has probably detained them. Knowing that the meadows and ponds were swarming with ducks yesterday, you go forth this particularly pleasant and still day to see them at your leisure, but find that they are all gone. No doubt there are some left, and many more will soon come with the April rains. It is a wild life that is associated with stormy and blustering weather. When the invalid comes forth on his cane, and misses improve the pleasant air to look for signs of vegetation, that wild life has withdrawn itself. 

But when one kind of life goes, another comes. This plowed land on the top of the hill — and all other fields as far as I observe — is covered with cobwebs, which every few inches are stretched from root to root or clod to clod, gleaming and waving in the sun, the light flashing along them as they wave in the wind. How much insect life and activity connected with this peculiar state of the atmosphere these imply! Yet I do not notice a spider. Small cottony films are continually settling down or blown along through the air. [A gossamer day. I see them also for a week after.] Does not this gossamer answer to that of the fall? They must have sprung to with one consent last night or this morning and bent new cables to the clods and stubble all over this part of the world. 

The little fuzzy gnats, too, are in swarms in the air, peopling that uncrowded space. They are not confined by any fence. Already the distant forest is streaked with lines of thicker and whiter haze over the successive valleys. 

Walden is open. When? On the 20th it was pretty solid. C. sees a very little ice in it to-day, but probably it gets entirely free to-night.

Fair Haven Pond is open.

[This and Flint's and Walden all open together this year, the latter was so thinly frozen! (For C. says Flint's and Walden were each a third open on the 25th.)]

Sitting on the top of the Cliffs, I look through my glass at the smooth river and see the long forked ripple made by a musquash swimming along over the  meadow. While I sit on these warm rocks, turning my glass toward the mountains, I can see the sun reflected from the rocks on Monadnock, and I know that it would be pleasant to be there too to-day as well as here. I see, too, warm and cosy seats on the rocks, where the flies are buzzing, and probably some walker is enjoying the prospect. 

From this hilltop I overlook, again bare of snow, putting on a warm, hazy spring face, this seemingly concave circle of earth, in the midst of which I was born and dwell, which in the northwest and southeast has a more distant blue rim to it, as it were of more costly manufacture. On ascending the hill next his home, every man finds that he dwells in a shallow concavity whose sheltering walls are the convex surface of the earth, beyond which he cannot see. I see those familiar features, that large type, with which all my life is associated, unchanged. 

Cleaning out the spring on the west side of Fair Haven Hill, I find a small frog, apparently a bullfrog, just come forth, which must have wintered in the mud there. There is very little mud, however, and the rill never runs more than four or five rods before it is soaked up, and the whole spring often dries up in the summer. It seems, then, that two or three frogs, the sole inhabitants of so small a spring, will bury them selves at its head. A few frogs will be buried at the puniest spring-head. 

Coming home, I hear the croaking frogs in the pool on the south side of Hubbard’s Grove. It is sufficiently warm for them at last. 

Near the sand path above Potter's mud-hole I find what I should call twenty and more mud turtles’ eggs close together, which appear to have been dug from a hole close by last year. They are all broken or cracked and more or less indented and depressed, and they look remarkably like my pigeon's egg fungi, a dirty white covered thickly with a pure white roughness, which through a glass is seen to be oftenest in the form of minute but regular rosettes of a very pure white substance. If these are turtles' eggs, –and there is no stem mark of a fungus, – it is remarkable that they should thus come to resemble so closely another natural product, the fungus.

The first lark of the 23d sailed through the meadow with that peculiar prolonged chipping or twittering sound, perhaps sharp clucking.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, March 28, 1858

I start up two Vanessa Antiopa, which flutter about over the dry leaves before, and are evidently attracted toward me, settling at last within a few feet. See March 28, 1857 ("The broad buff edge of the Vanessa Antiopa’s wings harmonizes with the russet ground it flutters over, and as it stands concealed in the winter, with its wings folded above its back, in a cleft in the rocks, the gray brown under side of its wings prevents its being distinguished from the rocks themselves.") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Buff-edged Butterfly

Coming home, I hear the croaking frogs in the pool on the south side of Hubbard’s Grove. It is sufficiently warm for them at last. See March 26, 1860 ("The wood frog may be heard March 15, as this year, or not till April 13, as in’56, — twenty-nine days."); March 15, 1860 ("Am surprised to hear, from the pool behind Lee's Cliff, the croaking of the wood frog. . . . How suddenly they awake! yesterday, as it were, asleep and dormant, to-day as lively as ever they are. The awakening of the leafy woodland pools.."); March 23, 1859 ("I hear a single croak from a wood frog. . . . Thus we sit on that rock, hear the first wood frog's croak"); March 24, 1859 (" Can you ever be sure that you have heard the very first wood frog in the township croak? "); March 26, 1857 ("As I go through the woods by Andromeda Ponds, though it is rather cool and windy in exposed places, I hear a faint, stertorous croak from a frog in the open swamp; at first one faint note only, which I could not be sure that I had heard, but, after listening long, one or two more suddenly croaked in confirmation of my faith, and all was silent again"); March 27, 1853 ("Tried to see the faint-croaking frogs at J. P. Brown's Pond in the woods. They are remarkably timid and shy; had their noses and eyes out, croaking, but all ceased, dove, and concealed themselves, before I got within a rod of the shore."); March 30, 1858 ("Later, in a pool behind Lee's Cliff, I hear them, – the waking up of the leafy pools. . . . I do not remember that I ever hear this frog in the river or ponds. They seem to be an early frog, peculiar to pools and small ponds in the woods and fields.")

Having crawled over the hill through the woods on our stomachs we watch various water-fowl for an hour. .

March 27. 

P. M. — Sail to Bittern Cliff. 

Scare up a flock of sheldrakes just off Fair Haven Hill, the conspicuous white ducks, sailing straight hither and thither. At first they fly low up the stream, but, having risen, come back half-way to us, then wheel and go up-stream. 

Soon after we scare up a flock of black ducks. 

J.J. Audubon (The flight of this Duck, which, in as far as I know, is peculiar to America, is powerful, rapid, and as sustained as that of the Mallard. While travelling by day they may be distinguished from that species by the whiteness of their lower wing-coverts, which form a strong contrast to the deep tints of the rest of their plumage See  A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the American Black Duck)

We land and steal over the hill through the woods, expecting to find them under Lee's Cliff, as indeed we do, having crawled over the hill through the woods on our stomachs; and there we watched various water-fowl for an hour.

There are a dozen sheldrakes (or goosanders) and among them four or five females. They are now pairing. I should say one or two pairs are made. At first we see only a male and female quite on the alert, some way out on the pond, tacking back and forth and looking every way. They keep close together, headed one way, and when one turns the other also turns quickly. The male appears to take the lead. Soon the rest appear, sailing out from the shore into sight. 

We hear a squeaking note, as if made by a pump, and presently see four or five great herring gulls wheeling about. Sometimes they make a sound like the scream of a hen-hawk. They are shaped somewhat like a very thick white rolling-pin, sharpened at both ends. At length they alight near the ducks. 

The sheldrakes at length acquire confidence, come close inshore and go to preening themselves, or it may be they are troubled with lice. They are all busy about it at once, continually thrusting their bills into their backs, still sailing slowly along back and forth offshore. Sometimes they are in two or three straight lines. Now they will all seem to be crossing the pond, but presently you see that they have tacked and are all heading this way again. 

Among them, or near by, I at length detect three or four whistlers, by their wanting the red bill, being considerably smaller and less white, having a white spot on the head, a black back, and altogether less white, and also keeping more or less apart and not diving when the rest do. 

Now one half the sheldrakes sail off southward and suddenly go to diving as with one consent. Seven or eight or the whole of the party will be under water and lost at once. In the mean while, coming up, they chase one another, scooting over the surface and making the water fly, sometimes three or four making a rush toward one. 

At length I detect two little dippers, as I have called them, though I am not sure that I have ever seen the male before. They are male and female close together, the common size of what I have called the little dipper. They are incessantly diving close to the button-bushes.

 [Rice says that the little dipper has a hen bill and is not lobe footed. He and his brother Israel also speak of another water-fowl of the river with a hen bill and some bluish feathers on the wings.]

The female is apparently uniformly black, or rather dark brown, but the male has a conspicuous crest, with, apparently, white on the hindhead, a white breast, and white line on the lower side of the neck; i. e., the head and breast are black and white conspicuously. 

J J Audubon Fuligula albeola Buffle-headed Duck:" The bufflehead, being known in different districts by the names of Spirit Duck, Butter-box, Marrionette, Dipper, and Die-dipper, generally returns from the far north, where it is said to breed, about the beginning of September."

Can this be the Fuligula albeola, and have I commonly seen only the female? Or is it a grebe?

Fair Haven Pond four fifths clear. 

C. saw a phoebe, i e. pewee, the 25th. - 

The sheldrake has a peculiar long clipper look, often moving rapidly straight forward over the water. It sinks to very various depths in the water sometimes, as when apparently alarmed, showing only its head and neck and the upper part of its back, and at others, when at ease, floating buoyantly on the surface, as if it had taken in more air, showing all its white breast and the white along its sides. Sometimes it lifts itself up on the surface and flaps its wings, revealing its whole rosaceous breast and its lower parts, and looking in form like a penguin. 

When I first saw them fly up-stream I suspected that they had gone to Fair Haven Pond and would alight under the lee of the Cliff. So, creeping slowly down through the woods four or five rods, I was enabled to get a fair sight of them, and finally we sat exposed on the rocks within twenty five rods. They appear not to observe a person so high above them. 

It was a pretty sight to see a pair of them tacking about, always within a foot or two of each other and heading the same way, now on this short tack, now on that, the male taking the lead, sinking deep and looking every way. When the whole twelve had come together they would soon break up again, and were continually changing their ground, though not diving, now sailing slowly this way a dozen rods, and now that, and now coming in near the shore. Then they would all go to preening themselves, thrusting their bills into their backs and keeping up such a brisk motion that you could not get a fair sight of one’s head.

From time to time you heard a slight titter, not of alarm, but perhaps a breeding-note, for they were evidently selecting their mates. I saw one scratch its ear or head with its foot. 

Then it was surprising to see how, briskly sailing off one side, they went to diving, as if they had suddenly come across a school of minnows. A whole company would disappear at once, never rising high as before. Now for nearly a minute there is not a feather to be seen, and the next minute you see a party of half a dozen there, chasing one another and making the water fly far and wide.

When returning, we saw, near the outlet of the pond, seven or eight sheldrakes standing still in a line on the edge of the ice, and others swimming close by. They evidently love to stand on the ice for a change.

I saw on the 22d a sucker which apparently had been dead a week or two at least. Therefore they must begin to die late in the winter.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, March 27,1858



Sheldrakes. See March 22, 1858 ("I see two of these very far off on a bright-blue bay where the waves are running high. They are two intensely white specks, which yet you might mistake for the foaming crest of waves. Now one disappears, but soon is seen again, and then its companion is lost in like manner, having dived."); March 5, 1857 ("I scare up six male sheldrakes, with their black heads, in the Assabet,—the first ducks I have seen"); March 16, 1855 ("Scare up two large ducks . . . I think it the goosander or sheldrake."); March 16, 1854 ("I see ducks afar, sailing on the meadow, leaving a long furrow in the water behind them.”) See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Sheldrake (Merganser, Goosander)

Can this be the Fuligula albeola, and have I commonly seen only the female? Or is it a grebe? See January 15, 1858 ("At Natural History Rooms, Boston. Looked at the little grebe. Its feet are not webbed with lobes on the side like the coot, and it is quite white beneath."); December 26, 1857 ("The little dipper must, therefore, be different from a coot. Is it not a grebe?); April 19, 1855 ("A little duck, asleep with its head in its back, exactly in the middle of the pond. It has a moderate-sized black head and neck, a white breast, and seems dark-brown above, with a white spot on the side of the head, not reaching to the out side, from base of mandibles, and another, perhaps, on the end of the wing, with some black there. . . .I think it is the smallest duck I ever saw. Floating buoyantly asleep on the middle of Walden Pond. Is it not a female of the buffle-headed or spirit duck?"); December 26, 1853 ("Saw in it a small diver, probably a grebe or dobchick, dipper, or what-not, with the markings, as far as I saw, of the crested grebe, but smaller. It had a black head, a white ring about its neck, a white breast, black back, and apparently no tail.”); September 27, 1860 (" I see a little dipper in the middle of the river.. . .It has a dark bill and considerable white on the sides of the head or neck, with black between it, no tufts, and no observable white on back or tail.");April 22, 1861 (" [Mann] obtained to-day the buffle-headed duck, diving in the river near the Nine-Acre Corner bridge. I identify it at sight as my bird seen on Walden. ")  See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Little Dipper

They must begin to die late in the winter. See note to March 28, 1857 ("Every spring there are many dead suckers floating belly upward on the meadows. This phenomenon of dead suckers is as constant as the phenomenon of living ones; nay, as a phenomenon it is far more apparent.")

A poet away from home.

March 25. 

P. M. – To bank of Great Meadows by Peter’s. 

Cold northwest wind as yesterday and day before. Large skaters (Hydrometra) on a ditch. 

Going across A. Clark's field behind Garfield’s, I see many fox-colored sparrows flitting past in a straggling manner into the birch and pitch pine woods on the left, and hear a sweet warble there from time to time. They are busily scratching like hens amid the dry leaves of that wood (not swampy), from time to time the rearmost moving forward, one or two at a time, while a few are perched here and there on the lower branches of a birch or other tree; and I hear a very clear and sweet whistling strain, commonly half finished, from one every two or three minutes. It is too irregular to be readily caught, but methinks begins like ar tohe tohe tchear, te tche tchear, etc., etc., but is more clear than these words would indicate. The whole flock is moving along pretty steadily. 

There are so many sportsmen out that the ducks have no rest on the Great Meadows, which are not half covered with water. They sit uneasy on the water, looking about, without feeding, and I see one man endeavor to approach a flock crouchingly through the meadow for half a mile, with india-rubber boots on, where the water is often a foot deep. This has been going on, on these meadows, ever since the town was settled, and will go on as long as ducks settle here. 

You might frequently say of a poet away from home that he was as mute as a bird of passage, uttering a mere chip from time to time, but follow him to his true habitat, and you shall not know him, he will sing so melodiously.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, March 25, 1858

Large skaters (Hydrometra) on a ditch. See March 22, 1853 ("At Nut Meadow Brook, water-bugs and skaters are now plenty."); March 22, 1860 ("The phenomena of an average March . . . Many insects and worms come forth and are active , -and the perla insects still about ice and water , — as tipula , grubs , and fuzzy caterpillars , minute hoppers on grass at springs ; gnats , large and small , dance in air ; the common and the green fly buzz outdoors ; the gyrinus , large and small , on brooks , etc. , and skaters") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Water-bug (Gyrinus) and Skaters (Hydrometridae)

I hear a very clear and sweet whistling strain. See March 28, 1854 ("The fox-colored sparrow sings sweetly also.”)

The whole flock is moving along pretty steadily. See April 9, 1856 (“A flock of them - rapidly advancing, flying before one another, through the swamp.”) See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Fox-colored Sparrow.

Cold northwest wind as yesterday and day before . . .There are so many sportsmen out that the ducks have no rest.  See March 25, 1854 ("Too cold and windy almost for ducks. They are in the smoother open water (free from ice) under the lee of hills.") Compare  March 25, 1860 ("See no ducks on Fair Haven Pond .") and see . March 28, 1858 ("There is not a duck nor a gull to be seen on it. I can hardly believe that it was so alive with them yesterday. Apparently they improve this warm and pleasant day, with little or no wind, to continue their journey northward.. . . No doubt there are some left, and many more will soon come with the April rains. It is a wildlife that is associated with stormy and blustering weather"); .March 29, 1858 ("I infer that waterfowl travel in pleasant weather") See also   A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the American Black Duck

A cold north-by-west wind, which must have come over much snow and ice, brings the shore lark.

March 24. 

P. M. — To Fair Haven Pond, east side. 

March 24, 2018

The pond not yet open. A cold north-by-west wind, which must have come over much snow and ice. 

The chip of the ground-bird [That is, song sparrow.] resembles that of a robin, i.e., its expression is the same, only fainter, and reminds me that the robin's peep, which sounds like a note of distress, is also a chip, or call-note to its kind. 

Returning about 5 P. M. across the Depot Field, I scare up from the ground a flock of about twenty birds, which fly low, making a short circuit to another part of the field. At first they remind me of bay-wings, except that they are in a flock, show no white in tail, are, I see, a little larger, and utter a faint sveet sveet merely, a sort of sibilant chip. 

Starting them again, I see that they have black tails, very conspicuous when they pass near. They fly in a flock somewhat like snow buntings, occasionally one surging upward a few feet in pursuit of another, and they alight about where they first were. It [is] almost impossible to discover them on the ground, they squat so flat and so much resemble it, running amid the stubble. But at length I stand within two rods of one and get a good view of its markings with my glass. 

They are the Alauda alpestris, or shore lark [Did I not see them on Nantucket?], quite a sizable and handsome bird; delicate pale-lemon-yellow line above the [eye], with a dark line through the eye; the yellow again on the sides of the neck and on the throat, with a black crescent below the throat; with a buff ash breast and reddish-brown tinges; beneath, white; above, rusty-brown behind, and darker, ash or slate, with purplish-brown reflections, forward; legs, black; and bill, blue-black. Common to the Old and New Worlds.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, March 24, 1858

A cold north-by-west wind, which must have come over much snow and ice. See March 24, 1855 (“The northwesterly comes from a snow—clad country still, and cannot but be chilling. ”)

The robin's peep, which sounds like a note of distress, is also a chip, or call-note to its kind. See March 8, 1855("I hear the hasty, shuffling, as if frightened, note of a robin from a dense birch wood.”); March 18, 1858 (“The robin does not come singing, but utters a somewhat anxious or inquisitive peep at first.”); April 2, 1852 (“The robin now peeps with scared note in the heavy overcast air, among the apple trees”). See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Robins in Spring and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Signs of the Spring, the anxious peep of the early robin

March 24. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, March 24

A cold northwest wind

 comes over much snow and ice –

 pond not yet open.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, A cold northwest wind

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 ©  2009-2024

https://tinyurl.com/hdt-580324

A yellow-spotted turtle.

March 23.

Surveying Mr. Gordon’s farm. 

See something stirring amid the dead leaves in the water at the bottom of a ditch, in two or three places, and presently see the back of a yellow-spotted turtle. 

Afterward a large flock of fox-colored sparrows flits by along an alder-row, uttering a faint chip like that of the tree sparrow.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, March 23, 1858

Something stirring amid the dead leaves in the water at the bottom of a ditch. See March 26, 1860 (“The yellow-spotted tortoise may be seen February 23, as in '57, or not till March 28, as in '55, — thirty-three days.”); See February 23, 1857 (“See two yellow-spotted tortoises in the ditch south of Trillium Wood. . . .I have seen signs of the spring.”);  March 10, 1853 ("I find a yellow-spotted tortoise (Emys guttata) in the brook.”); March 18, 1854 (" C. has already seen a yellow-spotted tortoise in a ditch.”);   ; March 28, 1852 (“ a yellow-spotted tortoise by the causeway side in the meadow near Hubbard's Bridge.”); March 28, 1855 (“A yellow-spotted tortoise in a still ditch, which has a little ice also. It at first glance reminds me of a bright freckled leaf, skunk-cabbage scape, perhaps. They are generally quite still at this season, or only slowly put their heads out (of their shells).”) See also  A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau The Yellow-Spotted Turtle

A large flock of fox-colored sparrows. See March 23, 1853 ("The birds which are merely migrating or tarrying here for a season are especially gregarious now”); See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Fox-colored Sparrow.

See something stirring

amid the dead leaves at the 

bottom of a ditch.

The season is detected by the aspect of the clouds.

March 22.

P. M. – Launch my boat and row downstream.

There is a strong and cool northwest wind. 

Leaving our boat just below N. Barrett's, we walk down the shore. We see many gulls on the very opposite side of the meadow, near the woods. They look bright-white, like snow on the dark-blue water. It is surprising how far they can be seen, how much light they reflect, and how conspicuous they are. Being strung along one every rod, they made me think of a fleet in line of battle. 

We go along to the pitch pine hill off Abner Buttrick's, and, finding a sheltered and sunny place, we watch the ducks from it with our glass. There are not only gulls, but about forty black ducks and as many sheldrakes, and, I think, two wood ducks. The gulls appear considerably the largest and make the most show, they are so uniformly light-colored. 

At a distance, as I have said, they look like snowy masses, and even nearer they have a lumpish look, like a mass of cotton, the head being light as well as the breast. They are seen sailing about in the shallow water, or standing motionless on a clod that just rises above the surface, in which position they have a particularly clumsy look; or one or two may be seen slowly wheeling about above the rest. From time to time the whole flock of gulls suddenly rises and begins circling about, and at last they settle down in some new place and order. 

With these were at first associated about forty black ducks, pretty close together, sometimes apparently in close single lines, some looking lumpish like decoys of wood, others standing on the bottom and reminding me of penguins. They were constantly diving with great energy, making the water fly apparently two feet upward in a thick shower. Then away they all go, circling about for ten minutes at least before they can decide where to alight. 

The black heads and white breasts, which may be golden-eyes, for they are evidently paired, male and female, for the most part, —and yet I thought that I saw the red bill of the sheldrake [They are sheldrakes], —these are most incessantly and skillfully plunging and from time to time apparently pursuing each other. They are much more active, whether diving or swimming about, than you expect ducks to be. Now, perchance, they are seen changing their ground, swimming off, perhaps, two by two, in pairs, very steadily and swiftly, without diving. 

I see two of these very far off on a bright-blue bay where the waves are running high. They are two intensely white specks, which yet you might mistake for the foaming crest of waves. Now one disappears, but soon is seen again, and then its companion is lost in like manner, having dived. 

I see those peculiar spring (?) clouds, scattered cumuli with dark level bases. No doubt the season is to be detected by the aspect of the clouds no less than by that of the earth.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, March 22, 1858

Launch my boat and row downstream. See March 16, 1859 ("Launch my boat and sail to Ball's Hill. It is fine clear weather and a strong northwest wind"); March 17, 1857 ("Launch my boat."); March 19, 1855 ("Launch my boat.");March 22, 1854 ("Launch boat and paddle to Fair Haven. Still very cold"); April 19, 1858 ("Spend the day hunting for my boat, which was stolen.")

Forty black ducks, pretty close together, sometimes apparently in close single lines. See March 22, 1854 ("Scare up my flock of black ducks and count forty together.")

Sheldrakes two by two. See March 5, 1857 ("I scare up six male sheldrakes, with their black heads, in the Assabet,—the first ducks I have seen"); March 16, 1855 ("Scare up two large ducks . . . I think it the goosander or sheldrake."); March 16, 1854 ("I see ducks afar, sailing on the meadow, leaving a long furrow in the water behind them."); March 16, 1860 ("Saw a flock of sheldrakes a hundred rods off, on the Great Meadows, mostly males with a few females, all intent on fishing.”) See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Sheldrake (Merganser, Goosander)

They look bright-white, like snow on the dark-blue water. It is surprising how far they can be seen, how much light they reflect, and how conspicuous they are. See April 15, 1855 ("It is remarkable how much light those white gulls . . . absorb and reflect through that sombre atmosphere, — conspicuous almost as candles in the night."); March 29, 1854 ("A gull of pure white, - a wave of foam in the air.")