First river walk.

March 6.

P. M. — Up river on ice to Fair Haven Pond.

The river is frozen more solidly than during the past winter, and for the first time for a year I could cross it in most places. I did not once cross it the past winter, though by choosing a safe place I might have done so, without doubt, once or twice. But I have had no river walks before. 

I see the first hen-hawk, or hawk of any kind, methinks, since the beginning of winter. Its scream, even, is inspiring as the voice of a spring bird. 

That light spongy bark about the base of the nesaea appears to be good tinder. I have only to touch one end to a coal, and it all burns up slowly, without blazing, in whatever position held, and even after being dipped in water.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, March 6, 1858

I have had no river walks before. See January 23, 1858 (" I have not been able to walk up the North Branch this winter, nor along the channel of the South Branch at any time."). Compare December 13, 1859 ("My first true winter walk is perhaps that which I take on the river, or where I cannot go in the summer. It is the walk peculiar to winter, and now first I take it."); December 7, 1856 ("Take my first skate to Fair Haven Pond."); March 4, 1852 ("Now I take that walk along the river highway and the meadow. The river is frozen solidly, and I do not have to look out for openings.")

I see the first hen-hawk, or hawk of any kind, methinks, since the beginning of winter. See February 16, 1854 ("See two large hawks circling over the woods by Walden, hunting, — the first I have seen since December 15th."); March 2, 1855 ("Hear two hawks scream. There is something truly March-like in it, like a prolonged blast or whistling of the wind through a crevice in the sky.”); March 2, 1856 ("I can hardly believe that hen-hawks may be beginning to build their nests now, yet their young were a fortnight old the last of April last year."); March 4, 1860 ("A hen-hawk rises and sails away over the Holden Wood as in summer. Saw and heard one scream the 2d"); March 8, 1853 ("Saw two or three hawks sailing."); March 8, 1857 ("Get a glimpse of a hawk, the first of the season."); March 15, 1860 ("These hawks, as usual, began to be common about the first of March, showing that they were returning from their winter quarters."); See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Signs of the Spring: the Hawks of March

That light spongy bark about the base of the nesaea appears to be good tinder. See February 4, 1858 ("An abundance of nesaea on the east edge of the pond-hole (call it Ledum Pond-hole); and is that a lysimachia mingled with it?"); January 22, 1860 ("At the west or nesaea end of the largest Andromeda Pond, I see that there has been much red ice."); January 24, 1855 ("I observe that the andromeda does not quite fill the pond, but there is an open wet place, with coarse grass, swamp loosestrife, and some button-bush, about a rod wide, surrounding the whole"); December 18, 1854 ("I am surprised to find in the Andromeda Ponds, especially the westernmost one, north side, an abundance of decodon, or swamp loosestrife")