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.