Thus these four species of birds have all come in one day.

March 17.

Hear the first bluebird. 

P. M. —To the Hill. 

A remarkably warm and pleasant day with a south or southwest wind, but still very bad walking, the frost coming out and the snow that was left going off. 

The air is full of bluebirds. I hear them far and near on all sides of the hill, warbling in the tree-tops, though I do not distinctly see them. 

I stand by the wall at the east base of the hill, looking over the alder meadow, lately cut off. I am peculiarly attracted by its red-brown maze, seen in this bright sun and mild southwest wind. It has expression in it as a familiar freckled face. Methinks it is about waking up, though it still slumbers. 

See the still, smooth pools of water in its midst, almost free from ice. I seem to hear the sound of the water soaking into it, — as it were its voice. We must not expect it to blow warm long at a time. Even to-day, methinks, there are cool veins in the air, as if some puffs came over snow and ice and others not, like the meat which consisted alternately of a streak of fat and a streak of lean. 

I sit on the bank at the Hemlocks and watch the great white cakes of ice going swiftly by. Now one strikes a rock and swings round in an eddy. They bear on them the wrecks and refuse of the shore where they were formed. 

Even the shade is agreeable to-day. You hear the buzzing of a fly from time to time, and see the black speck zigzag by. 

Ah! there is the note of the first flicker, a prolonged, monotonous wick-wick-wick-wick-wick-wick, etc., or, if you please, quick-quick, heard far over and through the dry leaves. But how that single sound peoples and enriches all the woods and fields! They are no longer the same woods and fields that they were. This note really quickens what was dead. It seems to put a life into withered grass and leaves and bare twigs, and henceforth the days shall not be as they have been. 

It is as when a family, your neighbors, return to an empty house after a long absence, and you hear the cheerful hum of voices and the laughter of children, and see the smoke from the kitchen fire. The doors are thrown open, and children go screaming through the hall. So the flicker dashes through the aisles of the grove, throws up a window here and cackles out it, and then there, airing the house. 

It makes its voice ring up-stairs and down-stairs, and so, as it were, fits it for its habitation and ours, and takes possession.  It is as good as a housewarming to all nature. Now I hear and see him louder and nearer on the top of the long-armed white oak, sitting very upright, as is their wont, as it were calling for some of his kind that may also have arrived. 

As usual, I have seen for some weeks on the ice these peculiar (perla?) insects with long wings and two tails. 

The withered vegetation, seed-vessels of all kinds, etc., are peculiarly handsome now, having been remarkably well preserved the past winter on account of the absence of snow. 

How indulgent is Nature, to give to a few common plants, like checkerberry, this aromatic flavor to relieve the general insipidity! Perhaps I am most sensible of the presence of these plants when the ground is first drying at this season and they come fairly out. Also mouse-ear and pyrola. 

Sitting under the handsome scarlet oak beyond the hill, I hear a faint note far in the wood which reminds me of the robin. Again I hear it; it is he, — an occasional peep. These notes of the earliest birds seem to invite forth vegetation. No doubt the plants concealed in the earth hear them and rejoice. They wait for this assurance. 

Now I hear, when passing the south side of the hill, or first when threading the maple swamp far west of it, the tchuck tchuck of a blackbird, and after, a distinct conqueree. So it is a red-wing? 

Thus these four species of birds have all come in one day, no doubt to almost all parts of the town.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, March 17, 1858

Hear the firat bluebird though I do not distinctly see them. See  March 26, 1860 ("The bluebird may be seen February 24, as in '50, '57, and '60, or not till March 24, as in '56, — say twenty-eight days”);  March 17, 1857 (" This morning it is fair, and I hear the note of the woodpecker on the elms (that early note) and the bluebird again.”); March 18, 1858 (“ I see this afternoon as many as a dozen bluebirds on the warm side of a wood. ”); March 19, 1855 ("I hear my first bluebird, somewhere about Cheney’s trees by the river. I hear him out of the blue deeps, but do not yet see his blue body. He comes with a warble.”)

Ah! there is the note of the first flicker, a prolonged, monotonous wick-wick-wick-wick-wick-wick, etc., or, if you please, quick-quick, heard far over and through the dry leaves. See  April 8, 1855 ("Hear and see a pigeon woodpecker, something like week-up week-up."): April 22, 1856 ("Joins his mate on a tree and utters the wooing note o-week o-week, etc"); . April 23, 1855 ("Saw two pigeon woodpeckers approach and, I think, put their bills together and utter that o-week, o-week"); Compare March 17, 1857 (“I notice that woodpecker-like whar-whar-whar-whar-whar-whar, earliest spring sound. “); February 18, 1857 ("When I step out into the yard I hear that earliest spring note from some bird, perhaps a pigeon woodpecker . . ., the rapid whar whar, whar whar, whar whar, which I have so often heard before any other note.”); February 17, 1855 (" Can it be a jay? or a pigeon woodpecker? Is it not the earliest springward note of a bird?”); and March 5, 1859 ("Going down-town this forenoon, I heard a white-bellied nuthatch on an elm within twenty feet, uttering peculiar notes and more like a song than I remember to have heard from it.. . .It was something like to-what what what what what, rapidly repeated, and not the usual gnah gnah; and this instant it occurs to me that this may be that earliest spring note which I hear, and have referred to a woodpecker! . . .It is the spring note of the nuthatch"). See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The Pigeon Woodpecker (flicker)

I am most sensible of the presence of these plants when the ground is first drying at this season. See March 10, 1855 ("Those reddening leaves, as the checkerberry, lambkill, etc., etc., which at the beginning of winter were greenish, are now a deeper red, when the snow goes off.”) 

I hear a faint note far in the wood which reminds me of the robin. See See March 8, 1855 ("I hear the hasty, shuffling, as if frightened, note of a robin from a dense birch wood, —. . . This sound reminds me of rainy, misty April days in past years."); March 12, 1854 ("I hear my first robin peep distinctly at a distance. No singing yet.”); March 14, 1854 ("Count over forty robins with my glass in the meadow north of Sleepy Hollow, in the grass and on the snow.“); March 18, 1857 ("I now again hear the song sparrow’s tinkle along the riverside, probably to be heard for a day or two, and a robin, which also has been heard a day or two.”); March 18, 1858 (“The robin does not come singing, but utters a somewhat anxious or inquisitive peep at first.”)

The tchuck tchuck of a blackbird, and after, a distinct conqueree. See March 6, 1854 ("Hear and see the first blackbird, flying east over the Deep Cut, with a tchuck, tchuck, and finally a split whistle."); March 14, 1852 ("I see a flock of blackbirds and hear their conqueree."); March 17, 1860 ("How handsome a flock of red-wings,"); March 19, 1855 (" I hear at last the tchuck tchuck of a blackbird and, looking up, see him flying high over the river southwesterly in great haste to reach somewhere."); March 22, 1855 ("[T]he blackbirds already sing o-gurgle ee-e-e from time to time on the top of a willow or elm or maple, but oftener a sharp, shrill whistle or a tchuck.”);