Pine pollen adhering to the inside of the boat along the water-line

June 22. 

June 22, 2018

Edward Bartlett found what he calls two bobolinks’ nests some weeks ago, with each six eggs. I have one of the nests. There is but little of it, composed simply of some flexible grass without and finer within, kept in form by the thick tussock or tuft of meadow-grass at the bottom and in the midst of which it is placed. 

He shows me, also, one of three eggs found the 20th in Gourgas’s wood-lot, within a rod of the roadside, in a small slender oak (eighteen feet high), about fourteen feet from the ground, about fifteen rods north of Britton’s corner, in a grove, where two or three small branches left the main stem; eggs somewhat advanced. Says the bird was a thrush of some kind. The egg is one inch by five eighths, rather slender, faint-blue, and quite generally spotted with distinct rather reddish brown, inclining to small streaky blotches, though especially at the larger end; not pale-brown like that described [June 21]. Can it be the Turdus solitarias? I have the egg.

Mowing the June grass about our house a few days ago, I disturbed several toads squatted deep in the rankest grass near the house, and wounded one or two with the scythe. They appear to love such cool and shady retreats by day, hopping out at night and in the rain. 

I see in the river a little pickerel, not quite two inches long, which must have been hatched this year, and probably as early as the perch, since they have more to grow. 

I notice, after tipping the water out of my boat under the willows, much evidently pine pollen adhering to the inside of the boat along the water-line. Did it fall into it during my excursion to Holden’s Swamp the 20th, or has it floated through the air thus far? 

About the grassy island in front of the Rock, grows abundantly, apparently the Carex crinita, with about four long pendulous fertile spikes and one barren, two and a half feet high and long since done. 

I think that I first noticed willow down floating on the river about the 16th. 

Observe a painted turtle laying or digging at 5 P.M. She has not excavated any hole, but has already watered the ground, and, as usual when I take her up under these circumstances, passes more water.

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

Edward Bartlett found what he calls two bobolinks’ nests some weeks ago, with each six eggs. See note to June 18, 1858 (“E. Bartlett has found three bobolinks’ nests. One or more of them he thinks has been covered by the recent flood.”) See also  A Book of the Seasons,by Henry Thoreau, the Bobolink

Did it fall into it during my excursion to Holden’s Swamp the 20th, or has it floated through the air thus far? See June 20, 1858 ("Walking in the white pine wood there, I find that my shoes and, indeed, my hat are covered with the greenish-yellow pollen of the white pines, which is now being shed abundantly and covers like a fine meal all the plants and shrubs of the forest floor. I never noticed it in such abundance before. My shoes are green-yellow, or yellow-green, even the next day with it.”); June 21, 1860 ("The air must be full of this fine dust at this season, that it must be carried to great distances, and its presence might be detected remote from pines by examining the edges of bodies of water ... the lakes detect for us thus the presence of the pine pollen in the atmosphere. They are our pollinometers. “) See also A Book of the Seasons,by Henry Thoreau, The White Pines

I think that I first noticed willow down floating on the river about the 16th. See June 10, 1853 ("The fuzzy seeds or down of the black (?) willows is filling the air over the river and, falling on the water, covers the surface. "); June 15, 1854 ("Black willow is now gone to seed, and its down covers the water, white amid the weeds. ") See also A Book of the Seasons,by Henry Thoreau, the Propogation of the Willow.

She has not excavated any hole, but has already watered the ground See June 11, 1858 (“I notice that turtles which have just commenced digging will void considerable water when you take them up. This they appear to have carried up to wet the ground with.” ) See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Painted Turtle