The first object I saw on approaching this planet in the spring.

October 27. 

6.30 a. m. — To Island by boat. 

The river still rises, — more than ever last night, owing to the rain of the 24th (which ceased in the night of the 24th). It is two feet higher than then. 

I hear a blackbird in the air; and these, methinks, are song sparrows flitting about, with the three spots on breast. 

Now it is time to look out for walnuts, last and hardest crop of the year?

I love to be reminded of that universal and eternal spring when the minute crimson-starred female flowers of the hazel are peeping forth on the hillsides, — when Nature revives in all her pores.  

Some less obvious and commonly unobserved signs of the progress of the seasons interest me most, like the loose, dangling catkins of the hop-hornbeam or of the black or yellow birch. I can recall distinctly to my mind the image of these things, and that time in which they flourished is glorious as if it were before the fall of man. I see all nature for the time under this aspect. 

These features are particularly prominent; as if the first object I saw on approaching this planet in the spring was the catkins of the hop-hornbeam on the hillsides. As I sailed by, I saw the yellowish waving sprays.

See nowadays concave chocolate-colored fungi passing into dust on the edges, close on the ground in pastures.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, October 27, 1853

Song sparrows flitting about, with the three spots on breast. See October 26, 1855 (“The song sparrow still sings on a button-bush.”); November 1, 1853 ("I now hear a robin, and see and hear some noisy and restless jays, and a song sparrow chips faintly. ")

Now it is time to look out for walnuts, last and hardest crop of the year? See October 27, 1855 ("It is high time we came a-nutting,")  See alao  October 24, 1852 ("I see, far over the river, boys gathering walnuts.”);  October 28, 1852 ("The boys are gathering walnuts.”); November 9, 1852 ("Fore part of November time for walnutting"); and note to December 10, 1856 ("Gathered this afternoon quite a parcel of walnuts on the hill.")  Also  October 11, 1860 ("The acorns are now in the very midst of their fall. . . .The best time to gather these nuts is now.”); October 22, 1857 ("Now is just the time for chestnuts.”); November 11, 1850 ("Now is the time for wild apples. “); November 18, 1858 (" Now is the time to gather the mocker-nuts.”)

I love to be reminded of that universal and eternal spring. See   October 26, 1853 ("You only need to make a faithful record of an average summer day's experience and summer mood, and read it in the winter, and it will carry you back to more than that summer day alone could show.”); October 26, 1857 ("The seasons and all their changes are in me. . . . The perfect correspondence of Nature to man, so that he is at home in her! ")

I can recall distinctly to my mind the image of . . . the catkins of the hop-hornbeam on the hillsides. See May 7, 1853 ("The catkins of the hop-hornbeam, yellow tassels hanging from the trees, which grow on the steep bank of the Assabet, give them a light, graceful, and quite noticeable appearance.")

Chocolate-colored fungi passing into dust on the edges. See October 5, 1856 (“This before they are turned to dust. Large chocolate-colored ones have long since burst and are spread out wide like a shallow dish”)