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. [Also the 21st March.] There was a chickadee close by, to which it may have been addressed.
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! (This is before I have chanced to see a bluebird, blackbird, or robin in Concord this year.) It is the spring note of the nuthatch.
It paused in its progress about the trunk or branch and uttered this lively but peculiarly inarticulate song, an awkward attempt to warble almost in the face of the chickadee, as if it were one of its kind. It was thus giving vent to the spring within it.
If I am not mistaken, it is what I have heard in former springs or winters long ago, fabulously early in the season, when we men had but just begun to anticipate the spring, — for it would seem that we, in our anticipations and sympathies, include in succession the moods and expressions of all creatures.
When only the snow had begun to melt and no rill of song had broken loose, a note so dry and fettered still, so inarticulate and half thawed out, that you might (and would commonly) mistake for the tapping of a woodpecker. As if the young nuthatch in its hole had listened only to the tapping of woodpeckers and learned that music, and now, when it would sing and give vent to its spring ecstasy and it can modulate only some notes like that, that is its theme still. That is its ruling idea of song and music, — only a little clangor and liquidity added to the tapping of the woodpecker.
It was the handle by which my thoughts took firmly hold on spring. This herald of spring is commonly unseen, it sits so close to the bark.
P. M. — Up river to Well Meadow. The snow melts and sinks very rapidly. This spring snow is peculiarly white and blinding. The inequalities of the surface are peculiar and interesting when it has sunk thus rapidly.
I see crows walking about on the ice half covered with snow in the middle of the meadows, where there is no grass, apparently to pick up the worms and other insects left there since the midwinter freshet. We see one or two little gnats or mosquitoes in the air.
See a large light-colored hawk circling a long time over Fair Haven Hill, and another, probably its mate, starts away from Holden Wood and circles toward it. The last being nearest, I distinguished that its wings were black tipped. (I have no glass ) What can they be? I think that I have seen the same in previous springs. They are too light-colored for hen-hawks, and for a pair of marsh hawks, — being apparently alike. Then the fish hawk is said by the books not to get here nearly so early, and, beside, they would not circle about so much over the hill.
The goshawk, which I next think of, has no black tip to wings that I can learn. May it not be the winter hawk of Wilson? for he says its primaries are black at the tips, and that [it] is lighter than the red-shouldered, of same species.
At the same time I see a crow going north or northeast, high over Fair Haven Hill, and, two or three minutes after, two more, and so many more at intervals of a few minutes. This is apparently their spring movement.
Turkeys gobble in some distant farmyard at the same time.
At length the sun is seen to have come out and to be shining on the oak leaves on the south side of Bear Garden Hill, and its light appears to be exactly limited to them.
I saw on the ice, quite alive, some of those black water-beetles, which apparently had been left above by a rise of the river. Were they a Gyrinus?
When I was last at Well Meadow, I saw where apparently a dozen hounds had all crossed the brook at exactly one point, leaving a great trail in the slosh above the ice, though there was but one track of a man. It reminded me of a buffalo-trail.
Every half-mile, as you go up the river, you come to the tracks of one or two dogs which have recently crossed it without any man.
Those skunk-cabbage buds which are most advanced have cast off their outmost and often frost-bitten sheaths, and the spathe is broader and slightly opened (some three quarters of an inch or more already) and has acquired brighter and more variegated colors. The out side of the spathe shows some ripeness in its colors and markings, like a melon-rind, before the spadix begins to bloom.
I find that many of the most forward spathes, etc., have been destroyed since I was here three days ago. Some animal has nibbled away a part of the spathes (or sometimes only a hole in it) — and I see the fragments scattered about — and then eaten out the whole of the spadix. Indeed, but few forward ones are left.
Is this a mouse or musquash ? or a bird ? The spadix is evidently a favorite titbit to some creature.
That more entire-leaved plant amid the early skunk- cabbage which I called a cress on the 3d has the bitter taste of cress. The common cress has in one place grown considerably, and is fresh and clean and very good to eat. I wonder that I do not see where some creatures have eaten it.
The sweet-gale brush seen in a mass at a little distance is considerably darker than the alders above it. This will do for the sweet-gale maze in November.
The cowslip there is very prominently flower-budded, lifting its yellow flower-buds above water in one place. The leaves are quite inconspicuous when they first come up, being rolled up tightly.
H. D. Thoreau, Journal, March 5, 1859
"The notes of the White-breasted Nuthatch
are remarkable on account of their nasal sound.
Ordinarily they resemble the monosyllables
hank, hank, kank, kank;
but now and then in the spring,
they emit a sweeter kind of chirp,
whenever the sexes meet,
or when they are feeding their young.”
Notes and more like a song than I remember to have heard from it. There was a chickadee close by, to which it may have been addressed. See January 5, 1859 ("I hear a fine busy twitter, and, looking up, see a nuthatch hopping along . . . and then it utters a distinct gnah, as if to attract a companion. Indeed, that other, finer twitter seemed designed to keep some companion in tow, or else it was like a very busy man talking to himself. The companion was a single chickadee, which lisped six or eight feet off.. . .And when the nuthatch flitted to another tree two rods off, the chickadee unfailingly followed.")
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! See March 13, 1853 ("Excepting a few blue birds and larks, no spring birds have come, apparently. . . .But what was that familiar spring sound from the pine wood across the river, a sharp vetter vetter vetter vetter, like some woodpecker, or possibly nuthatch?"); February 17, 1855 (" Hear this morning, at the new stone bridge, from the hill, that singular springlike note of a bird which I heard once before one year about this time (under Fair Haven Hill). . . Can it be a jay? or a pigeon woodpecker? Is it not the earliest springward note of a bird?”); February 18, 1857 ("When I step out into the yard I hear that earliest spring note from some bird, perhaps a pigeon woodpecker (or can it be a nuthatch, whose ordinary note I hear?), the rapid whar whar, whar whar, whar whar, which I have so often heard before any other note.”); March 17, 1857 (" I notice that woodpecker-like whar-whar-whar-whar-whar-whar, earliest spring sound."); March 18, 1857 ("I hear the faint fine notes of apparent nuthatches coursing up the pitch pines, a pair of them, one answering to the other, as it were like a vibrating watch-spring.Then, at a distance, that whar-whar whar-whar-whar-whar, which after all I suspect may be the note of the nuthatch and not a woodpecker."); March 20, 1858 ("I hear now, at 7 A. M., from the hill across the water, probably the note of a woodpecker, I know not what species; not that very early gnah gnah, which I have not heard this year.").; March 25, 1859 ("P. M.— To Clamshell. I heard the what what what what of the nuthatch this forenoon. Do I ever hear it in the afternoon ? It is much like the cackle of the pigeon woodpecker and suggests a relation to that bird. “); April 25, 1859 ("I hear still the what what what of a nuthatch, and, directly after, its ordinary winter note of gnah gnah, quite distinct. I think the former is its spring note or breeding-note.”) See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau,The Nuthatch
I see a crow going north or northeast, high over Fair Haven Hill, and, two or three minutes after, two more, and so many more at intervals of a few minutes. See March 5, 1854 ("See crows, as I think, migrating northeasterly. They come in loose, straggling flocks, about twenty to each, commonly silent, a quarter to a half a mile apart, till four flocks have passed, perhaps more. Methinks I see them going southwest in the fall.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the American Crow
I distinguished that its wings were black tipped. (I have no glass ) What can they be? Compare 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 ("See probably a hen-hawk (?) (black tips to wings), sailing low over the low cliff next the river, looking probably for birds. [May have been a marsh hawk or harrier.]" ) May 14, 1857 ("See a pair of marsh hawks, the smaller and lighter-colored male, with black tips to wings, and the large brown female, sailing low over J. Hosmer's sprout-land”) See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Marsh Hawk (Northern Harrier)
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