That interesting small blue butterfly is apparently just out

April 30. 

 P. M. — Sail to Holden Swamp.

April 30, 2019

The warmest afternoon yet. Sat in sun without fire this forenoon. The wind has at length been easterly without rain following. 

Fishes, especially pickerel, lie up in greater numbers, though Haynes thinks the water is still too cold for them. See a bream. 

A small willow some ten rods north of stone bridge, east side, bloomed yesterday. Salix alba leafing, or stipules a quarter of an inch wide; probably began a day or two. 

Luzula campestris is almost out at Clamshell. Its now low purplish and silky-haired leaves are the blooming of moist ground and early meadow-edges. 

See two or three strawberry flowers at Clamshell.

The 27th and to-day are weather for a half-thick single coat. This old name is still useful. 

There is scarcely a puff of wind till I get to Clamshell; then it rises and comes from the northwest instead of northeast and blows quite hard and fresher. 

See a stake-driver. 

Land at Holden Wood. 

That interesting small blue butterfly (size of small red) is apparently just out, fluttering over the warm dry oak leaves within the wood in the sun. Channing also first sees them to-day. The moment it rests and closes its wings, it looks merely whitish-slate, and you think at first that the deeper blue was produced by the motion of its wings, but the fact is you now see only their undersides which thus [sic] whitish spotted with black, with a dark waved line next the edge. 

This first off-coat warmth just preceding the advent of the swamp warblers (parti-colored, red start, etc.) brings them out. I come here to listen for warblers, but hear or see only the black and white creeper and the chickadee. 

Did I not hear a tree sparrow this forenoon? 

The Viburnum nudum around the edge of the swamp, on the northern edge of the warm bays in sunny and sheltered places, has just expanded, say two days, the two diverging leafets being an inch long nearly, — pretty yellowish-brown leafets in the sun, the most noticeable leafiness here now, just spotting and enlivening the dead, dark, bare twigs, under the red blossoms of the maples. 

It is a day for many small fuzzy gnats and other small insects. Insects swarm about the expanding buds. 

The viburnum buds are so large and long, like a spear-head, that they are conspicuous the moment their two leafets diverge and they are lit up by the sun. They unfold their wings like insects and arriving warblers. These, too, mark the season well. You see them a few rods off in the sun, through the stems of the alders and maples. 

That small curled grass in tufts in dry pastures and hills, spoken of about a month ago, is not early sedge. 

I notice under the southern edge of the Holden Wood, on the Arrowhead Field, a great many little birches in the grass, apparently seedlings of last year, and I take up a hundred and ten from three to six or seven inches high. They are already leafed, the little rugose leafets more than half an inch wide, or larger than any wild shrubs or trees, while the larger white birches have not started. I could take up a thousand in two or three hours. I set ten in our yard. 

Channing saw ducks — he thinks female sheldrakes ! — in Walden to-day. 

Julius Smith says he saw a little hawk kill a robin yesterday.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, April 30, 1859

Sat in sun without fire this forenoon. See April 30, 1852 ("To-night for the first time I sit without a fire.")

That interesting small blue butterfly fluttering over the warm dry oak leaves within the wood in the sun. See note to April 19, 1860 ("See the small blue butterfly hovering over the dry leaves")

Interrupted fern scrolls there, four to five inches high

April 29. 

Black and white creeper

7 a. m. — To Walden, and set one hundred larch trees from England, all two years from seed, about nine inches high, just begun to leaf. 

See and hear a black and white creeper. 

First observe the dandelion well out in R. W. E.'s yard; also anemone at Sassafras Shore. 

Interrupted fern scrolls there, four to five inches high. 

Those red maples are reddest in which the fertile flowers prevail. 

Haynes was fishing for pickerel with a pole yesterday, and said that he caught several the day before, i. e. 27th.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, April 29, 1859

 See and hear a black and white creeper. See April 28, 1856 ("I hear to-day frequently the seezer seezer seezer of the black and white creeper, or what I have referred to that . . . It is not a note, nor a bird, to attract attention; only suggesting still warmer weather, —that the season has revolved so much further."); May 11, 1856("The black and white creeper also is descending the oaks, etc., and uttering from time to time his seeser seeser seeser. What a rich, strong striped blue-black (?) and white bird"); May 30, 1857 ("In the midst of the shower, though it was not raining very hard, a black and white creeper came and inspected the limbs of a tree before my rock, in his usual zigzag, prying way, head downward often, and when it thundered loudest, heeded it not.") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The Black and White Creeper

Interrupted fern scrolls there, four to five inches high. See April 29, 1855 ("The scrolls of the interrupted fern are already four or five inches high"); April 30, 1858 ( I noticed one of the large scroll ferns, with its rusty wool, up eight inches on the 28th."); also May 12, 1858 ("The cinnamon and interrupted ferns are both about two feet high in some places.")


Those red maples are reddest in which the fertile flowers prevail. See April 29, 1856 (" How pretty a red maple in bloom (they are now in prime), seen in the sun against a pine wood, like these little ones in the swamp against the neighboring wood, they are so light and ethereal, not a heavy mass of color impeding the passage of the light, and they are of so cheerful and lively a color. "); April 28, 1855 ("The red maples, now in bloom, are quite handsome at a distance over the flooded meadow . . .. The abundant wholesome gray of the trunks and stems beneath surmounted by the red or scarlet crescents"). See also April 1, 1860 ("The red maple buds are considerably expanded, and no doubt make a greater impression of redness."); April 10, 1853 (''The male red maple buds now show eight or ten (ten counting everything) scales, alternately crosswise, and the pairs successively brighter red or scarlet, which will account for the gradual reddening of their tops. They are about ready to open."); April 13, 1854 ('The red maple in a day or two. I begin to see the anthers in some buds. So much more of the scales of the buds is now uncovered that the tops of the swamps at a distance are reddened."); April 26, 1859 ('The blossoms of the red maple . . . are now most generally conspicuous and handsome scarlet crescents over the swamps.")  See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The Red Maple

Large waves are not so easily formed on account of friction.

April 28.

April 28, 2019

8.30 a. m. — Row to Carlisle Bridge with Blake and Brown. 

See black ducks and sheldrakes still. 

The first myrtle-bird that I have noticed. 

A small hawk, perhaps pigeon hawk. 

A gull. 

Sit on Ball's Hill. The water partly over the Great Meadows. The wind is northeast, and at the western base of the hill we are quite sheltered; yet the waves run quite high there and still further up the river, — waves raised by the wind beyond the hill, — while there are very slight waves or ripples over the meadow south of the hill, which is much more exposed, evidently because the water is shallow there and large waves are not so easily formed on account of friction. 

S. Higginson brought me the arbutus in bloom on the 26th, one twig only out. 

See a shad-fly, one only, on water. 

A little snake, size of little brown snake, on pine hill, but uniformly grayish above as far as I could see. 

E. Emerson's Salamandra dorsalis has just lost its skin.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, April 28, 1859


The first myrtle-bird that I have noticed. See April 28, 1855 ( ("There are a great many myrtle-birds here, — they have been quite common for a week.");  April 28, 1858 (“I see the myrtle-bird in the same sunny place, south of the Island woods, as formerly.”)

Ball’s Hill. See March 16, 1859 (“As we look over the lively, tossing blue waves for a mile or more eastward and northward, our eyes fall on these shining russet hills, and Ball's Hill appears in this strong light at the verge of this undulating blue plain, like some glorious newly created island of the spring, just sprung up from the bottom in the midst of the blue waters. ”)

See a shad-fly, one only, on water. See April 24, 1857 (“Sail to Ball's Hill. The water is at its height, higher than before this year. I see a few shad-flies on its surface.”). Compare May 1, 1854 ("The water is strewn with myriads of wrecked shad-flies, erect on the surface, with their wings up like so many schooners all headed one way.”)

A little snake, size of little brown snake, on pine hill, but uniformly grayish above. See October 29, 1857  (“I see evidently what Storer calls the little brown snake (Coluber ordinatus). . . . Above it is pale-brown, with a still lighter brown stripe running down the middle of the back”)

E. Emerson's Salamandra dorsalis has just lost its skin. See April 18, 1859 (“Ed. Emerson shows me his aquarium.. . .Two salamanders, . . . One some four inches long, with a carinated and waved (crenated) edged tail as well as light-vermilion spots on the back, evidently the Salamandra dorsalis. (This I suspect is what I called S. symmetrica last fall.) (This is pale-brown above.)”); December 5, 1858 (“How singularly ornamented is that salamander! Its brightest side, its yellow belly, sprinkled with fine dark spots, is turned downward. Its back is indeed ornamented with two rows of bright vermilion spots, but these can only be detected on the very closest inspection.”); December 3, 1858 ("brown (not dark-brown) above and yellow with small dark spots beneath, and the same spots on the sides of the tail; a row of very minute vermilion spots, not detected but on a close examination, on each side of the back; the tail is waved on the edge (upper edge, at least); has a pretty, bright eye. Its tail, though narrower, reminds me of the pollywog.")

The North Shore

April 27. 

Walk along Swampscott Beach from Red Rock northeast. 

The beach is strewn with beautifully colored purple and whitish algae just left by the tide. 

Hear and see the seringo in fields next the shore. No noticeable yellow shoulder, pure whitish beneath, dashed throat and a dark-brown line of dashes along the sides of the body. 

Struck inland and passed over the west end of High Rock, through the cemetery, and over Pine Hill, where I heard a strange warbler, methought, a dark-colored, perhaps reddish-headed bird. 

Thence through East Saugus and Saugus to Cliftondale, I think in the southern part of Saugus. 

The little brown snake with the light line along the back just killed in the road. 

Saw at the Aquarium in Bromfield Street apparently brook minnows with the longitudinal dark lines bordered with light. A little pout incessantly nibbles at the dorsal fin of the common perch, also at apparently the mucus on its back. 

See the sea-raven. 

Toads ring and, no doubt, in Concord also.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, April 27, 1859

Hear and see the seringo in fields next the shore. See note to December 7, 1858 ("Dr. Bryant calls my seringo (i. e. the faint-noted bird) Savannah sparrow.”)


The little brown snake with the light line along the back just killed in the road. See April 22, 1857 (“Near Tall's Island, rescue a little pale or yellowish brown snake that was coiled round a willow half a dozen rods from the shore and was apparently chilled by the cold. Was it not Storer's "little brown snake?”); October 29, 1857 (“I see evidently what Storer calls the little brown snake (Coluber ordinatus). . . . Above it is pale-brown, with a still lighter brown stripe running down the middle of the back”); April 29, 1858 ("Noticed a man killing, on the sidewalk by Minott's, a little brown snake with blackish marks along each side of back and a pink belly. Was it not the Coluber amaenus?”); October 18, 1858 (“Noticed a little snake, eight or nine inches long, in the rut in the road in the Lincoln woods. It was brown above with a paler-brown dorsal stripe, which was bounded on each side by a row of dark-brown or blackish dots one eighth inch apart, the opposite rows alternating; beneath, light cream-color or yellowish white. Evidently Storer’s Coluber ordinatus. It ran along in the deep sandy rut and would probably be run over there.”)

Botanizing Lynn

April 26. 

April 26, 2019

Start for Lynn. Rice says that he saw a large mud turtle in the river about three weeks ago, and has seen two or three more since. Thinks they come out about the first of April. 

He saw a woodchuck the 17th; says he heard a toad on the 23d. 

P. M. — Walked with C. M. Tracy in the rain in the western part of Lynn, near Dungeon Rock. This is the last of the rains (spring rains !) which invariably followed an east wind. Crossed a stream of stones ten or more rods wide, reaching from top of Pine Hill to Salem. 

Saw many discolor-like willows on hills (rocky hills), but apparently passing into S. humilis; yet no eriocephala, or distinct form from discolor. Also one S. rostrata. 

Tracy thought his neighborhood's a depauperated flora, being on the porphyry. Is a marked difference between the vegetation of the porphyry and the sienite. 

Got the Cerastium arvense from T.'s garden; said to be abundant on Nahant and to have flowers big as a five-cent-piece; very like a dianthus, — the leaf. 

Also got the Nasturtium officinale, or common brook cress, from Lynn, and set it in Depot Field Brook. Neither of these in bloom. His variety Virginica of Cardamine grows on dry ground.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, April 26, 1859

Is a marked difference between the vegetation of the porphyry and the sienite. See January 14, 1858 (“Rode . . . into the northwest part of Lynn, to the Danvers line. After a mile or two, we passed beyond the line of the porphyry into the sienite. The sienite is more rounded. Saw some furrows in sienite. On a ledge of sienite in the woods, the rocky woods near Danvers line, saw many boulders of sienite”)

Got the Nasturtium officinale, or common brook cress, from Lynn, and set it in Depot Field Brook.See July 21, 1856 (“The brook cress might be called river cress, for it is very abundant rising above the surface in all the shallower parts of the river.”)

Greenness prevails, a new season arrives

April 25. 

April 25, 2019

P. M. — To Kalmia Swamp. 

First notice martins.

I got to-day and yesterday the first decided impression of greenness beginning to prevail, summer-like. It struck me as I was going past some opening and by chance looked up some valley or glade, — greenness just beginning to prevail over the brown or tawny. It is a sudden impression of greater genialness in the air, when this greenness first makes an impression on you at some turn, from blades of grass decidedly green, though thin, in the sun and the still, warm air, on some warm orchard-slope perhaps. 

It reminds you of the time, not far off, when you will see the dark shadows of the trees there and buttercups spotting the grass. 

Even the grass begins to wave, in the 19th-of-April fashion. When the wind is still cool elsewhere, I glance up some warm southern slope, sunny and still, where the thinly scattered blades of green grass, lately sprung, already perchance begin to wave, and I am suddenly advertised that a new season has arrived. 

April 25, 1859

This is the beginning of that season which, methinks, culminates with the buttercup and wild pink and Viola pedata. 

It begins when the first toad is heard. Methinks I hear through the wind to-day — and it was the same yesterday — a very faint, low ringing of toads, as if distant and just begun. It is an indistinct undertone, and I am far from sure that I hear anything. It may be all imagination. 

I see the meadow-sweet, thimble-berry (even in a swamp), high blackberry, and (on a dry rock in the woods in a sunny place) some Vaccinium Pennsylvanicum leafing (even the last) apparently two or three days. Fern scrolls are eight inches high, — beyond Hubbard Bridge on the north bank of road. 

A mosquito endeavors to sting me. 

Ranunculus repens at Corner Spring apparently yesterday; five of them out now. Thus early now because exposed to light. 

The Viola blanda are numerously open there, say two days at least. 

Also bluets and potentilla are first noticed by me, and V. sagittate. 

The more yellowish red maples of this afternoon are one, barked, northeast corner Hubbard's Dracaena Grove, the easternmost tree of the row south of Hub bard's Grove, the larger about ten rods this side Hub bard Bridge, south side. The two at this end of bridge are quite red. 

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. 

E. Bartlett has found a crow's nest with four eggs a little developed in a tall white pine in the grove east of Beck Stow's. 

The snipe have hovered commonly this spring an hour or two before sunset and also in the morning. I can see them flying very high over the Mill-Dam, and they appear to make that sound when descending, — one quite by himself. 

Toads have been observed or disturbed in gardens for a week. 

One saw a striped snake the 3d of April on a warm railroad sand-bank, — a similar place to the others I heard of. 

Young Stewart tells me that he saw last year a pout's nest at Walden in the pond-hole by the big pond. The spawn lay on the mud quite open and uncovered, and the old fish was tending it. A few days after, he saw that it was hatched and little pouts were swimming about.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, April 25, 1859


The first decided impression of greenness beginning to prevail. See April 28, 1854 ("Perhaps the greenness of the landscape may be said to begin fairly now. . . .during the last half of April the earth acquires a distinct tinge of green, which finally prevails over the russet")

Even the grass begins to wave. . . and I am suddenly advertised that a new season has arrived. See May 19, 1860 ("This is the season when the meadow- grass is seen waving in the wind at the same time that the shadows of clouds are passing over it.."); May 27, 1855 ("The fields now begin to wear the aspect of June, their grass just beginning to wave");  May 30, 1852 (Now is the summer come. . . . A day for shadows, even of moving clouds, over fields in which the grass is beginning to wave.")

In the 19th-of-April fashion. See May 19, 1860 ("[T]hey say of the 19th of April, '75, — that "the apple trees were in bloom and grass was waving in the fields,")

It begins when the first toad is heard.  See  April 25, 1856 (“The toads have begun fairly to ring at noonday in amid the birches to hear them. The wind is pretty strong and easterly . . . It is a low, terrene sound, the undertone of the breeze. Now it sounds low and indefinitely far, now rises, as if by general consent, to a higher key, as if in another and nearer quarter, — a singular alternation.The now universal hard metallic ring of toads blended and partially drowned by the rippling wind. The voice of the toad, the herald of warmer weather.”); See slso April 13, 1853 ("First hear toads (and take off coat), a loud, ringing sound filling the air, which yet few notice."); April 13, 1858 ("Hear the first toad in the rather cool rain, 10 A. M."); April 15, 1856 (" I hear a clear, shrill, prolonged ringing note from a toad, the first toad of the year”); April 29, 1856 (“Do not the toads ring most on a windy day like this? ”); May 1, 1857 ("There is a cool and breezy south wind, and the ring of the first toad leaks into the general stream of sound, unnoticed by most. ") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The ring of Toads.

 The Viola blanda are numerously open [at Corner Spring], say two days at least. See  April 23, 1858 ("Saw a Viola blanda in a girl's hand.");;May 5, 1853 ("The Emerson children found blue and white violets May 1st at Hubbard's Close, probably Viola ovata and blanda; but I have not been able to find any yet.”).

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 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. 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! ")See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Nuthatch

A crow's nest with four eggs a little developed in a tall white pine in the grove east of Beck Stow's. See May 5, 1855 (" I direct my steps to them and am soon greeted with an angry caw, and, within five minutes from my resolve, I detect a new nest close to the top of the tallest white pine in the [Beck Stow] swamp.")

One saw a striped snake the 3d of April on a warm railroad sand-bank. See April 3, 1859 ("C. says he saw a striped snake on the 30th"); April 2, 1858 ("At the spring on the west side of Fair Haven Hill, I startle a striped snake.. . . No doubt on almost every such warm bank now you will find a snake lying out"); April 9, 1856 ("saw a striped snake, which probably I had scared into the water from the warm railroad bank”); April 16, 1855 (A striped snake rustles down a dry open hillside where the withered grass is long. "); April 20, 1854 ("A striped snake on a warm, sunny bank.")

The colors of the world.

April 24. 

April 24, 2017

6 a. m. — Water has fallen an inch and a half since last night, — which is at a regular rate. 

Now that the sun shines and the sky is blue, the water is a dark blue which in the storm was light or whitish. It follows the sky's, though the sky is a lighter blue.

The lilac buds have looked as forward as any for many weeks. 

2 p. m. — To Carlisle Bridge via Flint's Bridge, bank of river, rear of Joel Barrett's, returning by bridle-road. 

The elms are now fairly in blossom. 

It is one of those clear, washing days, — though the air is cold, — such as succeed a storm, when the air is clear and flowing, and the cultivated ground and the roads shine. 

Passed Flint's road on the wall. 

Sorrel is well under weigh, and cinquefoil. 

White oaks still hold their leaves. 

The pitch pine is a cheerful tree at this season, with its lively yellow-green in the sunshine, while the landscape is still russet and dead-grass colored.

Sitting by the road beyond N. Barrett's, the colors of the world are: 

• overhead a very light blue sky, darkest in the zenith, lightest in the horizon, with scattered white clouds seeming thickest in the horizon;

• all around the undulating earth a very light tawny color, from the dead grass, with the reddish and gray of forests mingled with evergreen;

• and, in the lap of earth, very dark blue rippled water, answering to the light blue above; 

• the shadows of clouds flitting over all below;

• the spires of woods fringing the horizon on every side, and, nearer, single trees here and there seen with dark branches against the sky. T

• this tawny ground divided by walls and houses, white, light slate, and red sprinkled here and there. 

Ball's Hill and the rest are deep sunk in the flood. 

The level water-line appears to best advantage when it appears thus to cut the trees and hills. It looks as if the water were just poured into its basin and simply stood so high. No permanent shore gives you this pleasure.

Saw the honey-bees on the staminate flowers of the willow catkins by the roadside (such as I described April 23d), with little bottles of the yellow pollen, apparently, as big as pin-heads on their thighs. With these flowers, then, come bees. Is there honey in staminate flowers? 

The innocent odor of spring flowers, flavorless, as a breakfast. They will be more spiced by and by.

Went over the cladonia hills toward Tarbell's.

A small tree, an oak for instance, looks large on a bare hilltop. 

The farmers, whom the storm has delayed, are busily plowing and overhauling their manure. 

Observed the ants at work on a large ant-heap. They plainly begin as soon as the snow is off and the ground thawed. 

Gold-thread, an evergreen, still bright in the swamps.

The rattlesnake-plantain has fresh leaves. 

A wall running over the top of a rocky hill, with the light seen through its chinks, has a pretty effect. 

The sparrows, frogs, rabbits, etc., are made to resemble the ground for their protection; but so is the hawk that preys on them; but he is of a lighter color beneath, that creeping things over which he hovers may confound him with the sky. The marsh hawk is not easily distinguished from the meadow or the stems of the maples. 

The water is still over the causeway on both sides of Carlisle Bridge for a long distance. It is a straight flood now for about four miles. Fortunately for the bridge the wind has not been very high since the flood was at its height. 

The leaves of the hardhack, curled up, show their white under sides. 

On the bridle-road observed the interesting light-crimson star-like flowers of the hazel, the catkins being now more yellowish. 

This is a singular and interesting part of Concord, extensive and rather flat rocky pastures without houses or cultivated fields on any but this unused bridle-road, from which I hear the frogs peep. These are Channing's "moors." He went in on this road to chop, and this is the scene of his "Woodman." 

Heard again (in the village) that vetter-vetter-vetter- vetter-vef, or tchi-tchi-tchi-tchi-tchi-tchi-tchi' very rapidly repeated, which I heard April 23d, and perhaps the same that I saw April 17th (described April 18th). I am pretty sure it is the pine warbler, yellow beneath, with faint olivaceous marks on the sides, olivaceous above, tail forked, about the size of a yellow-bird. 

I have not seen the fox-colored sparrow for some weeks.

Thought I saw a loon on Walden yesterday.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, April 24, 1852

The pitch pine is a cheerful tree at this season, with its lively yellow-green in the sunshine, , while the landscape is still russet and dead-grass colored. See April 24, 1857 ("Now the sun comes out and shines on the pine hill west of Ball's Hill, lighting up the light-green pitch pines and the sand and russet-brown lichen-clad hill. That is a very New England landscape.")See also April 11, 1852 ("The light of the setting sun on the pitch pines on Fair Haven and Bear Hill lights them up warmly.") and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Pitch Pine.

The leaves of the hardhack, curled up, show their white under sides. See April 24, 1860 ("The meadow-sweet and hardhack have begun to leaf.”)

Saw the honey-bees on the staminate flowers of the willow catkins . . . with little bottles of the yellow pollen, apparently, as big as pin-heads on their thighs. See April 9, 1853 (“Bees also in the female willows, of course without pellets. It must be nectar alone there.”); April 17, 1855 (“A bee curved close on each half-opened catkin, intoxicated with its early sweet, —one perhaps a honey-bee, — so intent on its sweets or pollen that they do not dream of flying. Various kinds of bees — some of the honey bees — have little yellow masses of pollen on their thighs; some seem to be taking it into their mouths”) 

Willows now in bloom 

resound with the hum of bees 

this warm afternoon. 

April 28, 1860

See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Bees

The interesting light-crimson star-like flowers of the hazel. See April 9, 1856 ("the stigmas already peep out, minute crimson stars"); April 11, 1856 ("the crimson stigmas of the hazel, like little stars peeping forth") April 13, 1855 ("many minute, but clear crystalline crimson stars at the end of a bare and seemingly dead twig.")

I am pretty sure it is the pine warbler, yellow beneath, with faint olivaceous marks on the sides, olivaceous above, tail forked, about the size of a yellow-bird. See April 9, 1856 ("Its bright yellow or golden throat and breast, etc., are conspicuous at this season, — a greenish yellow above, with two white bars on its bluish-brown wings. It sits often with loose-hung wings and forked tail.");  August 18, 1856 ("Clear-yellow throat and breast, greenish-yellow head, conspicuous white bar on wings, white beneath, forked tail, bluish legs. Can it be pine warbler? The note, thus faint, is not like it.")

I have not seen the fox-colored sparrow for some weeks. See April 24, 1855 ("Have not seen the F. hyemalis for a week.,"); 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.

Thought I saw a loon on Walden yesterday. See October 8, 1852 ("At length, having come up fifty rods off, he uttered one of those prolonged unearthly howls, as if calling on the god of loons to aid him, and immediately there came a wind from the east and rippled the surface, and filled the whole air with misty rain.")

A large hickory apparently just blown down, the one I saw the screech owl go into two or three years ago.

April 23. 

Rain, rain. 

Hear seringo, by chance the first, and while it rains. 

The tree sparrows abundant and singing in the yard, but I have not noticed a hyemalis of late. 

The field sparrow sings in our yard in the rain. 

The sidewalk is all strewn with fishworms this forenoon, up and down the street, and many will evidently die in the cold rain. Apparently the rain tempted them to remain on the surface, and then the cold and wet benumbs and drowns them. Some of them are slowly crawling across the paths. What an abundant supply of food for the birds lately arrived!

From Gilbert White, and the notes by others to his last edition, I should infer that these were worms which, having been tempted out in unusual numbers by the rain, lost their way back to their holes. They say that they never take their tails out of their holes. 

In about five quarts of scarlet oak acorns gathered the other day there [were] only some three gills that had life in them, or say one in seven. I do not know how many the squirrels had got, but as it was quite near a house, a tree by itself, I think not a great many. The rest were apparently destroyed by worms; so that I should say the worms destroyed before spring three fourths of them. As the grub is already in the acorn, it may be just as well (except for the squirrels) to sow them now as in the fall, whatever you can get. 

Clears up at 3 p. m., and a very strong south wind blows. 

I go on the water. I frequently observe that the waves do not always run high in proportion to the strength of the wind. The wind seems sometimes to flat them down, perhaps when it blows very hard in gusts, which interrupt a long roll. 

What is that small willow on the north side of S. Brown's stump, which apparently began to open two days ago? 

A large hickory by the wall on the north side (or northeast side) of the hill apparently just blown down, the one I saw the screech owl go into two or three years ago. I think it may have fallen in this very high wind which arose within an hour; at any rate it has fallen since the grass began to spring, for the owl-hole contains a squirrel's nest made of half-green grass some what withered, which could only have been found quite recently, and also the limbs have been driven so deep into the ground that I cannot pull them out, which shows that the ground was thawed when it fell; also the squirrel's nest, which is perfectly sheltered, now the tree is fallen, was quite wet through with rain, that of the morning, as I think. 

This nest, which I suppose was that of a red squirrel, was at the bottom of a large hole some eighteen inches deep and twenty-five feet from the ground, where a large limb had been broken off formerly. An opening on the side had been stopped with twigs as big as a pipe-stem and larger, some of them the hickory twigs quite green and freshly gnawed off with their buds, forming a rude basketwork which kept up and in the grass and rotten wood, four or five handfuls of which, mixed with the rotten wood of the inside, composed the nest. This was the half old and withered and half green grass gathered a few days since about the base of the tree.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, April 23, 1859

Hear seringo, by chance the first, and while it rains See April 22, 1856 ("The seringo also sits on a post, with a very distinct yellow line over the eye, and the rhythm of its strain is ker chick | ker che | ker-char—r-r-r-r | chick,")  See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Savannah Sparrow (Fringilla savanna)

But I have not noticed a hyemalis of late. Compare April 23, 1854 ("A rain is sure to bring the tree sparrow and hyemalis to the gardens"). See April 17, 1854 ("There are but few F. hyemalis about now; they appear to have gone north mostly on the advent of warmer weather."); April 17, 1855 (" I  do not remember an F. hyemalis for two days"); and  notes to March 14, 1858 and October 5, 1857 ( F. hyemalis . . . only transiently visit us in spring and fall.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Dark-eyed Junco

The field sparrow sings in our yard in the rain. See April 23, 1854 (" A rain is sure to bring the tree sparrow and hyemalis to the gardens."). See also April 27, 1852 ("Heard the field or rush sparrow this morning (Fringilla juncorum), George Minott's "huckleberry-bird." It sits on a birch and sings at short intervals,. . .; sounding like phe, phe, phe, pher-pher-tw-tw-tw-t-t-t-t, — the first three slow and loud, the next two syllables quicker, and the last part quicker and quicker, becoming a clear, sonorous trill or rattle, like a spoon in a saucer"). and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Field Sparrow; A Book of the Seasons by Henry Thoreau, Birds in the Rain

.

The sidewalk is all strewn with fishworms this forenoon. See May 4, 1857 (" I see in the footpath across the Common, where water flows or has flown, a great many worms, apparently drowned.")

A large hickory by the wall on the north side (or northeast side) of the hill , the one I saw the screech owl go into two or three years ago. See May 25, 1855 ("Scared a screech owl out of an apple tree on hill; flew swiftly off . . . then flew into a hole high in a hickory near by")

The nest of a red squirrel forming a rude basketwork. See April 1, 1858 ("I see a squirrel's nest twenty-three or twenty-four feet high in a large maple, and, climbing to it, —for it was so peculiar, having a basketwork of twigs about it.")  See also Henry Thoreau, A Book of the Seasons, The Red Squirrel.

A beautiful law of distribution.

April 22. 

The Salix purpurea in prime, out probably three or four days; say 19th. 

Arbor-vitae, how long? 

P. M. — In a fine rain, around Walden. 

I go by a Populus grandidentata on the eastern sand slope of the Deep Cut just after entering, whose aments (which apparently here began to shed pollen yesterday) in scattered clusters at the ends of the bare twigs, but just begun to shed their pollen, not hanging loose and straight yet, but curved, are a very rich crimson, like some ripe fruit, as mulberries, seen against the sand. I cannot represent the number in a single cluster, but they are much the handsomest now before the crimson anthers have burst, and are all the more remarkable for the very open and bare habit of the tree. 

When setting the pines at Walden the last three days,

I was sung to by the field sparrow.

For music I heard their jingle from time to time.

That the music the pines were set to, and

I have no doubt they will build many a nest

under their shelter. 

It would seem as if such a field as this —

a dry open or half-open pasture in the woods,

with small pines scattered in it —

was well-nigh, if not quite, abandoned to

this one alone among the sparrows. 

The surface of the earth is portioned out among them.

By a beautiful law of distribution,

one creature does not too much interfere with another.

          I do not hear the song sparrow here. 

As the pines gradually increase,

and a wood-lot is formed,

these birds will withdraw to new pastures,

and the thrushes, etc., will take their place. 

[S]o my pines were established

by the song of the field sparrow.

They commonly place their nests here

under the shelter of a little pine in the field. 

As I planted there, wandering thoughts visited me, which I have now forgotten. My senses were busily suggesting them, though I was unconscious of their origin. 

E. g., I first consciously found myself entertaining the thought of a carriage on the road, and directly after I was aware that I heard it. No doubt I had heard it before, or rather my ears had, but I was quite unconscious of it, — it was not a fact of my then state of existence; yet such was the force of habit, it affected my thoughts nevertheless, so double, if not treble, even, are we. 

Sometimes the senses bring us information quicker than we can receive it. Perhaps these thoughts which run in ruts by themselves while we are engaged in some routine may be called automatic. 

I distinctly entertained the idea of a carriage, without the slightest suspicion how it had originated or been suggested to my mind. I have no doubt at all that my ears had heard it, but my mind, just then preoccupied, had refused to attend to it. 

This suggests that most, if not all, indeed, of our ideas may be due to some sort of sensuous impression of which we may or may not be conscious. 

This afternoon there is an east wind, and a rain-storm accordingly beginning, the eighth of the kind with this wind. 

I still see a large flock of grackles. 

Within a few days I pricked my fingers smartly against the sharp, stiff points of some sedge coming up. At Heywood's meadow, by the railroad, this sedge, rising green and dense with yellow tips above the withered clumps, is very striking, suggesting heat, even a blaze, there. 

Scare up partridges feeding about the green springy places under the edge of hills. See them skim or scale away for forty rods along and upward to the woods, into which they swiftly scale, dodging to right and left and avoiding the twigs, yet without once flapping the wings after having launched themselves.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, April 22, 1859

I go by a Populus grandidentata on the eastern sand slope of the Deep Cut  whose aments are a very rich crimson. See April 3, 1853 ("The female Populus tremuliformis catkins, narrower and at present more red and somewhat less downy than the male, west side of railroad at Deep Cut, quite as forward as the male in this situation");  April 8, 1853 ("The male Populus grandidentata . . .shows some of its red anthers long before it opens. There is a female on the left, on Warren's Path at Deep Cut.") See also A Book of Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Big-toothed Aspen

A field as this — a dry open or half-open pasture in the woods, with small pines scattered in it — [is]abandoned to this one alone among the sparrows. See  April 19, 1860 ("Hear the field sparrow sing on his dry upland, it being a warm day, and see the small blue butterfly hovering over the dry leaves.") See also A Book of Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Field Sparrow

Our ideas may be due to some sort of sensuous impression of which we may or may not be conscious. Compare November 18, 1851 ("The chopper who works in the woods all day for many weeks or months at a time becomes intimately acquainted with them in his way. He is more open in some respects to the impressions they are fitted to make than the naturalist who goes to see them. He really forgets himself, forgets to observe, and at night he dreams of the swamp, its phenomena and events. Not so the naturalist; enough of his unconscious life does not pass there.")

At Heywood's meadow, by the railroad, this sedge, rising green and dense with yellow tips above the withered clumps, is very striking. See June 19, 1859 ("The prevailing sedge of Heywood Meadow by Bartlett Hill-side, that which showed yellow tops in the spring, is the Carex stricta. On this the musquash there commonly makes its stools. A tall slender sedge with conspicuous brown staminate spikes")

This afternoon there is an east wind, and a rain-storm accordingly beginning, the eighth of the kind with this wind. See April 22, 1852 ("It still rains. The water is over the road at Flint's Bridge . . . This makes five stormy days. Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday."); April 22, 1856 ("It has rained two days and nights, and now the sun breaks out, but the wind is still easterly, and the storm probably is not over . . . These rain-storms -- this is the third day of one -- characterize 'the season, and belong rather to winter than to summer.")

Scare up partridges feeding about the green springy places under the edge of hills. See April 22, 1852 ("Our dog sends off a partridge with a whir, far across the open field and the river, like a winged bullet. ") See also A Book of Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Partridge.

Love song

Desire is the song of love,

love the song of life,

life the song of you.

With you my love sings. 

My desire is alive to

the extremities.

May 6, 1854 (“All that a man has to say or do that can possibly concern mankind, is in some shape or other to tell the story of his love, — to sing; and, if he is fortunate and keeps alive, he will be forever in love. This alone is to be alive to the extremities.”);

My ruby-crowned or crested wren

April 20. 

Hear and see my ruby-crowned or crested wren singing at 6 a. m. on Wheildon's pines. 

Ruby-Crowned Wren on Kalmia Angustifollia

Setting pines all day.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, April 20, 1859

Hear and see my ruby-crowned or crested wren singing. See April 25, 1854 (“A very interesting and active little fellow, darting about amid the tree-tops, and his song quite remarkable and rich and loud for his size. Begins with a very fine note, before its pipes are filled, not audible at a little distance, then woriter weter, etc., etc., winding up with teter teter, all clear and round. This was at 4 p. m., when most birds do not sing. I saw it yesterday, pluming itself and stretching its little wings. Our smallest bird, methinks, except the hummingbird.”); May 6, 1855 ("Hear at a distance a ruby(?)-crowned wren, so robin-like and spirited. After see one within ten or fifteen feet. Dark bill and legs, apparently dark olivaceous ashy head, a little whitish before and behind the full black eyes, ash breast, olive-yellow on primaries, with a white bar, dark tail and ends of wings, white belly and vent. Did not notice vermilion spot on hindhead. It darts off from apple tree for insects like a pewee, and returns to within ten feet of me as if curious. I think this the only Regulus I have ever seen.”);  May 7, 1855 (“Climbed to two crows’ nests . . . A ruby-crested wren is apparently attracted and eyes me.”); July 14, 1856 (“Saw apparently my little ruby(?)-crested wren(?) on the weeds there.”); April 30, 1857 (“Hear again the same bird heard at Conantum April 18th, which I think must be the ruby-crowned wren. ”); April 29, 1858  (“I Heard yesterday at Ledum Swamp the lively, sweet, yet somewhat whimsical note of the ruby crowned wren.");  April 26, 1860 ("Hear the ruby-crowned wren in the morning, near George Heywood’s.”). See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau: the ruby-crowned or crested wren and note to December 25, 1859 ("I hear a sharp fine screep from some bird,. . . I can see a brilliant crown. . . . It is evidently the golden-crested wren, which I have not made out before.”)

Wheildon's pines. See December 21, 1855 (“ I hear and see tree sparrows on Wheildon’s pines,”); March 21, 1859 ("I see several white pine cones in the path by Wheildon's . . . Others still hold on.”) 

Setting pines all day. See April 19, 1859 ("Began to set white pines in R.W.E.'s Wyman lot."); April 21, 1859 (" Setting pines all day. This makes two and a half days, with two men and a horse and cart to help me. We have set some four hundred trees at fifteen feet apart diamondwise, covering some two acres. I set every one with my own hand") April 22, 1859 ("When setting the pines at Walden the last three days,I was sung to by the field sparrow. . . .As I planted there, wandering thoughts visited me, which I have now forgotten.")

See also  A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, April 20

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau

 "A book, each page written in its own season,

out-of-doors, in its own locality."

 ~edited, assembled and rewritten by zphx ©  2009-2023