Hotter still than the last two days, — 90° and more.

May 8

Sunday. Hotter still than the last two days, — 90° and more. 

Summer yellowbird. 

C. sees a chimney swallow. 

Indeed, several new birds have come, and many new insects, with the expanding leafets. Catbird. 

The swollen leaf -buds of the white pine — and yet more the pitch pine — look whitish, and show life in the tree. 

Go on the river. 

The sweet flags, both pads, and equisetum and pontederia are suddenly becoming conspicuous, also the Arum peltandrum. 

Grackles here yet. 

Tree-toad is heard. 

Apple trees begin to make a show with their green. 

See two great devil's-needles go by coupled, the foremost blue, the second brown. 

Hear a dor-bug in the house at evening.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 8, 1859


Summer yellowbird. Indeed, several new birds have come, and many new insects, with the expanding leafets. See . May 8, 1854 (“Hear a yellowbird in the direction of the willows. Its note coarsely represented by che-che-che-char-char- char”); May 8, 1857 ("The ring of toads, the note of the yellowbird, the rich warble of the red-wing, the thrasher on the hillside, the robin's evening song, the woodpecker tapping some dead tree across the water "); May 10, 1858 (" For some days the Salix alba have shown their yellow wreaths here and there, suggesting the coming of the yellowbird, and now they are alive with them.")

Several new birds have come, and many new insects, with the expanding leafets. Catbird. See April 18, 1852 (I would make a chart of our life,  know why just this circle of creatures completes the world, what kinds of birds come with what flowers.) May 8, 1857 ("From amid the alders, etc., I hear the mew of the catbird and the yorrick of Wilson's thrush.")