How much it enhances the wildness and the richness of the forest to see in it some beautiful bird which you never detected before!

June 13. 

9 a. m. — To Orchis Swamp.

Find that there are two young hawks; one has left the nest and is perched on a small maple seven or eight rods distant. This one appears much smaller than the former one. I am struck by its large, naked head, so vulture-like, and large eyes, as if the vulture's were an inferior stage through which the hawk passed. Its feet, too, are large, remarkably developed, by which it holds to its perch securely like an old bird, before its wings can perform their office. It has a buff breast, striped with dark brown. 

Pratt, when I told him of this nest, said he would like to carry one of his rifles down there. But I told him that I should be sorry to have them killed. I would rather save one of these hawks than have a hundred hens and chickens. It was worth more to see them soar, especially now that they are so rare in the landscape. It is easy to buy eggs, but not to buy hen-hawks. 

My neighbors would not hesitate to shoot the last pair of hen-hawks in the town to save a few of their chick ens! But such economy is narrow and grovelling. It is unnecessarily to sacrifice the greater value to the less. I would rather never taste chickens' meat nor hens' eggs than never to see a hawk sailing through the upper air again. This sight is worth incomparably more than a chicken soup or a boiled egg. So we exterminate the deer and substitute the hog. 

It was amusing to observe the swaying to and fro of the young hawk's head to counterbalance the gentle motion of the bough in the wind. 

Violets appear to be about done, generally. 

Four-leaved loosestrife just out; also the smooth wild rose yesterday. The pogonia at Forget-me-not Brook.

What was that rare and beautiful bird in the dark woods under the Cliffs, with black above and white spots and bars, a large triangular blood-red spot on breast, and sides of breast and beneath white? Note a warble like the oriole, but softer and sweeter. It was quite tame. I cannot find this bird described.  I think it must be a grosbeak.

 At first I thought I saw a chewink, [as] it sat within a rod sideways to me, and I was going to call Sophia to look at it, but then it turned its breast full toward me and I saw the blood-red breast, a large triangular painted spot occupying the greater part of the breast. It was in the cool, shaded underwood by the old path just under the Cliff. It is a memorable event to meet with so rare a bird. 

Birds answer to flowers, both in their abundance and their rareness. The meeting with a rare and beautiful bird like this is like meeting with some rare and beautiful flower, which you may never find again, perchance, like the great purple fringed orchis, at least. How much it enhances the wildness and the richness of the forest to see in it some beautiful bird which you never detected before!

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, June 13, 1853


To Orchis Swamp. See June 12, 1853 ("Visited the great [purple fringed] orchis which I am waiting to have open completely. It is emphatically a flower (within gunshot of the hawk's nest); its great spike, six inches by two, of delicate pale-purple flowers, which begin to expand at bottom, rises above and contrasts with the green leaves of the hellebore and skunk-cabbage and ferns (by which its own leaves are concealed) in the cool shade of an alder swamp.")

What was that rare and beautiful bird in the dark woods under the Cliffs, with black above and white spots and bars, a large triangular blood-red spot on breast, and sides of breast and beneath white? --beautiful bird which you never detected before!. See May 25, 1854 ("Hear and see . . . the rose-breasted grosbeak, a handsome bird with a loud and very rich song, in character between that of a robin and a red-eye. . . . Rose breast, white beneath, black head and above, white on shoulder and wings."); May 24, 1855 (“Hear a rose-breasted grosbeak. At first think it a tanager, but soon I perceive its more clear and instrumental — should say whistle, if one could whistle like a flute; a noble singer, reminding me also of a robin; clear, loud and flute-like; . . . Song not so sweet as clear and strong.”); May 21, 1856 (“What strong colored fellows, black, white, and fiery rose-red breasts! Strong-natured, too, with their stout bills. A clear, sweet singer, like a tanager but hoarse somewhat, and not shy.”)

The meeting with a rare and beautiful bird like this is like meeting with some rare and beautiful flower, which you may never find again. See May 31, 1853 (“That a rare and beautiful flower which we never saw, perhaps never heard of, for which therefore there was no place in our thoughts may be found in our immediate neighborhood, is very suggestive.”)

Some rare and beautiful flower like the great purple fringed orchis. See June 15, 1852 ("Here also, at Well Meadow Head, I see the fringed purple orchis, unexpectedly beautiful, though a pale lilac purple, — a large spike of purple flowers. . . . The most striking and handsome large wild-flower of the year thus far that I have seen.")

June 13. See A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, June 13

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 © 2009-2021