We have now fairly begun to be surrounded with the brown of withered foliage.

October 12. 

P. M. — To Hubbard's Close. 

October 12, 2019

The common goldenrods on railroad causeway have begun to look hoary or gray, the down showing itself, — that November feature. 

I see scattered flocks of bay-wings amid the weeds and on the fences. 

There are now apparently very few ferns left (except the evergreen ones), and those are in sheltered places. This morning's frost will nearly finish them. 

Now for lycopodiums (the dendroideum not yet apparently in bloom), the dendroideum and lucidulum, etc., — how vivid a green ! — lifting their heads above the moist fallen leaves. 

We have now fairly begun to be surrounded with the brown of withered foliage, since the young white oaks have withered. This phenomenon begins with the very earliest frost (as this year August 17th), which kills some ferns and other most sensitive plants; and so gradually the plants, or their leaves, are killed and withered that we scarcely notice it till we are surrounded with the scenery of November.

I see quinces commonly left out yet, though apples are gathered. Probably their downy coats defend them. 

Going through Clintonia Swamp, I see many of those buff-brown puffballs one to two inches [in] diameter on the ground, partly open and with water in them and partly entire as yet, with a cracked surface. 

The willows on the Turnpike resound with the hum of bees, almost as in spring! I see apparently yellow wasps, hornets, and small bees attracted by something on their twigs.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, October 12, 1859

I see scattered flocks of bay-wings amid the weeds and on the fences.  See April 15, 1859 (“The bay-wing now sings — the first I have been able to hear ”); October 9, 1858 (“Bay-wings flit along road.”); October 11, 1856 ("Bay-wing sparrows numerous"); ;October 12, 1859 ("I see scattered flocks of bay-wings amid the weeds and on the fences.") October 16, 1855 ("I look at a grass-bird on a wall in the dry Great Fields. There is a dirty-white or cream-colored line above the eye and another from the angle of the mouth beneath it and a white ring close about the eye. The breast is streaked with this creamy white and dark brown in streams, as on the cover of a book.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Bay-Wing Sparrow

Now for lycopodiums — how vivid a green ! — lifting their heads above the moist fallen leaves.  See October 17, 1857 ("The Lycopodium lucidulum looks suddenly greener amid the withered leaves."); November 17, 1858 (" Lycopodium dendroideum . . .was apparently in its prime yesterday). So it would seem that these lycopodiums, at least, which have their habitat on the forest floor and but lately attracted my attention there (since the withered leaves fell around them and revealed them by the contrast of their color and they emerged from obscurity), —it would seem that they at the same time attained to their prime, their flowering season. It was coincident with this prominence.")

Going through Clintonia Swamp, I see many of those buff-brown puffballs . See October 5, 1856 ("In the huckleberry pasture, by the fence of old barn boards, I notice many little pale-brown dome-shaped (puckered to a centre beneath) puff-balls, which emit their dust. When you pinch them, a smoke-like brown dust (snuff-colored) issues from the orifice at their top, just like smoke from a chimney. It is so fine and light that it rises into the air and is wafted away like smoke. They are low Oriental domes or mosques. Sometimes crowded together in nests, like a collection of humble cottages on the moor, in the coal pit or Numidian style; for there is suggested some humble hearth beneath, from which this smoke comes up, as it were the homes of slugs and crickets.")

The willows on the Turnpike resound with the hum of bees, almost as in spring! I see apparently yellow wasps, hornets, and small bees attracted by something on their twigs. See October 12, 1856 ("It is interesting to see how some of the few flowers which still linger are frequented by bees and other insects. . . [I]n the garden, I see half a dozen honey bees, many more flies, some wasps, a grasshopper, and a large handsome butterfly, . . . I did not suspect such a congregation in the desolate garden")