A Book of the Seasons: The Pitch Pine in Winter

Why should just these sights and sounds
accompany our life?

I would fain explore
the mysterious relation 

between myself and these things. 

I would at least know
what these things unavoidably are, know
why just this circle of creatures completes the world.

Henry Thoreau, 

April 18, 1852

I see a pitch pine

seed, blown thirty rods from J.

Hosmer’s little grove.

February 1, 1856

December 5. Rather hard walking in the snow. There is a slight mist in the air and accordingly some glaze on the twigs and leaves, and thus suddenly we have passed from Indian summer to winter. . . . . I remark, half a mile off, a tall and slender pitch pine against the dull-gray mist, peculiarly monumental. December 5, 1859

December 12.  The pitch pines have not done falling, considerable having fallen on the snow. December 12, 1858

December 14. I heard the sound of a downy woodpecker tapping a pitch pine in a little grove, and saw him inclining to dodge behind the stem. He flitted from pine to pine before me. Frequently, when I pause to listen, I hear this sound in the orchards or streets. This was in one of these dense groves of young pitch pines.  December 14, 1855

December 17. The pitch pine woods on the right of the Corner road.. . . The pitch pines hold the snow well. It lies now in balls on their plumes and in streaks on their branches, their low branches rising at a small angle and meeting each other. A certain dim religious light comes through this roof of pine leaves and snow. It is a sombre twilight, yet in some places the sun streams in, producing the strongest contrasts of light and shade. December 17, 1851

December 18. The pitch pines on the south of the road at the Colburn farm are very inspiriting to behold. Their green is as much enlivened and freshened as that of the lichens. It suggests a sort of sunlight on them, though not even a patch of clear sky is seen to-day. December 18, 1859

December 26. I passed by the pitch pine that was struck by lightning. I was impressed with awe on looking up and seeing that broad, distinct spiral mark, more distinct even than when made eight years ago, as one might groove a walking-stick, — mark of an invisible and in tangible power, a thunderbolt, mark where a terrific and resistless bolt came down from heaven, out of the harmless sky, eight years ago. It seemed a sacred spot. December 26, 1853

January 3. That large round track forming nearly a straight line Goodwin thinks a fox. January 3, 1854

January 4.  In Hosmer's pitch pine wood just north of the bridge, I find myself on the track of a fox. January 4, 1860

January 7. The pitch pine tops were much broken by the damp snow last month. January 7, 1855

January 8.  All of the pitch pine cones that I see, but one, are open.   January 8, 1856

January 13.  Picked up a pitch pine cone which had evidently been cut off by a squirrel. The successive grooves made by his teeth while probably he bent it down were quite distinct. The woody stem was a quarter of an inch thick, and I counted eight strokes of his chisel. January 13, 1855

January 18.  Standing under Lee's Cliff, several chickadees, uttering their faint notes, come flitting near to me as usual. They are busily prying under the bark of the pitch pines, occasionally knocking off a piece, while they cling with their claws on any side of the limb. Of course they are in search of animal food, but I see one suddenly dart down to a seedless pine seed wing on the snow, and then up again. C. says that he saw them busy about these wings on the snow the other day, so I have no doubt that they eat this seed. January 18, 1860

January 19. The snow lay in great continuous masses on the pitch pines and the white, not only like napkins, but great white table-spreads and counterpanes, when you looked off at the wood from a little distance. Looking thus up at the Cliff, I could not tell where it lay an unbroken mass on the smooth rock, and where on the trees, it was so massed on the last also. . . . On some pitch pines it lay in fruit-like balls as big as one’s head, like cocoanuts.. . . Under one pitch pine, which shut down to the ground on every side, you could not see the sky at all, but sat in a gloomy light as in a tent. January 19, 1855

January 22. At Walden, near my old residence, I find that since I was here on the 11th, apparently within a day or two, some gray or red squirrel or squirrels have been feeding on the pitch pine cones extensively. The snow under one young pine is covered quite thick with the scales they have dropped while feeding overhead. I count the cores of thirty-four cones on the snow there, and that is not all. Under another pine there are more than twenty, and a well-worn track from this to a fence post three rods distant, under which are the cores of eight cones and a corresponding amount of scales.  The track is like a very small rabbit. They have gnawed off the cones which were perfectly closed.  I see where one has taken one of a pair and left the other partly off. He had first sheared off the needles that were in the way, and then gnawed off the sides or cheeks of the twig to come at the stem of the cone, which as usual was cut by successive cuts as with a knife, while bending it.

One or two small, perhaps dead, certainly unripe ones were taken off and left unopened. I find that many of those young pines are now full of unopened cones, which apparently will be two years old next summer, and these the squirrel now eats. There are also some of them open, perhaps on the most thrifty twigs.  January 22, 1856

January 23.  I see where the squirrels have torn the pine cones in pieces to come at their seeds. And in some cases the mice have nibbled the buds of the pitch pines, where the plumes have been bent down by the snow. January 23, 1852

January 25.  A closed pitch pine cone gathered January 22d opened last night in my chamber. . . .If you would be convinced how differently armed the squirrel is naturally for dealing with pitch pine cones, just try to get one off with your teeth. He who extracts the seeds from a single closed cone with the aid of a knife will be constrained to confess that the squirrel earns his dinner. It is a rugged customer, and will make your fingers bleed. But the squirrel has the key to this conical and spiny chest of many apartments. He sits on a post, vibrating his tail, and twirls it as a plaything.  January 25, 1856

January 30. The snow collects upon the plumes of the pitch pine in the form of a pineapple. January 30, 1841

January 31. The value of the pitch pine in winter is that it holds the snow so finely. I see it now afar on the hillsides decking itself with it, its whited towers forming coverts where the rabbit and the gray squirrel lurk. It makes the most cheerful winter scenery beheld from the window, you know so well the nature of the coverts and the sombre light it makes. January 31, 1852

January 31. Saw a pitch pine on a rock about four feet high, but two limbs flat on the ground. This spread much and had more than a hundred cones of different ages on it. Such are always the most fertile. January 31, 1860

February 1. I see a pitch pine seed, blown thirty rods from J. Hosmer’s little grove. February 1, 1856

February 2. I stole up within five or six feet of a pitch pine behind which a downy woodpecker was pecking. From time to time he hopped round to the side and observed me without fear. They are very confident birds, not easily scared, but incline to keep the other side of the bough to you, perhaps. February 2, 1854

February 4. The pitch pines are a brighter yellowish-green than usual. The sun loves to nestle in the boughs of the pine and pass rays through them. February 4, 1852

February 6 Already the white pine plumes were drooping, but the pitch pines stood stifliy erect. I was again struck by the deep open cup at the extremity of the latter, formed by the needles standing out very regularly around the red-brown buds at the bottom. February 6, 1857

February 13. I see where the squirrels have been eating the pitch pine cones since the last snow. February 13, 1855

February 13.  The crust is quite green with the needles of pitch pines, sometimes whole plumes which have recently fallen. Are these chiefly last year’s needles brought down by the glaze, or those of the previous year which had not fallen before?  February 13, 1856

February 14. I find that a great many pine-needles, both white and pitch, of ’54 still hold on, bristling around the twigs, especially if the tree has not grown much the last year. So those that strew the snow now are of both kinds.   February 14, 1856

February 16. It is a moist and starry snow, lodging on trees, — leaf, bough, and trunk. The pines are well laden with it. How handsome, though wintry, the side of a high pine wood, well grayed with the snow that has lodged on it, and the smaller pitch pines converted into marble or alabaster with their lowered plumes like rams' heads! The character of the wood-paths. February 16, 1860

February 18. I see pitch pine cones two years old still closed on felled trees, two to six together recurved, in the last case closely crowded and surrounding the twig in a ring, forming very rich-looking clusters eight to ten inches from the extremity, and, within two or three inches of the extremity, maybe one or two small ones of the last year. Low down on twigs around the trunks of old trees, and sometimes on the trunk itself, you see old gray cones which have only opened or blossomed at the apex, covered with lichens; which have lost their spines. February 18, 1855

February 22.  Pitch pine cones must be taken from the tree at the right season, else they will not open or “blossom” in a chamber. I have one which was gnawed off by squirrels, apparently of full size, but which does not open.   February 22, 1855

February 27. A week or two ago I brought home a handsome pitch pine cone which had freshly fallen and was closed perfectly tight. It was put into a table drawer. To-day I am agreeably surprised to find that it has there dried and opened with perfect regularity, filling the drawer, and from a solid, narrow, and sharp cone, has become a broad, rounded, open one, -- has, in fact, expanded with the regularity of a flower's petals into a conical flower of rigid scales, and has shed a remarkable quantity of delicate-winged seeds. Each scale, which is very elaborately and perfectly constructed, is armed with a short spine, pointing downward, as if to protect its seed from squirrels and birds. That hard closed cone, which defied all violent attempts to open it has thus yielded to the gentle persuasion of warmth and dryness. The expanding of the pine cones, that, too, is a season.  February 27, 1853

February 27.  I had noticed for some time, far in the middle of the Great Meadows, something dazzlingly white, which I took, of course, to be a small cake of ice on its end, but now that I have climbed the pitch pine hill and can overlook the whole meadow, I see it to be the white breast of a male sheldrake accompanied perhaps by his mate (a darker one). February 27, 1860

February 28. I see twenty-four cones brought together under one pitch pine in a field, evidently gnawed off by a squirrel, but not opened. February 28, 1858

February 28.  I take up a handsomely spread (or blossomed) pitch pine cone, but I find that a squirrel has begun to strip it first, having gnawed off a few of the scales at the base. The squirrel always begins to gnaw a cone thus at the base, as if it were a stringent law among the squirrel people, — as if the old squirrels taught the young ones a few simple rules like this. February 28, 1860

March 1. I see a pitch pine seed with its wing, far out on Walden. March 1, 1856 

March 3. A few rods from the broad pitch pine beyond, I find a cone which was probably dropped by a squirrel in the fall, for I see the marks of its teeth where it was cut off; and it has probably been buried by the snow till now, for it has apparently just opened, and I shake its seeds out. Not only is this cone, resting upright on the ground, fully blossomed, a very beautiful object, but the winged seeds which half fill my hand, small triangular black seeds with thin and delicate flesh colored wings, remind me of fishes. 

I see, in another place under a pitch pine, many cores of cones which the squirrels have completely stripped of their scales,   These you find left on and about stumps where they have sat, and under the pines. Most fallen pitch pine cones show the marks of squirrels’ teeth, showing they were cut off. March 3, 1855

March 5. The red ground under a large pitch pine is strewn with scales of the ashy-brown bark over a diameter of ten or twelve feet, where some woodpecker has searched and hammered about the stem. March 5, 1857

March 6. The hemlock cones have shed their seeds, but there are some closed yet on the ground. Part of the pitch pine cones are yet closed. This is the form of one: —

 March 6, 1853

March 6. See the snow discolored yellowish under a (probably) gray squirrel’s nest high in a pitch pine, and acorn shells about on it. March 6, 1856

March 8. A partridge goes off from amid the pitch pines. March 8, 1857.

March 8. I see, under the pitch pines on the southwest slope of the hill, the reddish bud-scales scattered on the snow which fell on the 4th, and also settled an inch into it, and, examining, I find that in a great many cases the buds have been eaten by some creature and the scales scattered about, or, being opened, have closed over a cavity. Many scales rest amid the needles. There is no track on the snow, which is soft, but the scales must have been dropped within a day or two. I see near one pine, however, the fresh track of a partridge and where one has squatted all night. Tracks might possibly have been obliterated by the rapid melting of the snow the last day or two. Yet I am inclined to think that these were eaten by the red squirrel; or was it the crossbill? for this is said to visit us in the winter. Have I ever seen a squirrel eat the pine buds? March 8, 1859

March 11.  C. observes where mice (?) have gnawed the pitch pines the past winter. Is not this a phenomenon of a winter of deep snow only? as that when I lived at Walden, a hard winter for them. I do not commonly observe it on a large scale. March 11, 1861

A Book of 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 ©  2009-2020

The ice has many curious marks on it.

January 31. 

2 p. m. — To Bedford Level. 

Thermometer 45. Fair but all overcast. Sun's place quite visible. Wind southwest.

Went to what we called Two-Boulder Hill, behind the house where I was born. There the wind suddenly changed round 90° to northwest, and it became quite cold (had fallen to 24° at 5.30). 

Called a field on the east slope Crockery Field, there were so many bits in it. 

Saw a pitch pine on a rock about four feet high, but two limbs flat on the ground. This spread much and had more than a hundred cones of different ages on it. Such are always the most fertile. 

Can look a great way northeast along the Bedford Swamp. 

Saw a large hawk, probably hen-hawk. 

The ice that has been rotting and thawing from time to time on the meadows — the water run out from below — has many curious marks on it. There are many ingrained waving lines more or less parallel. Often they make circular figures, or oval, and are concentric, as if they marked the edge of a great bubble or the like. 

I notice the ice on a ditched brook so far worn by the current as to be mackerelled in color, white and dark, all along the middle, making a figure two or three rods long which reminds me forcibly of the flat skin of a boa-constrictor, — marked just like it.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, January 31, 1860



The house where I was born. See About Thoreau Farm (“[I was] born July 12, 1817 in the Minott House, on the Virginia Road," Concord); and note to December 27. 1855 ("the various houses (and towns) in which I have lived")

A pitch pine on a rock about four feet high had more than a hundred cones of different ages on it. See  April 29, 1857 ("See old cones within two feet of the ground on the trunk, — sometimes a circle of them around it, — which must have been formed on the young tree some fifteen years ago.");  pitch pine cones two years old still closed on felled trees, two to six together recurved, in the last case closely crowded and surrounding the twig in a ring, forming very rich-looking clusters eight to ten inches from the extremity, and, within two or three inches of the extremity, maybe one or two small ones of the last year. Low down on twigs around the trunks of old trees, and sometimes on the trunk itself, you see old gray cones which have only opened or blossomed at the apex, covered with lichens; which have lost their spines. February 18, 1855 ("I see pitch pine cones two years old still closed on felled trees, two to six together recurved, in the last case closely crowded and surrounding the twig in a ring, forming very rich-looking clusters eight to ten inches from the extremity, and, within two or three inches of the extremity, maybe one or two small ones of the last year. Low down on twigs around the trunks of old trees, and sometimes on the trunk itself, you see old gray cones which have only opened or blossomed at the apex, covered with lichens; which have lost their spines."); see also T. Evans, Forest Trees of Vemont ("Cones often remain on the trees 10-12 years.") and  A Book of the Seasons, The Pitch Pine in Winter

The ice that has been rotting and thawing has many curious marks on it. See January 26, 1859 ("The ice, having fairly begun to decompose, is very handsomely marked  . . .  with a sort of graphic character, or bird-tracks, very agreeable and varied.")

I notice the ice so far worn by the current as to be mackerelled in color, white and dark, all along the middle. See March 3, 1857 ("Flakes of thin ice from two or three inches to a foot in diameter, scattered like a mackerel sky over the pastures"); January 25, 1860 ("When the river begins to break up, it becomes clouded like a mackerel sky, but in this case the blue portions are where the current, clearing away the ice beneath, begins to show dark."); February 12, 1860 ("Above me is a cloudless blue sky; beneath, the sky-blue, sky-reflecting ice with patches of snow scattered over it like mackerel clouds");

JANUAR 28, 2018

A mackerel sky

of pine boughs sunny above

and shaded beneath.

March 26, 1860

A Book of the Seasons: THE SNOW-FLEA

I would make a chart of our life, 

know why just this circle of creatures 
completes the world.

Henry Thoreau, April 18, 1852

When I breathe on them

I find them all alive

and ready to skip.

This must be 

as peculiarly 

a winter animal

 as any. 

It may truly be said

 to live in snow.

It is the creature of the thaw. 

Moist snow is its element.

November 11. Snow-fleas are skipping on the surface of the water at the edge, and spiders running about. November 11, 1858

November 25. For some days since colder weather, I notice the snow-fleas skipping on the surface the shore. I see them today skipping by thousands in the wet clamshells left by the muskrats. These are rather a cool-weather phenomenon.  November 25, 1859 

December 7. Saw a pile of snow-fleas in a rut in the wood-path, six or seven inches long and three quarters of an inch high, to the eye exactly like powder, as if a sportsman had spilled it from his flask; and when a stick was passed through the living and skipping mass, each side of the furrow preserved its edge as in powder. December 7, 1852

December 10. Snow-fleas in paths; first I have seen.  December 10, 1854 

December 16.The snow everywhere is covered with snow-fleas like pepper. When you hold a mass in your hand, they skip and are gone before you know it. They are so small that they go through and through the new snow. They look like some powder which the hunter has spilled in the path.  December 16, 1850

January 5. Still thaws. This afternoon (as probably yesterday), it being warm and thawing, though fair, the snow is covered with snow-fleas. Especially they are sprinkled like pepper for half a mile in the tracks of a woodchopper in deep snow. These are the first since the snow came. January 5, 1854

January 7. A thaw begins, with a southerly wind. . . . As soon as I reach the neighborhood of the woods I begin to see the snow-fleas, more than a dozen rods from woods, amid a little goldenrod, etc., where, methinks, they must have come up through the snow. Last night there was not one to be seen. January 7, 1860 

January 9. Find many snow-fleas, apparently frozen, on the snow.  January 9, 1854

January 10. I cannot thaw out to life the snow-fleas which yesterday covered the snow like pepper, in a frozen state. January 10, 1854

January 15. For the first time this winter I notice snow-fleas this afternoon in Walden Wood. Wherever I go they are to be seen, especially in the deepest ruts and foot-tracks. Their number is almost infinite. It is a rather warm and moist afternoon, and feels like rain. I suppose that some peculiarity in the weather has called them forth from the bark of the trees. January 15, 1852

January 22. The snow-fleas are thickest along the edge of the wood here, but I find that they extend quite across the river, though there are comparatively few over the middle. There are generally fewer and fewer the further you are from the shore. Nay, I find that they extend quite across Fair Haven Pond. There are two or three inches of snow on the ice, and thus they are revealed. There are a dozen or twenty to a square rod on the very middle of the pond. When I approach one, it commonly hops away, and if it gets a good spring it hops a foot or more, so that it is at first lost to me. Though they are scarcely the twentieth of an inch long they make these surprising bounds, or else conceal themselves by entering the snow. We have now had many days of this thawing weather, and I believe that these fleas have been gradually hopping further and further out from the shore. To-day, perchance, it is water, a day or two later ice, and no fleas are seen on it. Then snow comes and covers the ice, and if there is no thaw for a month, you see no fleas for so long. But, at least soon after a thaw, they are to be seen on the centre of ponds at least half a mile across. Though this is my opinion, it is by no means certain that they come here thus, for I am prepared to believe that the water in the middle may have had as many floating on it, and that these were afterward on the surface of the ice, though unseen, and hence under the snow when it fell, and ready to come up through it when the thaw came. But what do they find to eat in apparently pure snow so far from any land? Has their food come down from the sky with the snow? They must themselves be food for many creatures. This must be as peculiarly a winter animal as any. It may truly be said to live in snow.  January 22, 1860

January 23.  There is a cold northwest wind, and I notice that the snow-fleas which were so abundant on this water yesterday have hopped to some lee, i. e., are collected like powder under the southeast side of posts or trees or sticks or ridges in the ice. You are surprised to see that they manage to get out of the wind. On the southeast side of every such barrier along the shore there is a dark line or heap of them. January 23, 1859

January 26. To-day I see a few snow-fleas on the Walden road and a slight blueness in the chinks, it being cloudy and melting. January 26, 1852

January 30.  The snow-flea seems to be a creature whose summer and prime of life is a thaw in the winter. It seems not merely to enjoy this interval like other animals, but then chiefly to exist. It is the creature of the thaw. Moist snow is its element. That thaw which merely excites the cock to sound his clarion as it were calls to life the snow-flea. January 30, 1860

February 9. There are snow-fleas, quite active, on the half-melted snow on the middle of Walden. February 9, 1854

February 11. 7.30 a. m. — Snow-fleas lie in black patches on the ice which froze last night. When I breathe on them I find them all alive and ready to skip. Also the water, when I break the ice, arouses them. February 11, 1854

March 10. The past has been a winter of such unmitigated severity that I have not chanced to notice a snow-flea, which are so common in thawing days. March 10, 1856

March 22.  I see many snow-fleas on the moist maple chips.  March 22, 1856

April 9. When I return to my boat, I see the snow-fleas like powder, in patches on the surface of the smooth water, amid the twigs and leaves. April 9, 1856

May 18.  This spring was filled and covered with a great mass of beech leaves, amid and beneath which, damp and wet as they were, were myriads of snow-fleas and also their white exuviae; the latter often whitening a whole leaf, mixed with live ones. It looks as if for coolness and moisture — which the snow had afforded — they were compelled to take refuge here. May 18, 1856

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The Snow Flea

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 ©  2009-2022

Fuzzy Gnats                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                The Water-bug

What miracles, what beauty surrounds us!

January 30. 

January 30, 2022, 7:00AM

2 p. m. — To Nut Meadow and White Pond road. 

Thermometer 45°. Fair with a few cumuli of indefinite outline in the north and south, and dusky under sides. A gentle west wind and a blue haze. Thaws. 

The river has opened to an unusual extent, owing to the very long warm spell, — almost all this month. Even from Hubbard's Bridge up and down it is breaking up, is all mackerelled, with lunar-shaped openings  and some like a thick bow. * They [are] from one to twelve feet long. 

Yesterday's slight snow is all gone, leaving the ice, old snow, and bare ground; and as I walk up the river side, there is a brilliant sheen from the wet ice toward the sun, instead of the crystalline rainbow of yesterday. 

Think of that (of yesterday), — to have constantly before you, receding as fast as you advance, a bow formed of a myriad crystalline mirrors on the surface of the snow! ! What miracles, what beauty surrounds us! 

Then, another day, to do all your walking knee-deep in perfect six-rayed crystals of surpassing beauty but of ephemeral duration, which have fallen from the sky. 

The ice has so melted on the meadows that I see where the musquash has left his clamshells in a heap near the riverside, where there was a hollow in the bank. 

The small water-bugs are gyrating abundantly in Nut Meadow Brook. 

It is pleasant also to see the very distinct ripple-marks in the sand at its bottom, of late so rare a sight. 

I go through the piny field northwest of M. Miles's. There are no more beautiful natural parks than these pastures in which the white pines have sprung up spontaneously, standing at handsome intervals, where the wind chanced to let the seed lie at last, and the grass and blackberry vines have not yet been killed by them. 

There are certain sounds invariably heard in warm and thawing days in winter, such as the crowing of cocks, the cawing of crows, and sometimes the gobbling of turkeys. 

The crow, flying high, touches the tympanum of the sky for us, and reveals the tone of it. What does it avail to look at a thermometer or barometer compared with listening to his note? He informs me that Nature is in the tenderest mood possible, and I hear the very flutterings of her heart. Crows have singular wild and suspicious ways. You will [see] a couple flying high, as if about their business, but lo, they turn and circle and caw over your head again and again for a mile; and this is their business, — as if a mile and an afternoon were nothing for them to throw away. This even in winter, when they have no nests to be anxious about. 

But it is affecting to hear them cawing about their ancient seat (as at F. Wheeler's wood) which the choppers are laying low. 

I saw the other day (apparently) mouse(?)-tracks which had been made in slosh  on the Andromeda Ponds and then frozen, — little gutters about two inches wide and nearly one deep, looking very artificial with the nicks on the sides. 

I sit on the high hilltop south of Nut Meadow, near the pond. This hazy day even Nobscot is so blue that it looks like a mighty mountain. 

See how man has cleared commonly the most level ground, and left the woods to grow on the more uneven and rocky, or in the swamps.

I see, when I look over our landscape from any eminence as far as the horizon, certain rounded hills, amid the plains and ridges and cliffs, which have a marked family likeness, like eggs that belong to one nest though scattered. They suggest a relation geologically. Such are, for instance, Nashoba, Annursnack, Nawshawtuct, and Ponkawtasset, all which have Indian names, as if the Indian, too, had regarded them as peculiarly distinct. 

There is also Round Hill in Sudbury, and perhaps a hill in Acton. Perhaps one in Chelmsford. They are not apparently rocky. 

The snow-flea seems to be a creature whose summer and prime of life is a thaw in the winter. It seems not merely to enjoy this interval like other animals, but then chiefly to exist. It is the creature of the thaw. Moist snow is its element. That thaw which merely excites the cock to sound his clarion as it were calls to life the snow-flea.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, January 30, 1860

The crystalline rainbow of yesterday. See January 29, 1860 ("that conical rainbow, or parabola of rainbow-colored reflections, from the myriad reflecting crystals of the snow, . . . as I walk toward the sun, — always a little in advance of me")

The small water-bugs are gyrating abundantly in Nut Meadow Brook.  See January 17, 1860 ("See In the spring-hole ditches of the Close I see many little water-bugs (Gyrinus) gyrating, and some under water. It must be a common phenomenon there in mild weather in the winter. "); January 24, 1858 (" At Nut Meadow Brook the small-sized water-bugs are as abundant and active as in summer.") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Water-bug (Gyrinus) and  Skaters (Hydrometridae)

It is pleasant also to see the very distinct ripple-marks in the sand at its bottom, of late so rare a sight. See July 30, 1852 ("The ripple-marks on the east shore of Flint's are nearly parallel firm ridges in the white sand, one inch or more apart. They are very distinctly felt by the naked feet of the wader."); March 10, 1853 ("At Nut Meadow Brook . . . gazing into the eddying stream. The ripple-marks on the sandy bottom [and].the shadows of the invisible dimples reflecting prismatic colors on the bottom,"); April 3, 1859 ("The water being quite shallow on [White Pond], it is very handsomely and freshly ripple-marked for a rod or more in width, the ripples only two or three inches apart and very regular and parallel.") August 1, 1859 ("The [river] bottom is occasionally — though quite rarely in Concord — of soft shifting sand, ripple-marked, in which the paddle sinks, under four or five feet of water (as below the ash tree hole)")

There are certain sounds invariably heard in warm and thawing days in winter, such as the crowing of cocks, the cawing of crows, and sometimes the gobbling of turkeys. See January 12, 1855 ("Perhaps what most moves us in winter is some reminiscence of far-off summer. . . .It is in the cawing of the crow, the crowing of the cock, the warmth of the sun on our backs. "); March 16, 1858 (" The crowing of cocks and the cawing of crows tell the same story. The ice is soggy and dangerous to be walked on.")

But lo, they turn and circle and caw over your head again and again for a mile. See May 11, 1855 ("You can hardly walk in a thick pine wood now, especially a swamp, but presently you will have a crow or two over your head, either silently flitting over, to spy what you would be at and if its nest is in danger, or angrily cawing.") September 18, 1852 ("The crows congregate and pursue me through the half-covered woodland path, cawing loud and angrily above me, and when they cease, I hear the winnowing sound of their wings."); October 9, 1858 (" Crows fly over and caw at you now."); November 18, 1857 (" Crows will often come flying much out of their way to caw at me.")

Mouse-tracks which had been made in slosh on the Andromeda Ponds and then frozen, — little gutters about two inches wide and nearly one deep. See December 27, 1853 (“ I had not seen a meadow mouse all summer, but no sooner does the snow come and spread its mantle over the earth than it is printed with the tracks of countless mice"); January 15, 1857 ("And for a week, or fortnight even, of pretty still weather the tracks will remain, to tell of the nocturnal adventures of a tiny mouse")

This hazy day even Nobscot is so blue that it looks like a mighty mountain. Compare June 26, 1853 ("Nobscot has lost all its blue, and the northwest mountains are too . . .firmly defined to be mistaken for clouds.")

The snow-flea is the creature of the thaw. Moist snow is its element. See January 22, 1860 ("This must be as peculiarly a winter animal as any. It may truly be said to live in snow."). See also A Book of the Seasons: The snow-flea

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,  January 30

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

Welcome the apple tree.

January 29. 

Colder than before, and not a cloud in the sky to-day. 

P. M. — To Fair Haven Pond and return via Andromeda Ponds and railroad.

Half an inch or more of snow fell last night, the ground being half bare before. It was a snow of small flakes not star-shaped. 

As usual, I now see, walking on the river and river-meadow ice, thus thinly covered with the fresh snow, that conical rainbow, or parabola of rainbow-colored reflections, from the myriad reflecting crystals of the snow, i. e., as I walk toward the sun, — always a little in advance of me, of course, angle of reflection being equal to that of incidence. 

The rainbow-colored
reflections from myriad
crystals of the snow.
January 29, 1860

To-day I see quite a flock of the lesser redpolls eating the seeds of the alder, picking them out of the cones just as they do the larch, often head downward; and I see, under the alders, where they have run and picked up the fallen seeds, making chain-like tracks, two parallel lines. 

Not only the Indian, but many wild birds and quadrupeds and insects, welcomed the apple tree to these shores. 

• As it grew apace, the bluebird, robin, cherry-bird, kingbird, and many more came with a rush and built their nests in it, and so became orchard-birds. 

• The woodpecker found such a savory morsel under its bark that he perforated it in a ring quite round the tree, a thing he had never done before.

•  It did not take the partridge long to find out how sweet its buds were, and every winter day she flew and still flies from the wood to pluck them, much to the farmer's sorrow. 

• The rabbit too was not slow to learn the taste of its twigs and bark.

•  The owl crept into the first one that became hollow, and fairly hooted with delight, finding it just the place for him. He settled down into it, and has remained there ever since.

•  The lackey caterpillar saddled her eggs on the very first twig that was formed, and it has since divided her affections with the wild cherry; and the canker-worm also in a measure abandoned the elm to feed on it.

•  And when the fruit was ripe, the squirrel half carried, half rolled, it to his hole, and even the musquash crept up the bank and greedily devoured it; and when it was frozen and thawed, the crow and jay did not disdain to peck it.

•  And the beautiful wood duck, having made up her mind to stay a while longer with us, has concluded that there is no better place for her too..

H.D. Thoreau, Journal, January 29, 1860 

It was a snow of small flakes not star-shaped. See  December 30, 1859 ("little slender spiculae about one tenth of an inch long, little dry splinters, sometimes two forking, united at one end, or two or three lying across one another, quite dry and fine "); Compare December 14, 1859 ("Snow-storms might be classified. . . . I remember the perfectly crystalline or star snows, when each flake is a perfect six (?)-rayed wheel. ");  ls with a centre disk, perfect geometrical figures in thin scales far more perfect than I can draw."); January 14, 1853 ("Examined closely, the flakes are beautifully regular six-rayed stars or wheels");   January 21, 1855 ("The snow is turning to rain through a fine hail.");. January 27, 1855 ("

Yesterday’s driving easterly snow-storm turned to sleet in the evening, and then to rain")

A parabola of rainbow-colored reflections, from the myriad reflecting crystals of the snow as I walk toward the sun. See December 6, 1858 ("Looking at a dripping tree between you and the sun, you may see here or there one or another rainbow color, a small brilliant point of light."); December 11, 1855 ("Great winter itself looked like a precious gem, reflecting rainbow colors from one angle");  January 12, 1860 ("Going from the sun, I see a myriad sparkling points scattered over its surface, — little mirror-like facets, . . .which has fallen in the proper position, reflecting an intensely bright little sun. Such is the glitter or sparkle on the surface of a snow freshly fallen when the sun comes out and you walk from it, the points of light constantly changing."); February 3, 1852 (“This snow . . . is two feet deep, pure and powdery. From a myriad little crystal mirrors the moon is reflected, which is the untarnished sparkle of its surface.”);  February 8, 1856 ("At this hour the crust sparkles with a myriad brilliant points or mirrors.");  February 13, 1859 ("A dry, powdery snow about one inch deep, from which, as I walk toward the sun, this perfectly clear, bright afternoon, at 3.30 o’clock, the colors of the rainbow are reflected from a myriad fine facets."). 

A flock of the lesser redpolls eating the seeds of the alder, picking them out of the cones just as they do the larch, often head downward; and I see chain-like tracks, two parallel lines. See March 5, 1853 (“They have a sharp bill, black legs and claws, and a bright-crimson crown or frontlet, in the male reaching to the base of the bill, with, in his case, a delicate rose or carmine on the breast and rump. Though this is described by Nuttall as an occasional visitor in the winter, it has been the prevailing bird here this winter. ”); January 19, 1855 ("At noon it is still a driving snow-storm, and a little flock of redpolls is busily picking the seeds of the pig weed in the garden. Almost all have more or less crimson; a few are very splendid, with their particularly bright crimson breasts. The white on the edge of their wing-coverts is very conspicuous"); December 11, 1855 ("Standing there, though in this bare November landscape, I am reminded of the incredible phenomenon of small birds in winter. ... There is no question about the existence of these delicate creatures, their adaptedness to their circumstances."); January 24, 1860 ("See a large flock of lesser redpolls, eating the seeds of the birch (and perhaps alder) in Dennis Swamp by railroad. . . .They alight on the birches, then swarm on the snow beneath, busily picking up the seed in the copse"); January 27, 1860 ("Half a dozen redpolls busily picking the seeds out of the larch cones behind Monroe's.");See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The Lesser Redpoll

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,  January 29

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