" And the voice of the turtle is heard in our land."

January 24. 

bobcat, January 24,2020

2 p. m. — To Tarbell, river, via railroad. 

Thermometer 46. Sky thinly overcast, growing thicker at last as if it would rain. Wind northwest. 

See a large flock of lesser redpolls, eating the seeds of the birch (and perhaps alder) in Dennis Swamp by railroad. They are distinct enough from the goldfinch, their note more shelly and general as they fly, and they are whiter, without the black wings, beside that some have the crimson head or head and breast. They alight on the birches, then swarm on the snow beneath, busily picking up the seed in the copse. 

The Assabet is open above Derby's Bridge as far as I go or see, probably to the factory, and I know not how far below Derby's. It opens up here sooner than below the Assabet Bath to its mouth. 

The blue vervain stands stiffly and abundant in one place, with much rather large brown seed in it. It is in good condition. 

Scare a shrike from an apple tree. He flies low over the meadow, somewhat like a woodpecker, and alights near the top twig of another apple tree. 

See a hawk sail over meadow and woods; not a hen-hawk; possibly a marsh hawk. 

A grasshopper on the snow. 

The droppings of a skunk left on a rock, perhaps at the beginning of winter, were full of grasshoppers' legs. 

As I stand at the south end of J. P. B.'s moraine, I watch six tree sparrows, which come from the wood and alight and feed on the ground, which is there bare. They are only two or three rods from me, and are incessantly picking and eating an abundance of the fine grass (short-cropped pasture grass) on that knoll, as a hen or goose does. I see the stubble an inch or two long in their bills, and how they stuff it down. Perhaps they select chiefly the green parts. So they vary their fare and there is no danger of their starving. 

These six hopped round for five minutes over a space a rod square before I put them to flight, and then I noticed, in a space only some four feet square in that rod, at least eighteen droppings (white at one end, the rest more slate-colored). So wonderfully active are they in their movements, both external and internal. They do not suffer for want of a good digestion, surely. No doubt they eat some earth or gravel too. So do partridges eat a great deal. 

These birds, though they have bright brown and buff backs, hop about amid the little inequalities of the pasture almost unnoticed, such is their color and so humble are they. 

Solomon thus describes the return of Spring (Song of Solomon, ii, 10-12) : — 

"Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away.

"For, lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone;

"The flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land."

JANUARY 24, 2020

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, January 24, 1860

See a large flock of lesser redpolls, eating the seeds of the birch (and perhaps alder) in Dennis Swamp by railroad. See January 20, 1857 ("Heard, in the Dennis swamp by the railroad this afternoon, the peculiar goldfinch-like mew — also like some canaries — of, I think, the lesser redpoll (?). Saw several. Heard the same a week or more ago. "); January 8, 1860 ("Hear the goldfinch notes (they may be linarias), and see a few on the top of a small black birch by the pond-shore, of course eating the seed. Thus they distinguish its fruit from afar. When I heard their note, I looked to find them on a birch, and lo, it was a black birch! [Were they not linarias? Vide Jan. 24]")

A grasshopper on the snow. See January 24, 1859 ("I also see a great many of those little brown grasshoppers and one perfectly green one, some of them frozen in")

The droppings of a skunk left on a rock, perhaps at the beginning of winter, were full of grasshoppers' legs. See February 24, 1854 "The other day I thought that I smelled a fox very strongly, and went a little further and found that it was a skunk.”);February 24, 1857 ("I have seen the probings of skunks for a week or more. “); February 26, 1860 ("They appear to come out commonly in the warmer weather in the latter part of February.”)

Six tree sparrows come from the wood and alight and feed on the ground. See  January 16, 1860 ("I see a flock of tree sparrows busily picking something from the surface of the snow amid some bushes. . . . the tree sparrow comes from the north in the winter . . . The bird understands how to get its dinner perfectly.