April 25, 2020
A cold day, so that the people
you meet remark upon it, yet the thermometer is 47° at 2 P. M. We should not have remarked upon
it in March. It is cold for April, being windy withal.
I fix a stake on the
west side the willows at my boat‘s place, the top of which is at summer level
and is about ten and a half inches below the stone wharf there. The river is
one and one fourth inches above summer level to-day. That rock northwest of the
boat‘s place is about fifteen inches (the top of it) below summer level. Heron
Rock top (just above the junction of the rivers) is thirteen inches above
summer level. I judge by my eye that the rock on the north side, where the
first bridge crossed the river, is about four inches lower than the last.
Mr. Stewart tells me that he has
found a gray squirrel‘s nest up the Assabet, in a maple tree. I resolve that I
too will find it.
I do not know within less than a quarter of a mile where to
look, nor whether it is in a hollow tree, or in a nest of leaves. I examine the
shore first and find where he landed. I then examine the maples in that
neighborhood to see what one has been climbed. I soon find one the bark of
which has been lately rubbed by the boots of a climber, and, looking up, see a
nest.
It was a large nest made of maple twigs, with a centre of leaves, lined
with finer, about twenty feet from the ground, against the leading stem of a
large red maple. I noticed no particular entrance.
When I put in my hand from
above and felt the young, they uttered a dull croak-like squeak, and one clung
fast to my hand when I took it out through the leaves and twigs with which it
was covered. It was yet blind, and could not have been many days old, yet it
instinctively clung to my hand with its little claws, as if it knew that there
was danger of its falling from a height to the ground which it never saw. The
idea of clinging was strongly planted in it.
There was quite a depth of loose
sticks, maple twigs, piled on the top of the nest. No wonder that they become
skillful climbers who are born high above the ground and begin their lives in a
tree, having first of all to descend to reach the earth. They are cradled in a
tree-top, in but a loose basket, in helpless infancy, and there slumber when
their mother is away. No wonder that they are never made dizzy by high
climbing, that were born in the top of a tree, and learn to cling fast to the
tree before their eyes are open.
On my way to the Great Meadows I
see boys a-fishing, with perch and bream on their string, apparently having
good luck, the river is so low.
The river appears the lower, because now,
before the weeds and grass have grown, we can see by the bare shore of mud or
sand and the rocks how low it is. At midsummer we might imagine water at the
base of the grass where there was none.
I hear the greatest concerts of
blackbirds, – red wings and crow blackbirds nowadays, especially of the former
(also the 22d and 29th). The maples and willows along the river, and the button-bushes,
are all alive with them. They look like a black fruit on the trees, distributed
over the top at pretty equal distances.
It is worthwhile to see how slyly
they hide at the base of the thick and shaggy button-bushes at this stage of
the water. They will suddenly cease their strains and flit away and secrete
themselves low amid these bushes till you are past; or you scare up an
unexpectedly large flock from such a place, where you had seen none.
I pass a large quire in full blast on the oaks, etc., on the island in the meadow northwest of Peter‘s. Suddenly they are hushed, and I hear the loud rippling rush made by their wings as they dash away, and, looking up, I see what I take to be a sharp-shinned hawk just alighting on the trees where they were, having failed to catch one. They retreat some forty rods off, to another tree, and renew their concert there.
I pass a large quire in full blast on the oaks, etc., on the island in the meadow northwest of Peter‘s. Suddenly they are hushed, and I hear the loud rippling rush made by their wings as they dash away, and, looking up, I see what I take to be a sharp-shinned hawk just alighting on the trees where they were, having failed to catch one. They retreat some forty rods off, to another tree, and renew their concert there.
The hawk plumes himself, and
then flies off, rising gradually and beginning to circle, and soon it joins its
mate, and soars with it high in the sky and out of sight, as if the thought of
so terrestrial a thing as a blackbird had never entered its head.
It appeared to have a plain reddish-fawn breast. The size more than anything made me think it a sharp-shin.
It appeared to have a plain reddish-fawn breast. The size more than anything made me think it a sharp-shin.
When looking into holes in trees
to find the squirrel‘s nest, I found a pout partly dried, with its tail gone,
in one maple, about a foot above the ground. This was probably left there by a
mink.
Minott says that, being at work in his garden once, he saw a mink coming up from the brook with a pout in her mouth, half-way across his land. The mink, observing him, dropped her pout and stretched up her head, looking warily around, then, taking up the pout again, went onward and went under a rock in the wall by the roadside. He looked there and found the young in their nest, — so young that they were all “red” yet.
Minott says that, being at work in his garden once, he saw a mink coming up from the brook with a pout in her mouth, half-way across his land. The mink, observing him, dropped her pout and stretched up her head, looking warily around, then, taking up the pout again, went onward and went under a rock in the wall by the roadside. He looked there and found the young in their nest, — so young that they were all “red” yet.
H.
D. Thoreau, Journal, April 25, 1860
Mr. Stewart tells me that he has found a gray squirrel‘s nest up the Assabet, in a maple tree. See note to June 1, 1860 ("Young Stewart tells me that when he visited again that gray squirrel's nest which I described about one month ago up the Assabet, the squirrels were gone, and he thought that the old ones had moved them, for he saw the old about another nest. . . .This makes three gray squirrels' nests that I have seen and heard of (seen two of them) this year, made thus of leaves and sticks open in the trees. ")
They look like a black fruit on the trees, distributed over the top at pretty equal distances. See March 16, 1860 ("They cover the apple trees like a black fruit."); April 30, 1855 ("Red-wing blackbirds now fly in large flocks, covering the tops of trees—willows, maples, apples, or oaks—like a black fruit , and keep up an incessant gurgling and whistling, — all for some purpose; what is it? ”)
Looking up, I see what I take to be a sharp-shinned hawk. See April 27, 1860 ("I saw yesterday, and see to-day, a small hawk which I take to be a pigeon hawk. This one skims low along over Grindstone Meadow, close to the edge of the water, and I see the blackbirds rise hurriedly from the buttonbushes and willows before him.") and note to July 21, 1858 ("It was the Falco fuscus, the American brown or slate-colored hawk.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau The Sharp-shinned Hawk.
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