Saturday, February 27, 2021

Undistracted, the first bluebird comes to warble.


February 27.

Pleasant and warm, the ground half bare. Walking down the Boston road under the hill this side Clark's, it occurs to me that I have just heard a bluebird. I stop and listen to hear it again, but cannot tell whither it comes.

Now it seems to come from Pratt's house, where the window is open. I walk that way.

Messer is shingling Clark's barn. I get to the elm near Minott's, and I hear one warble distinctly.

Miss Minott and Miss Potter have both died within a fortnight past. The cottage on the hillside seems strangely deserted.


H. D. Thoreau, Journal, February 27, 1861



I have just heard a bluebird . . . but cannot tell whither it comes
. See March 22, 1855 ("The bluebird faintly warbles, with such ventriloquism that I thought him further off."); February 24, 1857 ("[A]s I cross from the causeway to the hill, thinking of the bluebird, I that instant hear one's note from deep in the softened air.")


It is very pleasant and warm , and the ground half bare. As I am walking down the Boston road under the hill this side Clark's, it occurs to me that I have just heard the twitter of a bluebird. ( C. heard one the 26th. ) 

I stop and listen to hear it again, but cannot tell whether it comes from the buttonwoods high over my head or from the lower trees on the hill top. It is not the complete bluebird warble, but the twitter only. 

And now it seems to come from Pratt's house, where the window is open, and I am not sure but it is a caged bird. I walk that way, and now think that I distinguish the minstrel in a black speck in the top of a great elm on the Common. 

Messer is shingling Clark's barn; so, to make sure, I cross over and ask him if he has heard a bluebird to-day , and he says he has several times. When I get to the elm near Minott's I hear one warble distinctly.

Miss Minott and Miss Potter have both died within a fortnight past, and the cottage on the hillside seems strangely deserted; but the first bluebird comes to warble there as usual.

 Mother hears a robin to-day. 

Buttonwood sap flows fast from wounds made last fall.

 

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