March 21, Thirty ducks asleep with heads on backs, motionless, ice forms about them.

 

The year is but a succession of days,

and I see that I could assign some office to each day

which, summed up, would be the history of the year.

Henry Thoreau, August 24, 1852

Journal, March 21, 1852:

Yellow pads of the yellow lily beginning to shoot up from the bottom of the pools and ditches. See March 21, 1859 ("I see, on a yellow lily root washed up, leaf-buds grown five or six inches, or even seven or eight, with the stems")

Journal, March 21, 1853:

Winter breaks up within us . . . and thoughts like a freshet pour down unwonted channels. See December 26, 1854 ("I feel the winter breaking up in me; if I were home I would try to write poetry."); January 31, 1854 ("We too have our thaws. They come to our January moods, when our ice cracks, and our sluices break loose. Thought that was frozen up under stern experience gushes forth in feeling and expression."); March 9, 1852 ("[T]he air excites me. When the frost comes out of the ground, there is a corresponding thawing of the man.”)

"The parallelism produced
 by their necks and bodies
 steering the same way
 gives the idea of order."

 Journal, March 21, 1854:

Look with glass and find more than thirty black ducks. See March 22, 1854 ("Scare up my flock of black ducks and count forty together."); March 22, 1858 ("About forty black ducks, pretty close together, sometimes apparently in close single lines")

Journal, March 21, 1856:

To my red maple sugar camp. See March 14, 1856 ("[J]ust above Pinxter Swamp, one red maple limb was moistened by sap trickling along the bark. Tapping this, I was surprised to find it flow freely . . . "); March 15, 1856 ("Put a spout in the red maple of yesterday, and hang a pail beneath to catch the sap."); March 24, 1856 ("9 A. M. -- Start to get two quarts of white maple sap and home at 11.30"). See also February 21, 1857 ("Am surprised to see this afternoon a boy collecting red maple sap from some trees behind George Hubbard's. It runs freely. The earliest sap I made to flow last year was March 14th "); March 2, 1860 ("The red maple sap flows freely, and probably has for several days."); March 3, 1857 ("The red maple sap, which I first noticed the 21st of February, is now frozen up in the auger-holes ."); March 4, 1852 (I see where a maple has been wounded the sap is flowing out. Now, then, is the time to make sugar."); March 5, 1852 ("As I sit under their boughs, looking into the sky, I suddenly see the myriad black dots of the expanded buds against the sky. Their sap is flowing.”); April 11, 1856 ("Now is apparently the very time to tap birches of all kinds.")

 Journal, March 21, 1858:

It is peculiarly interesting that this, which is one of our winter birds also, should have a note with which to welcome the spring. See January 9, 1858 ("Some chickadees come flitting close to me, and one utters its spring note, phe-be, for which I feel under obligations to him."); See February 9, 1856 ("I hear a phoebe note from a chickadee"); February 24, 1857 ("A chickadee with its winter lisp flits over, and I think it is time to hear its phebe note, and that instant it pipes it forth. "); March 1, 1854 ("I hear the phoebe or spring note of the chickadee"); March 1, 1856 ("I hear several times the fine-drawn phe-be note of the chickadee, which I heard only once during the winter. Singular that I should hear this on the first spring day."); March 10, 1852 ("Hear the phoebe note of the chickadee to-day for the first time. I had at first heard their day-day-day ungratefully,- ah! you but carry my thoughts back to winter, - but anon I find that they too have become spring birds; they have changed their note. Even they feel the influence of spring."): March 11, 1854 (" Air full of birds, — bluebirds, song sparrows, chickadee (phoebe notes), and blackbirds. Bluebirds' warbling curls in elms.”); March 14, 1852 (" I see a flock of blackbirds and hear their conqueree. The ground is mostly bare now. Again I hear the chickadee's spring note.”); March 19, 1958 ("Hear the phebe note of a chickadee."); March 22, 1855 ("The jays scream. I hear the downy woodpecker’s rapid tapping and my first distinct spring note (phe-be) of the chickadee.”)

The skunk-cabbage at Clamshell is well out, shedding pollen. The date of its flowering is very fluctuating. See February 18, 1851 (" See the skunk-cabbage in flower.”); March 2, 1859 (“Under the alders at Well Meadow I see a few skunk- cabbage spathes fairly open on the side, and these may bloom after a day or two of pleasant weather.”): March 6, 1854 ("I see the skunk- cabbage started about the spring at head of Hubbard's Close'") March 8, 1855 ("As the ice melts in the swamps I see the horn-shaped buds of the skunk-cabbage, green with a bluish bloom, standing uninjured, ready to feel the influence of the sun, - the most prepared for spring—to look at— of any plant."); March 18, 1860 (The skunk-cabbage, now generally and abundantly in bloom all along under Clamshell"); March 30, 1856 ("I am surprised to see the skunk cabbage, with its great spear-heads open and ready to blossom (i. e. shed pollen in a day or two)"); April 7, 1855 ("The skunk-cabbage open yesterday, — the earliest flower this season.")

 Journal, March 21, 1859


I see a female marsh hawk. . I not only see the white rump but the very peculiar crescent-shaped curve of its wings. See March 29, 1854 ("See two marsh hawks, white on rump"); April 23, 1855 ("See a frog hawk beating the bushes regularly. What a peculiarly formed wing! It should be called the kite. Its wings are very narrow and pointed, and its form in front is a remarkable curve, and its body is not heavy . . I have seen also for some weeks occasionally a brown hawk with white rump, flying low, which I have thought the frog hawk in a different stage of plumage; but can it be at this season? and is it not the marsh hawk? . . . probably female hen-harrier [i. e. marsh hawk]");. May 1, 1855 (" What I have called the frog hawk is probably the male hen-harrier, . . .MacGillivray . . .says . . . the large brown bird with white rump is the female"); March 17, 1860 ("Was not that a marsh hawk, a slate-colored one which I saw flying over Walden Wood with long, slender, curving wings, with a diving, zigzag flight? [No doubt it was, for I see another, a brown one, the 19th.]”). See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Marsh Hawk (Northern Harrier)

Fair Haven Pond is only two thirds open. See March 22, 1855 ("I cross Fair Haven Pond, including the river, on the ice, and probably can for three or four days yet. "); March 22, 1854 ("Fair Haven still covered and frozen anew in part."); March 20, 1858 ("Fair Haven is still closed."); March 26, 1860 ("Fair Haven Pond may be open by the 20th of March, as this year, or not till April 13 as in '56")


Everywhere for several days the alder catkins have dangled long and loose, the most alive apparently of any tree. See March 20, 1853 ("Those alder catkins on the west side of Walden tremble and undulate in the wind, they are so relaxed and ready to bloom, — the most forward blossom-buds."); March 22, 1853 ("The very earliest alder is in bloom and sheds its pollen. I detect a few catkins at a distance by their distinct yellowish color. This the first native flower"); March 23, 1853 ("The alder catkins, just burst open, are prettily marked spirally by streaks of yellow, contrasting with alternate rows of rich reddish-brown scales, which make one revolution in the length of the catkin.")

The willow catkins are also very conspicuous, in silvery masses rising above the flood. See March 22, 1854 ("The now silvery willow catkins shine along the shore over the cold water."); March 22, 1856 ("The down of willow catkins in very warm places has in almost every case peeped out an eighth of an inch, generally over the whole willow"); March 20, 1858 (“How handsome the willow catkins! Those wonderfully bright silvery buttons, so regularly disposed in oval schools in the air, or, if you please, along the seams which their twigs make, in all degrees of forwardness, from the faintest, tiniest speck of silver, just peeping from beneath the black scales, to lusty pussies which have thrown off their scaly coats and show some redness at base on a close inspection.”); March 20,1859. ("When I get opposite the end of the willow-row, the sun comes out and they are very handsome, like a rosette, pale-tawny or fawn-colored at base and a rich yellow or orange yellow in the upper three or four feet. This is, methinks, the brightest object in the landscape these days.")

I see several white pine cones in the path by Wheildon's which appear to have fallen in the late strong winds. See note to March 5, 1860 ("White pine cones half fallen.")

Journal, March 21, 1860:

Colder. See March 20, 1860 ("The 15th, 16th, 17th, 18th, and 19th were very pleasant and warm days, the thermometer standing at 50° 55° , 56° , 56°, and 51° (average 53 1/2°), - quite a spell of warm weather ")

March 21.

Thirty ducks asleep

with heads on backs, motionless,

ice forms about them.

March 21, 1854

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 © 2009-2016

Saturday, March 21, 2015

ch 21, 2015 No comments:   

"The parallelism produced
 by their necks and bodies
 steering the same way
 gives the idea of order."

 Journal, March 21, 1854