The month of chickadees and new-swollen buds.

November 2.


Tall buttercups, red clover, houstonias, Polygonum aviculare, still.

Those handsome red buds on often red-barked twigs, with some red leaves still left, appear to be blueberry buds.

The prinos berries also now attract me in the scarcity of leaves, its own all gone; its berries are apparently a brighter red for it.

The month of chickadees and new-swollen buds.

At long intervals I see or hear a robin still.

To Walden.

In the latter part of October the skaters and water bugs entirely disappear from the surface of the pond, and then and in November, when the weather is perfectly calm, it is almost absolutely as smooth as glass.

This afternoon a three-days' rain-storm is drawing to an end, though still overcast.

The air is quite still but misty, from time to time mizzling, and the pond is very smooth, and its surface difficult to distinguish, though it no longer reflects the bright tints of autumn but sombre colors only, — calm at the end of a storm, except here and there a slight glimmer or dimple, as if a few skaters which had escaped the frosts were still collected there, or a faint breeze there struck, or a few rain-drops fell there, or perchance the surface, being remarkably smooth, betrayed by circling dimples where a spring-welled up from below.

I paddled gently toward one of these places and was surprised to find myriads of small perch about five inches long sporting there, one after another rising to the surface and dimpling it, leaving bubbles on it. They were very handsome as they surrounded the boat, with their distinct transverse stripes, a rich brown color.

There were many such schools in the pond, as it were improving the short season before the ice would close their window. When I approached them suddenly with noise, they made a sudden plash and rippling with their tails in fright, and then took refuge in the depths. Suddenly the wind rose, the mist increased, and the waves rose, and still the perch leaped, but much higher, half out of water, a hundred black points, three inches long, at once above the surface.

The pond, dark before, was now a glorious and indescribable blue, mixed with dark, perhaps the opposite side of the wave, a sort of changeable or watered-silk blue, more cerulean if possible than the sky itself, which was now seen overhead. It required a certain division of the sight, however, to discern this. Like the colors on a steel sword-blade.

Slate - colored snowbirds (?) with a faint note.

The leaves which are not withered, whose tints are still fresh and bright, are now remarked in sheltered places. Plucked quite a handsome nosegay from the side of Heywood's Peak, - white and blue-stemmed goldenrods, asters (undulatus and ?).

I do not know whether the perch amuse themselves thus more in the fall than at any other time. In such transparent and apparently bottomless water their swimming impresses the beholder as a kind of flight or hovering, like a compact flock of birds passing be low one, just beneath his level on the right or left. What a singular experience must be theirs in their winter quarters, their long night, expecting when the sun will open their shutters! 

November 2, 2017

If you look discerningly, so as to see the reflection only, you see a most glorious light blue, in comparison with which the original dark green of the opposite side of the waves is but muddy.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, November 2, 1852

Tall buttercups, red clover, houstonias.  See October 26, 1855 ("I see a houstonia in bloom."); November 5, 1855 ("I see the shepherd’s-purse, hedge-mustard, and red clover, — November flowers."); November 14, 1852 ("Still yarrow, tall buttercup, and tansy."); November 23, 1852 ("Among the flowers which may be put down as lasting thus far, as I remember, in the order of their hardiness: yarrow, tansy (these very fresh and common) . . . and perhaps tall buttercup, etc."

Those handsome red buds on often red-barked twigs, with some red leaves still left, appear to be blueberry buds. See November 6, 1853 (“The remarkable roundish, plump red buds of the high blueberry.”); November 23, 1857 (“You distinguish it by its gray spreading mass; its light-gray bark, rather roughened; its thickish shoots, often crimson; and its plump, roundish red buds.”); November 25, 1858 ("See a few high blueberry buds which have fairly started, expanded into small red leaves, apparently within a few weeks.")

 

The month of chickadees and new-swollen buds. 

The chickadee

Hops near to me.

November 8, 1857

See November 9, 1850 (" The chickadees, if I stand long enough, hop nearer and nearer inquisitively, from pine bough to pine bough, till within four or five feet, occasionally lisping a note."); November 26, 1859 ("The chickadee is the bird of the wood the most unfailing.. . . At this season it is almost their sole inhabitant."); November 2, 1853 ("Among the buds, etc., etc., to be noticed now, remember the alder and birch catkins, so large and conspicuous, — on the alder, pretty red catkins dangling in bunches of three or four, — the minute red buds of the panicled andromeda, the roundish plump ones of the common hazel, the longish sharp ones of the witch-hazel, etc.") See also October 30, 1853 ("Now, now is the time to look at the buds.”); November 1, 1853 ("I notice the shad-bush conspicuously leafing out. Those long, narrow, pointed buds, prepared for next spring, have anticipated their time."); November 4, 1854 ("The shad-bush buds have expanded into small leaflets already.”); November 6, 1863 ( Noticing Buds); December 1, 1852 (“At this season I observe the form of the buds which are prepared for spring the large bright yellowish and reddish buds of the swamp-pink, the already downy ones of the Populus tremuloides and the willows, the red ones of the blueberry, the long, sharp ones of the amelanchier, the spear-shaped ones of the viburnum; also the catkins of the alders and birches."); January 12, 1855 ("Well may the tender buds attract us at this season, no less than partridges, for they are the hope of the year, the spring rolled up. The summer is all packed in them.,")

The pond, dark before, was now a glorious and indescribable blue, mixed with dark, . . .more cerulean if possible than the sky itself. See June 26, 1852 ("the smooth reflecting surface of woodland lakes in which the ice is just melted . . .blue or black or even hazel, deep or shallow, clear or turbid; green next the shore,");  August 27, 1852("Viewed from a hilltop, it is blue in the depths and green in the shallows, but from a boat it is seen to be a uniform dark green.”); September 1, 1852 ("Viewed from the hilltop, [Walden] reflects the color of the sky. Beyond the deep reflecting surface, near the shore, it is a vivid green."); October 9, 1858 ("The mountains are darker and distincter, and Walden, seen from this hill, darker blue. It is quite Novemberish."); and Walden ("Walden is blue at one time and green at another, even from the same point of view. Lying between the earth and the heavens, it partakes of the color of both. Viewed from a hill top it reflects the color of the sky, but near at hand it is of a yellowish tint next the shore where you can see the sand, then a; light green, which gradually deepens to a uniform dark green in the body of the pond. In some lights, viewed even from a hilltop, it is of a vivid green next the shore.”); Walden , The Pond in Winter ("Like the water, the Walden ice, seen near at hand, has a green tint, but at a distance is beautifully blue,") See also  January 24, 1852 (Walden and White Ponds are a vitreous greenish blue, like patches of the winter sky seen in the west before sundown)

In the latter part of October the skaters and water bugs entirely disappear from the surface of the pond [but I]  find myriads of small perch about five inches long sporting there See September 1, 1852 ("Paddling over it, I see large schools of perch only an inch long, yet easily distinguished by their transverse bars. This is a very warm and serene evening, and the surface of the pond is perfectly smooth except where the skaters dimple it, for at equal intervals they are scattered over its whole extent, and, looking west, they make a fine sparkle in the sun.")