ZtonePhruit: A Book of the Seasons: March 17 (the first dawn of spring, red-wings, robin, bluebird, flicker, sheldrakes)

Thursday, March 17, 2022

A Book of the Seasons: March 17 (the first dawn of spring, red-wings, robin, bluebird, flicker, sheldrakes)

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

March 17.

After the darkness

that moment in the dawn when

we see more truly.

March 17, 1852

No one is alert

enough to be present at

the ﬁrst dawn of spring,

March 17, 1857

Now here overhead

now lost in the horizon --

large flock of sheldrakes.

March 17, 1860

March 17, 2019

No mortal is alert enough to be present at the ﬁrst dawn of the spring, but he will presently discover some evidence that vegetation had awaked some days at least before. March 17, 1857

I am conscious of having, in my sleep, transcended the limits of the individual, and made observations and carried on conversations which in my waking hours I can neither recall nor appreciate. As if in sleep our individual fell into the infinite mind, and . . . awakening we resume our enterprise, take up our bodies and become limited mind again . . . There is a moment in the dawn . . . when we see things more truly than at any other time. March 17, 1852

Channing says he saw blackbirds yesterday. March 17, 1853. Now I hear, when passing the south side of the hill, or first when threading the maple swamp far west of it, the tchuck tchuck of a blackbird, and after, a distinct conqueree. So it is a red-wing? March 17, 1858. How handsome a flock of red-wings, ever changing its oval form as it advances, by the rear birds passing the others! March 17, 1860.

A remarkably warm day for the season; too warm while surveying without my great coat; almost like May heats. The grass is slightly greened on south bank-sides . . . Fair Haven is open for half a dozen rods about the shores. If this weather holds, it will be entirely open in a day or two. March 17, 1854

Hosmer says he has seen black ducks. I hear the lesser redpolls yet . . . White maple blossom-buds look as if bursting . . . I see scraps of the evergreen ranunculus along the riverside. March 17, 1855

Snow going off very gradually under the sun alone. Going begins to be bad; horses slump; hard turning out. March 17, 1856

These days, beginning with the 14th, more springlike. Last night it rained a little, carrying off nearly all the little snow that remained, but this morning it is fair, and I hear the note of the woodpecker on the elms (that early note) and the bluebird again. Launch my boat . , , It is only some very early still, warm, and pleasant morning in February or March that I notice that woodpecker-like whar-whar-whar-whar-whar-whar, earliest spring sound. March 17, 1857

A remarkably warm and pleasant day with a south or southwest wind, but still very bad walking, the frost coming out and the snow that was left going off. The air is full of bluebirds. I hear them far and near on all sides of the hill, warbling in the tree-tops, though I do not distinctly see them . . . Even the shade is agreeable to-day. You hear the buzzing of a fly from time to time, and see the black speck zigzag by. Ah! there is the note of the first flicker, a prolonged, monotonous wick-wick-wick-wick-wick-wick, etc., or, if you please, quick-quick, heard far over and through the dry leaves . . . Now I hear and see him louder and nearer on the top of the long-armed white oak, sitting very upright, as is their wont, as it were calling for some of his kind that may also have arrived. As usual, I have seen for some weeks on the ice these peculiar (perla?) insects with long wings and two tails . . . Sitting under the handsome scarlet oak beyond the hill, I hear a faint note far in the wood which reminds me of the robin. Again I hear it; it is he, — an occasional peep. These notes of the earliest birds seem to invite forth vegetation. No doubt the plants concealed in the earth hear them and rejoice. They wait for this assurance. May 17, 1858

6.30 a. m. — River risen still higher . . . I hear a robin fairly singing . . . The water is very high, and smooth as ever it is. It is very warm. I wear but one coat on the water . . . I realize how water predominates on the surface of the globe . . . How different to-day from yesterday! Yesterday was a cool, bright day, the earth just washed bare by the rain, and a strong northwest wind raised respectable billows on our vernal seas and imparted remarkable life and spirit to the scene. To-day it is perfectly still and warm. Not a ripple disturbs the surface of these lakes, but every insect, every small black beetle struggling on it, is betrayed . . . As I float by the Rock, I hear rustling amid the oak leaves above that new water-line, and, there being no wind, I know it to be a striped squirrel, and soon see its long-unseen striped sides . . . a punctuation-mark, the character to indicate where a new paragraph commences in the revolution of the seasons . . . Rocky islands covered with green lichens and with polypody half submerged rise directly from the water, and trees stand up to their middles in it. March 17, 1859

Thermometer 56; wind south, gentle; somewhat overcast . . . see a large flock of sheldrakes, which have probably risen from the pond, go over my head in the woods. A dozen large and compact birds flying with great force and rapidity, spying out the land, eyeing every traveller, fast and far they “steam it” on clipping wings, over field and forest, meadow and flood; now here, and you hear the whistling of their wings, and in a moment they are lost in the horizon. Like swift propellers of the air. March 17, 1860

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