ZtonePhruit: A Book of the Seasons: March 20 (winter birds, F. hyemalis, spring birds, the joy of fishes, spring sun)

Sunday, March 20, 2022

A Book of the Seasons: March 20 (winter birds, F. hyemalis, spring birds, the joy of fishes, spring sun)

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 20

"The life and joy of

this new ribbon of water

sparkling in the sun."

March 20, 1853

March 20,2016

As to the winter birds, - those which came here in the winter, - I saw first that rusty sparrow-like bird flying in flocks with the smaller sparrows early in the winter and sliding down the grass stems to their seeds, which clucked like a hen, and F. Brown thought to be the young of the purple finch; then I saw, about Thanksgiving time and later in the winter, the pine grosbeaks, large and carmine, a noble bird; then, in midwinter, the snow bunting, the white snowbird, sweeping low like snowflakes from field to field over the walls and fences. And now, within a day or two, I have noticed the chubby slate-colored snowbird (Fringilla hyemalis?), and I drive the flocks before me on the railroad causeway as I walk. It has two white feathers in its tail. It is cold as winter to-day, the ground still covered with snow, and the stars twinkle as in winter night. March 20, 1852

Walden is melting apace. It has a canal two rods wide along the northerly side and the west end, wider at the east end, yet, after running round from west to east, it does not keep the south shore, but crosses in front of the deep cove in a broad crack to where it started, by the lee ground. It is glorious to behold the life and joy of this ribbon of water sparkling in the sun. The wind blows eastward over the opaque ice in vain till it slides on to the living water surface where it raises a myriad brilliant sparkles on the bare face of the pond, an expression of glee, of youth, of spring, as if it spoke the joy of the fishes within it and of the sands on its shore. It is the contrast between life and death. There is the difference between winter and spring. The bared face of the pond sparkles with joy. March 20, 1853

A ﬂurry of snow at 7 A. M. I go to turn my boat up. Four or ﬁve song sparrows are ﬂitting along amid the willows by the waterside. Probably they came yesterday with the bluebirds. From distant trees and bushes I hear a faint tinkling te te te te te' and at last a full strain whose rhythm is whit whit whit, ter tche, tchear tche, deliberately sung, measuredly, while the falling snow is beginning to whiten the ground, —not discouraged by such a reception. The bluebird, too, is in the air, and I detect its blue back for a moment upon a picket. It is remarkable by what a gradation of days which we call pleasant and warm, beginning in the last of February, we come at last to real summer warmth. At ﬁrst a sunny, calm, serene winter day is pronounced spring, or reminds us of it; and then the ﬁrst pleasant spring day perhaps we walk with our greatcoat buttoned up and gloves on. P. M. — Up Assabet. It soon clears off and proves a fair but windy day. I notice havoc along the stream on making my ﬁrst voyages on it. At my landing I hear the F. hyemalis, in company with a few tree sparrows. They take refuge from the cold wind, half a dozen in all, behind an arbor-vitae hedge, and there plume themselves with puffed-up feathers. March 20, 1855

It snowed three or four inches of damp snow last afternoon and night, now thickly adhering to the twigs and branches. Probably it will soon melt and help carry off the snow. . . .It is now so softened that I slump at every third step. The sap of red maples in low and warm positions now generally ﬂows, but not in high and exposed ones. . . .Considering how solid and thick the river was a week ago, I am surprised to ﬁnd how cautious I have grown about crossing it in many places now. The river has just begun to open at Hubbard’s Bend. It has been closed there since January 7th, i. e. ten weeks and a half. For two or three days I have heard the gobbling of turkeys, the ﬁrst spring sound, after the chickadees and hens, that I think of. Set a pail before coming here to catch red maple sap, at Trillium Wood. I am now looking after elder and sumach for spouts. Got my smooth sumach on the south side of Nawshawtuct. I know of no shrubs hereabout except elders and the sumachs which have a suitable pith and wood for such a purpose. March 20, 1856

Dine with Agassiz at R. W. E.’s. He thinks that the suckers die of asphyxia, having very large air-bladders and being in the habit of coming to the surface for air. But then, he is thinking of a different phenomenon from the one I speak of, which last is conﬁned to the very earliest spring or winter.. . .When I began to tell him of my experiment on a frozen ﬁsh, he said that Pallas had shown that ﬁshes were frozen and thawed again, but I afﬁrmed the contrary, and then Agassiz agreed with me. March 20, 1857

A. M. – By river. The tree sparrow is perhaps the sweetest and most melodious warbler at present and for some days . . . you commonly hear many at once. The note of the F. hyemalis, or chill-lill, is a jingle, with also a shorter and drier crackling or shuffling chip as it flits by. I hear now, at 7 A. M., from the hill across the water, probably the note of a woodpecker, I know not what species; not that very early gnah gnah, which I have not heard this year. Now first I hear a very short robin's song . . . The fishes are going up the brooks as they open. They are dispersing themselves through the fields and woods, imparting new life into them. They are taking their places under the shelving banks and in the dark swamps. The water running down meets the fishes running up. They hear the latest news. Spring-aroused fishes are running up our veins too . . . All Nature revives at this season . . . No wonder we feel the spring influences. There is a motion in the very ground under our feet. Each rill is peopled with new life rushing up it. March 20, 1858

7 a. m. — River no higher than three days ago, notwithstanding the rain of two days ago, the wind being southwest and very strong. P. M. — I see under the east side of the house amid the evergreens, where they were sheltered from the cold northwest wind, quite a parcel of sparrows, chiefly F. hyemalis, two or three tree sparrows, and one song sparrow, quietly feeding together. I watch them through a window within six or eight feet. They evidently love to be sheltered from the wind, and at least are not averse to each other's society . . . P. M. — Up Assabet. Very strong northwest wind. 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. Nothing so betrays the spring sun. March 20, 1859

A foggy morning; turns to some April-like rain, after east wind of yesterday.. . . 2 P.M. — Thermometer about 49. This is a slight, dripping, truly April-like rain. You hardly know whether to open your umbrella or not. More mist than rain; no wind, and the water perfectly smooth and dark, but ever and anon the cloud or mist thickens and darkens on one side, and there is a sudden rush of warm rain, which will start the grass . . . See now first, in this April rain, the water being only rippled by the current, those alternate dark and light patches on the surface, all alike dimpled with the falling drops.. . . It reminds me of the season when you sit under a bridge and watch the dimples made by the rain . . . I observed on the 18th a swarm of those larger tipulidæ, or fuzzy gnats , dancing in a warm sprout-land, about three feet above a very large white pine stump . . . This afternoon, in the sprinkling rain, I see a very small swarm of the same kind dancing in like manner in a garden, only a foot above the ground but directly over a bright tin dish,— apparently a mustard-box, — and I suspect that they select some such conspicuous fixed point on the ground over which to hover and by which to keep their place, finding it for their convenience to keep the same place. These gyrate in the air as water-bugs on the water. . . . Methinks this gentle rainy day reminds me more of summer than the warmest fair day would . . . Perhaps calm weather and thermometer at about 50, the frost being commonly out and ground bare, may be called an April-like rain. 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 (succeeding to cold and blustering), in which the alders and white maples, as well as many more skunk-cabbages, bloomed, and the hazel catkins became relaxed and elongated. March 20, 1860