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
To be on waters
smooth and full of reflections
this still cloudy day.
April 15, 2013
Rain, rain, rain, all day, carrying off the snow. The broad flat brown buds on Mr. Cheney's elm, containing twenty or thirty yellowish-green threads, surmounted with little brownish-mulberry cups, which contain the stamens and the two styles, -- these are just expanding or blossoming now. The aspen on the railroad is beginning to blossom, showing the purple or mulberry in the terminal catkins, though it droops like dead cats' tails in the rain. It appears about the same date with the elm. April 15, 1852
I think that the largest early-catkined willow in large bushes in sand by water now blossoming -- the fertile catkins with paler blossoms, the sterile covered with pollen, a pleasant lively bright yellow -- is the brightest flower I have seen thus far. I notice that the sterile blossoms of that large-catkined early willow begin to open on the side of the catkin, like a tinge of golden light, gradually spreading and expanding over the whole surface and lifting their anthers far and wide. April 15, 1852
Mouse-ear. April 15, 1853
This cold, moist, snowy day it is easier to see the birds and get near them. They are driven to the first bare ground that shows itself in the road, and the weather, etc., makes them more indifferent to your approach. The yellow redpoll hops along the limbs within four or five feet of me. The tree sparrows look much stouter and more chubby than usual, their feathers being puffed up and darker also, perhaps with wet. Also the robins and bluebirds are puffed up.
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| The Purple Finch |
Another still, moist, overcast day, without sun, but all day a crescent of light, as if breaking away in the north. The waters smooth and full of reflections. A still cloudy day like this is perhaps the best to be on the water. To the clouds, perhaps, we owe both the stillness and the reflections, for the light is in great measure reflected from the water. Robins sing now at 10 A. M. as in the morning, and the phoebe; and pigeon woodpecker’s cackle is heard, and many martins
(with white-bellied swallows) are skimming and twittering above the water, perhaps catching the small fuzzy gnats with which the air is filled. The sound of church bells, at various distances, in Concord and the neighboring towns, sounds very sweet to us on the water this still day. It is the song of the villages heard with the song of the birds . . . We hear the pleasing note of the pine warbler, bringing back warmer weather . . . Notwithstanding the smoothness of the water, we can not easily see black ducks against the reflection of the woods, but hear them rise at a distance before we see them. The birds are still in the middle of the day, but begin to sing again by 4.30 P. M., probably because of the clouds. See and hear a kingfisher—do they not come with the smooth waters of April? — hurrying over the meadow as if on urgent business. That general tut tut tut tut, or snoring, of frogs on the shallow meadow heard first slightly the 5th. There is a very faint er er er now and then mixed with it. April 15, 1855
It is warmer and quite still; somewhat cloudy in the east. The water quite smooth, — April smooth waters . . . The purple finch is singing on the elms about the house, together with the robins, whose strain its resembles, ending with a loud, shrill, ringing chili chilt chilt chilt. I push across the meadow and ascend the hill. The white-bellied swallows are circling about and twittering above the apple trees and walnuts on the hillside. April 15, 1856
From amid the willows and alders along the wall there, I hear a bird sing, a-chitter chitter chitter chitter chitter chitter, che che che che, with increasing intensity and rapidity, and the yellow redpoll hops in sight. April 15, 1856
What I think the Alnus serrulata (?) will shed pollen to-day on the edge of Catbird Meadow. Is that one at Brister’s Spring and at Depot Brook crossing? Also grows on the west edge of Trillium Wood. April 15, 1856
I go to find hylodes spawn. I hear some now peeping at mid-afternoon in Potter's meadow, just north of his swamp. It is hard to tell how far off they are. At a distance they often appear to be nearer than they are; when I get nearer I think them further off than they are; and not till I get their parallax with my eyes by going to one side do I discover their locality. April 15, 1858
See a pair of woodpeckers on a rail and on the ground a-courting . . . uttering sometimes a faint or short a-week. April 15, 1858
I see and hear white-bellied swallows as they are zigzagging through the air with their loud and lively note . . . The bay-wing now sings — the first I have been able to hear — both about the Texas house and the fields this side of Hayden's, both of them similar dry and open pastures. I heard it just before noon, when the sun began to come out, and at 3 p. m., singing loud and clear and incessantly. It sings with a pleasing deliberation, contrasting with the spring vivacity of the song sparrow, whose song many would confound it with. It comes to revive with its song the dry up lands and pastures and grass-fields about the skirts of villages. Only think how finely our life is furnished in all its details, — sweet wild birds provided to fill its interstices with song! It is provided that while we are employed in our corporeal, or intellectual, or other, exercises we shall be lulled and amused or cheered by the singing of birds. When the laborer rests on his spade to-day, the sun having just come out, he is not left wholly to the mercy of his thoughts, nature is not a mere void to him, but he can hardly fail to hear the pleasing and encouraging notes of some newly arrived bird. The strain of the grass finch is very likely to fall on his ear and convince him, whether he is conscious of it or not, that the world is beautiful and life a fair enterprise to engage in. It will make him calm and contented. If you yield for a moment to the impressions of sense, you hear some bird giving expression to its happiness in a pleasant strain. We are provided with singing birds and with ears to hear them. What an institution that! April 15, 1859
The warm pine woods are all alive this afternoon with the jingle of the pine warbler, the for the most part invisible minstrel. . . . This warbler impresses me as if it were calling the trees to life. I think of springing twigs. Its jingle rings through the wood at short intervals, as if, like an electric shock, it imparted a fresh spring life to them. You hear the same bird, now here now there, as it incessantly flits about, commonly invisible and uttering its simple jingle on very different keys, and from time to time a companion is heard farther or nearer. This is a peculiarly summer-like sound. Go to a warm pine wood-side on a pleasant day at this season after storm, and hear it ring with the jingle of the pine warbler. April 15, 1859.
Strong northwest wind and cold. Thin ice this forenoon along meadow-side, and lasts all day. At Conantum pitch pines hear the first pine warbler . . . Ripples spread fan-like over Fair Haven Pond, from Lee's Cliff, as over Ripple Lake . . . Mouse-ear. Turritis about out; say 16th. Some little ferns already fairly unfolded , four or five inches long, there close under the base of the rocks, apparently Woodsia Ilvensis? See and hear the seringo, — rather tame compared with song sparrow. Probably see bay-wing (surely the 16th ) about walls. . . . At this season of the year, we are continually expecting warmer weather than we have. April 15, 1860
*****
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Ring of Toads.
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The first frogs to begin calling
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Leopard Frog
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Mouse-ear
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Earliest Flower
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Aspens
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Alders
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Elms and the Purple Finch.
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Bay-Wing Sparrow
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Robins in Spring
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Pigeon Woodpecker (flicker)
TA Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Yellow Redpoll ( Palm) Warbler
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Pine Warbler
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The White-bellied Swallow
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the American Black Duck
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The world can never be more beautiful than now.
April 15, 2012
If you make the least correct
observation of nature this year,
you will have occasion to repeat it
with illustrations the next--
and the season
and life itself is prolonged.
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, April 15
"A book, each page written in its own season,
out-of-doors, in its own locality.”
~edited, assembled and rewritten by zphx © 2009-2022
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