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.
April 7, 2020
Notice a white maple with almost all the staminate flowers above or on the top, most of the stamens now withered, before the red maple has blossomed. Another maple, all or nearly all female. The staminiferous flowers look light yellowish, the female dark crimson. These white maples flower branches droop quite low, striking the head of the rower, and curve gracefully upward at the ends . . . River has risen from last rains, and we cross the Great Meadows, scaring up many ducks at a great distance, some partly white, some apparently black, some brownish (?). It is Fast-Day, and many gunners are about the shore, which makes them shy. I never cross the meadow at this season without seeing ducks.That is probably a marsh hawk, flying low over the water and then skirting the meadow’s copsy edge, when abreast, from its apparently triangular wings, reminding me of a smaller gull. Saw more afterward. A hawk above Ball’s Hill which, though with a distinct white rump, I think was not the harrier but sharp-shinned, from its broadish, mothlike form, light and slightly spotted beneath, with head bent downward, watching for prey . . . Hawks much about water at this season . . . Several painted tortoises; no doubt have been out a long time . . .Many spotted tortoises are basking amid the dry leaves in the sun, along the side of a still, warm ditch cut through the swamp. They make a great rustling a rod ahead, as they make haste through the leaves to tumble into the water. April 7, 1853
White maple stamens
now withered before the red
maple has blossomed.
The hazel stigmas are well out and the catkins loose, but no pollen shed yet. On the Cliff I find, after long and careful search, one sedge above the rocks, low amid the withered blades of last year, out, its little yellow beard amid the dry blades and few green ones, — the first herbaceous flowering I have detected. Fair Haven is completely open. April 7, 1854
The hazel stigmas
are well out and catkins loose
but no pollen shed.
In my walk in the afternoon of to-day, I see from Conantum, say fifty rods distant, two sheldrakes, male and probably female, sailing on A. Wheeler’s cranberry meadow. I see only the white of the male at first, but my glass reveals the female. The male is easily seen a great distance on the water, being a large white mark. But they will let you come only within some sixty rods ordinarily. I observe that they are uneasy at sight of me and begin to sail away in different directions. I plainly see the vermilion bill of the male and his orange legs when he flies (but he appears all white above), and the reddish brown or sorrel of the neck of the female, and, when she lifts herself in the water, as it were preparatory to flight, her white breast and belly. She has a grayish look on the sides. Soon they approach each other again and seem to be conferring, and then they rise and go off, at first low, down-stream, soon up-stream a hundred feet over the pond, the female leading, the male following close behind, the black at the end of his curved wings very conspicuous. I suspect that about all the conspicuous white ducks I see are goosanders. April 7, 1855
Sheldrakes sail away
in different directions
uneasy of me.
Launched my boat, through three rods of ice on the riverside, half of which froze last night. The meadow is skimmed over, but by mid forenoon it is melted. P. M. — Up river in boat. The first boats I have seen are out to-day, after muskrats, etc. Saw one this morning breaking its way far through the meadow, in the ice that had formed in the night. How independent they look who have come forth for a day’s excursion! . . .We were but just able to get under the stone arches by lying flat and pressing our boat down, after breaking up a large cake of ice which had lodged against the upper side. Before we get to Clamshell, see Melvin ahead scare up two black ducks, which make a wide circuit to avoid both him and us. Sheldrakes pass also, with their heavy bodies. . . . At the Hubbard Bridge, we hear the incessant note of the phoebe,— pevet, pe-e-vet, pevee’, —its innocent, somewhat impatient call. Surprised to find the river not broken up just above this bridge and as far as we can see, probably through Fair Haven Pond. Probably in some places you can cross the river still on the ice. Yet we make our way with some difficulty, through a very narrow channel over the meadow and drawing our boat over the ice on the river, as far as foot of Fair Haven . . . By rocking our boat and using our paddles, we can make our way through the softened ice, six inches or more in thickness. The tops of young white birches now have a red-pink color. Leave boat there. See a yellow-spotted tortoise in a ditch; and a bay wing sparrow. It has no dark splash on throat and has a light or gray head . . . The female flowers of the hazel are just beginning to peep out. April 7, 1856
Went to walk in the woods. When I had got half a mile or more away in the woods alone, and was sitting on a rock, was surprised to be joined by R.’s large Newfoundland dog Ranger, who had smelled me out and so tracked me. Would that I could add his woodcraft to my own! He would trot along before me as far as the winding wood-path allowed me to see him, and then, with the shortest possible glance over his shoulder, ascertain if I was following. At a fork in the road he would pause, look back at me, and deliberate which course I would take. April 7, 1857
At a fork the dog
looks back and deliberates
which course I will take.
Snipes rise two or three times as I go over the meadow . . . You hear no stertorous sounds of the Rana halecina this cold and blustering day, unless a few when you go close to their breeding places and listen attentively . . . On the Great Meadows, I stand close by two coupled. The male is very much the smallest, an inch, at least, the shortest, and much brighter-colored. The line, or “halo” (?), or margin about its blotches is a distinct yellow or greenish yellow. The female has a distended paunch full of spawn . . . Putting some of the Rana halecina spawn in a tumbler of water, I cannot see the gelatinous part, but only the dark or white cores, which are kept asunder by it at regular intervals. April 7 1858
I cross the meadows
and step across the Mill Brook
near Mrs. Ripley's.
Standing under the north side of the hill, I hear the rather innocent phe phe, phe phe, phe phe, phe' of a fish hawk (for it is not a scream, but a rather soft and innocent note), and, looking up, see one come sailing from over the hill . . . As I look through my glass, he is perched on a large dead limb and is evidently standing on a fish (I had noticed something in his talons as he flew) Soon he sails away again, carrying his fish, as before, horizontally beneath his body, circles over and he about the adjacent pasture like a hawk hunting, though he can only be looking for a suitable place to eat his fish or waiting for us to be gone . . . It seems, then, that the fish hawk which you see soaring and sailing so leisurely about over the land — for this one soared quite high into the sky at one time — may have a fish in his talons all the while and only be waiting till you are gone for an opportunity to eat it on his accustomed perch . . . A small hawk flies swiftly past on the side of the hill, swift and low, apparently the same as that of April 3d,[sharp-shinned] a deep rusty brown . . . I hear there the hovering note of a snipe at 4.30 p.m., — unusually early in the day. April 7, 1859
Osprey sails away
carrying his fish, waiting
for us to be gone.
This is the Rana halecina day, — awakening of the meadows, — though not very warm. The thermometer in Boston to - day is said to be 49. Probably, then, when it is about 50 at this season, the river being low, they are to be heard in calm places . . . As we were ascending the hill in the road beyond College Meadow, we saw the dust, etc., in the middle of the road at the top of the hill taken up by a small whirlwind. Pretty soon it began to move northeasterly through the balm-of-Gilead grove, taking up a large body of withered leaves beneath it, which were whirled about with a great rustling and carried forward with it into the meadow, frightening some hens there. And so they went on, gradually, or rather one after another, settling to the ground, and looking at last almost exactly like a flock of small birds dashing about in sport, till they were out of sight forty or fifty rods off. These leaves were chiefly only a rod above the ground (I noticed some taken up last spring very high into the air), and the diameter of the whirl may have been a rod, more or less. April 7, 1860
Withered leaves rustling
about in a small whirlwind
frightening some hens.
White maple not out
but tufted sedge has started
under the water.
*****
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Ice-Out
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Boat in. Boat out.
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Earliest Flower.
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Hazel
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, White Maple Buds and Flowers
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Birches.
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Water-bug
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Yellow-Spotted Turtle (Emys guttata)
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Painted Turtle (Emys picta)
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Rana Halecina in Spring
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The first frogs to begin calling
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Eastern Phoebe
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Bay-Wing Sparrow
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Sheldrake (Merganser, Goosander)
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the American Black Duck
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Snipe
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Osprey (Fish Hawk)
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the sharp-shinned hawk.
*****
It is remarkable how suggestive the slightest drawing as a memento of things seen
. . . carry me back to that time and scene. It is as if I saw the same thing again,
and I may again attempt to describe it in words if I choose.
December 10, 1856
April 7, 2019
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
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, April 7
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 © 2009-2024
https://tinyurl.com/hdt-07april
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