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
April 8, 2017
April 8, 2022
To-day I hear the croak of frogs in small pond-holes in the woods, and see dimples on the surface, which I suppose that they make, for when I approach they are silent and the dimples are no longer seen. They are very shy. I notice the alder, the A. serrulata, in blossom, its reddish-brown catkins now lengthened and loose. I see a light, of fishermen, I suppose, spearing to night on the river, though half the ground is covered with snow. April 8, 1852
Alder in blossom
with its reddish-brown catkins
now lengthened and loose.
The ground sprinkled, salted, with little snowlike pellets one tenth of an inch in diameter, from half an inch to one inch apart, sometimes cohering starwise together. As if it had spit so much snow only. I think it one form of frost merely, or frozen dew. Noticed the like a week or two ago. It was gone in half an hour, when I came back. What is the peculiar state of the atmosphere that determines these things? The spearer's light last night shone into my chamber on the wall and awakened me. Saw and heard my small pine warbler shaking out his trills, or jingle, even like money coming to its bearings. They appear much the smaller from perching high in the tops of white pines and flitting from tree to tree at that height. Is not my night-warbler the white-eyed vireo? — not yet here. Heard the field sparrow again. The male Populus grandidentata appears to open very gradually, beginning sooner than I supposed. It shows some of its red anthers long before it opens. There is a female on the left, on Warren's Path at Deep Cut. Is not the pollen of the P. tremuliformis like rye meal? Are not female flowers of more sober and modest colors, as the willows for instance? The hylas have fairly begun now. April 8, 1853
Methinks I do not see such great and lively flocks of hyemalis and tree sparrows in the morning since the warm days, the 4th, 5th, and 6th. Perchance after the warmer days, which bring out the frogs and butterflies, the alders and maples, the greater part of them leave for the north and give place to newcomers. Am surprised to find two crowfoot blossoms withered. They undoubtedly opened the 5th or 6th; say the last. They must be earlier here than at the Cliffs, where I have observed them the last two years. They are a little earlier than the saxifrage around them here, of which last I find one specimen at last, in a favorable angle of the rock, just opening. I have not allowed enough for the difference of localities. The columbine shows the most spring growth of any plant. Saw a large bird sail along over the edge of Wheeler's cranberry meadow just below Fair Haven, which I at first thought a gull, but with my glass found it was a hawk and had a perfectly white head and tail and broad or blackish wings. It sailed and circled along over the low cliff, and the crows dived at it in the field of my glass, and I saw it well, both above and beneath, as it turned, and then it passed off to hover over the Cliffs at a greater height. It was undoubtedly a white-headed eagle. It was to the eye but a large hawk. April 8, 1854
Saxifrage at last
opening – a favorable
angle of rock.
Shedding when shaken
a single catkin of the
Alnus incana.
Another very pleasant and warm day. The white bellied swallows have paid us twittering visits the last three mornings. You must rush out quickly to see them, for they are at once gone again. Warm enough to do without greatcoat to-day and yesterday, though I carry it and put it on when I leave the boat . . . There, in that slow, muddy brook near the head of Well Meadow, within a few rods of its source, where it winds amid the alders, which shelter the plants somewhat, while they are open enough now to admit the sun, I find two cowslips in full bloom, shedding pollen; and they may have opened two or three days ago; . . . What an arctic voyage was this in which I find cowslips, the pond and river still frozen over for the most part as far down as Cardinal Shore! See two marsh hawks this afternoon, circling low over the meadows along the water’s edge. This shows that frogs must be out . . . Was obliged to come down as far as Nut Meadow (being on the west side), before I could clear the ice, and, setting my sail, tack across the meadow for home. the wind northwesterly. The river is still higher than yesterday . . .About 8.30 P. M. hear geese passing quite low over the river . . .River had risen so since yesterday I could not get under the bridge, but was obliged to find a round stick and roll my boat over the road. April 8, 1856
Two marsh hawks circle
low along the water’s edge –
the frogs must be out.
Could I have heard Fringilla socialis along the street this morning? Or may it have been the hyemalis? April 8, 1858
I see on the west side of the railroad causeway a peculiar early willow, now just beginning to bloom with the common Salix discolor there . . . The catkins (sterile) are peculiarly long and tapering, and grayish or mouse-color, beginning to open low on one side, while the points have comparatively little down on them. I find no description of it. Perhaps rather more than one inch long. The most decidedly opening first on one side near the base of any. Call it the gray bodkin-pointed . . . These windy days the sparrows resort to the pines and peach trees on the east side of our house for shelter, and there they sing all together, — tree sparrows, fox-colored sparrows, and song sparrows. The F. hyemalis with them do not sing so much of late. The first two are most commonly heard together, the fine canary like twitter of the tree sparrow appearing to ripen or swell from time to time into the clear, rich whistle of the fox-colored sparrow, so that most refer both notes to one bird . . . Cold as it is, and has been for several weeks, in all exposed places, I find it unexpectedly warm in perfectly sheltered places where the sun shines. And so it always is in April. The cold wind from the northwest seems distinct and separable from the air here warmed by the sun, and when I sit in some warm and sheltered hollow in the woods, I feel the cold currents drop into it from time to time, just as they are seen to ripple a small lake in such a situation from time to time . . . The Alnus serrulata is evidently in its prime considerably later than the incana, for those of the former which I notice to-day have scarcely begun, while the latter chance to be done. The fertile flowers are an interesting bright crimson in the sun . . . See the first bay-wing hopping and flitting along the railroad bank, but hear no note as yet. April 8, 1859
And so it always is in April
Cold as it is and
has been for several weeks
in exposed places
I find it unexpectedly warm
in perfectly sheltered places
where the sun shines.
.
Cold northwest wind here
separates—distinct from air
warmed by the April sun
and when I sit in
some warm and sheltered hollow
cold currents drop in
just as they are seen
to ripple a small lake
from time to time.
The pitch pines have been much gnawed or barked this snowy winter. The marks on them show the fine teeth of the mouse, and they are also nicked as with a sharp knife. At the base of each, also, is a quantity of the mice droppings. It is probably the white-footed mouse. April 8, 1861
April 8, 2022
*****
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Ice Out
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, A Sunny Nook in Spring
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Alder (Alnus)
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Aspens (Populus)
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Big-toothed Aspen
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Willows on the Causeway
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Pitch Pine.
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Earliest Flower
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, White maple buds and flowers
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Signs of Spring: the Cowslip
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Crowfoot (Ranunculus fascicularis)
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Saxifrage in Spring (Saxifraga vernalis)
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Buff-edged Butterfly
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Small Red Butterfly
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The first frogs to begin calling
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Wood Frog (Rana sylvatica)
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Dark-eyed Junco (F. hyemalis)
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Bay-Wing Sparrow
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Chipping Sparrow (Fringilla socialis )
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Song Sparrow (Fringilla melodia)
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Field Sparrow
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Fox-colored Sparrow
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 Robin in Spring
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Pigeon Woodpecker
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Signs of Spring, Geese Overhead
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau,The Marsh Hawk
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The White-headed Eagle
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Wild Mouse
April 8, 2023
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, April 8
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 © 2009-2022
tinyurl.com/HDT08April
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